Webinar: Laudato Deum: Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation

Our next ACI webinar on Tuesday 10 October 2023 will focus on Pope Francis’ newly announced apostolic exhortation, Laudato Deum, which is due to be published on 4 October.

Special guest for our webinar will be Jacqui Remond, former director of Catholic Earthcare, currently a lecturer at Australian Catholic University and a member of the Vatican Ecology Taskforce.

Joining her will be Tony Smith, a former YCW leader from South Africa, now animating parish groups in northern Tasmania.

Also joining the panel will be Sherie Chant, a teacher at Kolbe College, Rockingham, WA, Irene Baik from the Parramatta YCS and other community leaders.

WEBINAR DETAILS

7.30pm, Tuesday 10 October 2023

ZOOM REGISTRATION LINK

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vdeqprj8tEtfRN-slNjD3nx7Ol7HQaweu

Young people are the change we need: Pope Francis

Young people embody the change that we all need, Pope Francis writes in the preface to an book by Gaël Giraud and Carlo Petrini entitled “The taste to change. The ecological transition as the path to happiness” (Slow Food Editore and Libreria Editrice Vaticana).

“The good that appears as beautiful carries with it the reason why it must be done. This is the first thought that arose for me after reading this beautiful dialogue between Carlo Petrini, whom I have known and esteemed for years, a gastronome and activist known all over the world, and Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit economist whose contributions I have recently appreciated in La Civiltà Cattolica, where he writes qualified articles on economics, finance and climate change,” Pope Francis wrote.

He continued:

What the two authors bring forward in this exchange is a sort of ‘critical narration’ with respect to the global situation: on the one hand, they elaborate a reasoned and compelling analysis of the economic-food model in which we are immersed, which, to borrow a writer’s famous definition, ‘knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’; on the other hand, they propose several constructive examples, established experiences, singular stories of care for the common good and the commons that open the reader to a look of goodness and trust on our time. Criticism of what is wrong, stories of positive situations: one with the other, not one without the other.

The authors, Petrini and Giraud, one a 70-year-old activist, the other a 50-year-old economics professor, find reasons for trust and hope in the new generations, he added.

Usually we adults complain about young people, indeed we repeat that the ‘past’ times were certainly better than this troubled present, and that those who come after us are squandering our achievements. Instead, we must admit with sincerity that it is the young people who embody the change we all objectively need. It is they who are asking us, in various parts of the world, to change. Change our lifestyle, so predatory towards the environment.

Change our relationship with the Earth’s resources, which are not infinite. Change our attitude towards them, the new generations, from whom we are stealing the future. And they are not only asking us, they are doing it: taking to the streets, demonstrating their dissent from an economic system that is unfair to the poor and an enemy of the environment, seeking new ways forward. And they are doing it starting from the everyday: making responsible choices about food, transport, consumption.

Young people are educating us on this! They are choosing to consume less and experience interpersonal relationships more; they are careful to buy objects produced following strict rules of environmental and social respect; they are imaginative in using collective or less polluting means of transport. For me, seeing that these behaviours are spreading to become common practice is cause for consolation and confidence. Petrini and Giraud often refer to youth movements that, in different parts of the world, advance the demands of climate justice and social justice: the two aspects must be kept together, always.

Pope Francis further notes that the fact that the two authors, one an agnostic and one a Jesuit, represent different points of view and cultural backgrounds adds to the book’s richness.

“This objective fact does not prevent them from carrying on an intense and constructive conversation that becomes the manifesto of a plausible future for our society and our planet itself, so threatened by the nefarious consequences of a destructive, colonialist and domineering approach to creation.

“A believer and an agnostic speak and meet, albeit from different positions, on different aspects that our society must take on board in order for the world’s tomorrow to be still possible: it seems to me something beautiful! ” the pope concluded.

SOURCE

Pope: Humanity must change our relationship with Earth’s limited resources (Vatican News)

Stubborn man does not “see” climate change: Pope

Returning to Rome following his trip to Colombia, Pope Francis warned that political leaders need to see climate change and its effects in making their decisions.

While we are flying, we are pass near Hurricane Irma which, after causing dozens of deaths in the Caribbean, is now heading towards Florida where there are millions of displaced people. Scientists think that ocean warming makes hurricanes more intense.

“Is there a moral responsibility of those political leaders who refuse to cooperate with other nations by denying that this climate change is man-made?” a journalist asked Pope Francis as his plane passed near Hurricane Irma, which caused dozens of deaths and massive devastation in the Caribbean over the weekend.

“Those who deny this must ask the scientists: they speak very clearly, they are precise,” Pope Francis answered. “The other day the news came out of a Russian ship that went from Norway to Japan and crossed the North Pole without finding ice. From a university, they have said that we only have three years ‘to step back,’, if not, the consequences will be terrible.

“I don’t know if the three years are true or not, but if we don’t step back, we will fall!

“We can see climate change in its effects, and we all have a moral responsibility when we make decisions.

“I think that is a very serious matter. We all have our moral responsibility and politicians have their own. Let them ask the scientists and then decide. History will judge on their decisions,” the pope warned.

Asked why governments are delaying this realization,Pope Francis recalled a biblical phrase.

“A phrase from the Old Testament comes to my mind: man is a stupid man, a stubborn man who does not see, the only animal that falls twice in the same hole. The arrogance and conceit… and then there is the “Mighty Dollar”. Many decisions depend on money.

“Today in Cartagena I started by visiting a poor area of the city. On the other hand, there is the tourist side, luxury, and a kind of luxury without moral measures. But do those who are there not notice this? Do socio-political analysts not realize this?

“When you don’t want to see you don’t see, you look only look at one side,” Pope Francis concluded.

FULL STORY

The Pope on climate change, humankind “is a stupid and stubborn man, that does not see” (Vatican Insider)