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Laudato Si', or On Care for our Common Home, is a 2015 encyclical (a type of pastoral letter addressed to the whole Church) by Pope Francis in which he addresses environmental degradation and calls for "swift and unified global action" against the present ecological crisis.
Pope Francis followed up Laudato Si' with an apostolic exhortation (a papal "call to action") in October 2023 titled Laudate Deum (Praise God) calling, again, for swift action against the ecological crisis.
A YouTube Original documentary on the story of the Laudato Si' encyclical was released in October 2022. Produced in partnership with the Laudato Si' Movement, The Letter: A Message for our Earth is directed by Nicholas Brown and can be streamed on YouTube.
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The Laudato Si’ Action Platform is an initiative of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development based on the encyclical Laudato Si’. The goal of the platform is to equip the global Church to achieve real and lasting solutions to the current ecological crisis. Participants in the platform will develop tailored action plans to accomplish one purpose: "concrete actions to protect our common home".
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Numerous Catholic dioceses, institutions and organizations around the world have signed on to this platform and are at various stages of their action plan development and implementation. At this time, 52 Jesuit universities have committed this platform.
LMU's three sponsoring religious communities have made this platform a priority for all their ministries, including LMU. Visit their Web sites to see their community commitments and action plans:
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The purpose of this platform, and our commitment to it, is to change our individual and institutional habits that directly or indirectly contribute to the problem of exploitation of people and the natural world. Hopefully, by taking on this transformative process in cooperation with other Catholic universities, institutions, and dioceses across the globe, we could see a measurable change for the better in our lifetimes.
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Integral ecology is an approach to addressing the global ecological crisis by recognizing the connection between all of creation, environment and humanity, and that the various problems that effect both are deeply interconnected and interdependent.
The Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology offers this description of integral ecology as presented in Laudato Si’:
The term “integral ecology” is mentioned several times throughout the encyclical, and it is the title of the encyclical’s fourth chapter. Ecology is the study of relationships between the organisms and environmental conditions. Integral ecology brings together multiple perspectives on those relationships, including perspectives from sciences, economics, culture, religion, and the experiences of daily life. Its approach and lines of action are oriented around facilitating dialogue and transparent decision-making across multiple domains of society, from local to international. Integral ecology recognizes connections between environmental destruction and unjust social systems. Alluding to the Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, who wrote Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor (Orbis Books, 1997), the Pope says: “a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Laudato Si’ 49).
Similarly, the Laudato Si' Research Institute (Oxford) defines integral ecology as such:
Integral Ecology is a concept derived from observation of the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world. This interdependence touches every aspect of human life, from political and economic to cultural, social and theological. Values and decisions based on these different aspects therefore have direct consequences on how humans live with each other and share the planet’s resources.
And similarly defined by the AJCU Laudato Si' Commission:
Integral Ecology highlights the interconnectedness that exists among God, humanity and creation, and recognizes how political, economic, cultural, social, and religious values and decisions are interrelated and affect the way people live with one another on the planet and use its resources” (Catholic News Service). Although observational methods of studying ecosystems are well-known in science, integral ecology takes this a step further by adding ethical and spiritual aspects and attention to the common good (LSAP). Pope Francis offers: “Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (LS 139).