In celebration of the SEASON OF CREATION, September 1 - October 4

“In the present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest of our brothers and sisters.” LS 178

Date: September 16, 2020, 1:30 (EDT)

Location: On-line webinar

Contact: Agnes Richard · [email protected]

In Indigenous understanding, Just Transition is a framework for a fair shift to an economy that is ecologically sustainable, equitable, and just. After centuries of global plunder, the profit-driven, growth-dependent, industrial economy is severely undermining the life support systems of Mother Earth. An economy based on extracting from a finite system faster than the capacity of the Earth to regenerate will eventually come to an end.

Andrew Conradi, Secular Order of Franciscans, a Laudato Si’ Animator and contributing editor to Franciscan Voice Canada, will delve into a recent Vatican document introducing the Laudato Si’ Special Anniversary Year. The urgency of the situation calls for immediate, holistic and unified responses at all levels - local, regional, national and international. We need, above all, “a peoples’ movement” from below, an alliance of all people of good will. As Pope Francis reminds us, “All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.” (LS, 14) This prompts dramatically increased activity across the Catholic Church. At the conclusion of the Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year the Vatican will launch a Laudato Si’ Action Platform that will ask families, dioceses, schools, universities, hospitals, businesses and religious orders to make a journey in the spirit of Laudato Si’.  Andrew will introduce us to the seven goals, used to measure progress towards integral ecology, that the Laudato Si’ Action Platform will ask us to work on together in coming years.

Mariángel Marco Teja belongs to the Congregation of the Ursulines of Jesus. From 2013 to 2019 she lived in Ecuador, and joined REPAM (Pan-Amazonic Ecclesial Network) by participating in their First School for the Promotion of Human Rights. She accompanied the case of Tundayme, a town in the Ecuadorian Amazon, affected by the implementation of an open pit mine. She also participated as a systematizer in the consultation process on the occasion of the Panamazon Synod.

Mariángel will share with us her experiences in advocating for the rights of the villagers of Tundayme. This rural Amazonian village in southern Ecuador is home to the Indigenous Shuar and half blood people, and the highest locally specific biodiversity in the world.  Canadian company Corrientes Resources Inc. has carried out a land appropriation policy in the area, characterized by cover-up, unfair valuation and unequal treatment (documented in the Report of the General Comptroller of the State of Ecuador in September 2013).

Mariángel is now in Canada supporting Development & Peace – Caritas Canada, and others in their parliamentary petition to #EmpowerANDEnact our Canadian Ombusperson for Responsible Enterprise.

Join us as we work together to create a JUST TRANSITION and truly transform our world!