The Laudato Si? Committee aims at responding Calls of the General Chapter

The Laudato Si’ Committee of the Australia province has published a policy to help care for the environment, as a response to the Message of the XXII General Chapter.

To respond boldly to emerging needs, the fifth Call of the Message, invites Marists to “awaken in ourselves and those around us an ecological awareness that engages us in caring for our common home.”

The province’s Environmental sustainability – Laudato Si’ policy was drafted with the help of the Good Samaritan Sisters and the Franciscans – two congregations that have already taken steps regarding this issue.

The Chapter also affirmed that the Institute is aiming for a governance that “is responsive to emerging calls from children and young people on the peripheries and fosters the care of our common home.”

It suggests that the Institute’s mission includes “creating an integral ecological awareness in all our communities and different ministries and developing policies at all levels of the institute that strengthen our commitment to the care of our common home.”

In a letter to the brothers of the province dated July 31, superior provincial Brother Peter Carroll asked them “to read the policy and consider how you as individuals and communities can respond to its challenges.”

“Like all policies it is a ‘work-in-progress’ and will be adapted to changing needs and new understandings,” he added.
In his letter, Br Peter also recalled one of the two prayers written by Pope Francis in the Laudato Si’ encyclical titled ‘A prayer for our earth’ in which the pontiff asks “that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.”

To read the Environmental sustainability – Laudato Si’ policy, click here.