Vatican launches Laudato Si 7-Year Plan

Roseate spoonbill in rookery at St. Augustine Alligator Farm. 

On May 25th the Vatican launched a new program for various institutions in the Church to begin a seven-year journey to total sustainability in the spirit of Laudato Si’, the 2015 encyclical of Pope Francis on Care for Our Common Home. The seven institutions involved are the following: families, dioceses, schools, universities, hospitals/health care centers, businesses/agricultural farms, and religious orders. There are also seven goals.

“We have the opportunity to prepare a better tomorrow for all, “ said Pope Francis. “From God’s hands we have received a garden, we cannot leave a desert to our children.”

Looking out at Motherhouse gardens in St. Augustine from north porches.

In the Diocese of St. Augustine, the Diocesan Committee on Integral Ecology recently issued “Care for Our Common Home: the Integral Ecology Plan for the Diocese of St. Augustine. The plan has three areas of focus: formation, commitment to reduction of consumption and waste, and advocacy. It has a three-fold scale: individual, family/group, and organization, along with six goals. One goal is to “commit to reducing single-use plastics, carbon emissions, and trash production in our daily lives.” Another goal is to “commit to lower consumption of fossil fuels and consumer goods.”

What can you or I do to reduce use of single-use plastics? What consumer goods can we sacrifice? How can we reduce the size of our carbon footprints? Are we willing to try to live a simpler lifestyle? Arriving at the possible answers to these questions might be the basis for goal #1 of the diocesan plan, which is to “Engage in meaningful discussions about care for creation.”

Baby egrets in rookery at St. Augustine Alligator Farm.