Recapping GCCM Canada Virtual Launch “#LiveLaudatoSi Canada” Learning Webinar, October 2, 2019

“Hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” Pope Francis, Laudato Si’

At Faith & the Common Good, we are thrilled to extend a Catholic-specific opportunity for creation care through a new partnership with the Global Catholic Climate Movement Canada (GCCM Canada). As Pope Francis teaches in Laudato Si’, unprecedented ecological devaluing, pollution, and waste are endangering the flourishing of future generations. Moreover, the cost is being disproportionately born by vulnerable communities around the world. Catholics have been called upon by our last three popes and the Canadian bishops to respond to these social and ecological, moral and spiritual crises. We must  care for our common home in order to heal our relationships with our human family, the rest of creation, and God. GCCM Canada offers support for paths of dialogue and action to activate such multidimensional healing.  

Our Canadian launch webinar was packed with insightful information about Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’ – On Care for Our Common Home.  Anne Catherine Kennedy, Program Officer at Development and Peace responsible for the Brazilian and Colombian programs, explained how the Amazon Synod evolved directly from the encyclical.  Synod discussions centered around concerns for the destruction of an important and biologically diverse biome coupled with apprehension for the well being of Indigenous and marginalized people who live there. These discussions, will become a model for how the Catholic Church engages in similar conversations about other biomes and cultures around the world.

Peter Kulchyski, “bush doctor”, author, and Head of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba, invited us to “lLook in our own back yard” and discover an equally important biome in our Boreal Forest, and similar eco-racism inflicted on Indigenous and marginalized populations in Canada.  Like the peoples of the Amazon, Indigenous peoples in Canada have for generations faced similar injustices regarding the use of their land, treatment of their culture and systemic violence.

We were reminded that to #LiveLaudatoSi we have ample work to do right here at home.

 Watch and listen to webinar