Virtual series to highlight ecological Church teachings and practices this summer
Washington, DC – Catholic Climate Covenant announced registration is now open for the 2023 Laudato Si’and the U.S. Catholic Church national conference, to be held in June and July.
The biennial conference series is co-sponsored by Creighton University and Catholic Climate Covenant to equip and inspire Catholics to more deeply integrate Laudato Si’ and its creation care teachings into the U.S. Church.
“There has never been a greater need for our collective work to protect and make whole our world,” said Jose Aguto, executive director of Catholic Climate Covenant. “We could begin to lose hope until we face and embrace our climate crisis with faith and action, and that’s the purpose of our conference.”
“If we truly live out our faith and respond commensurately to the accelerated pace of climate change, the U.S. Catholic Church could be the needed shepherds of creation God originally intended us to be,” said Dan DiLeo, PhD, associate professor and director of Creighton’s Justice and Peace Studies program, who has helped lead the conference series.
This summer’s Catholic ecological convening, “Laudato Si’ and the U.S. Catholic Church: A Conference Series on Our Common Home” will be held virtually over a series of evenings starting on June 14th and concluding on July 27th.
The purpose of this year's conference will be to encourage a greater understanding of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform’s seven goals – Response to the Cry of the Poor, Ecological Economics, Adoption of Sustainable Lifestyle, Ecological Education, Ecological Spirituality, Community Resilience and Empowerment, and Response to the Cry of the Earth – and encourage Catholic individuals and groups to enroll in the Platform, providing them with a clearer path for accomplishing each of the goals through speaker presentations.
The 2023 convening opens on June 14 with a keynote address from Ms. Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) who brokered the Paris Agreement. The last goal session is scheduled for July 25th. View rest of schedule and confirmed speakers here. The conference will conclude with a closing celebration on July 27th to honor Laudato Si’ champions in the U.S.
Throughout each session in June and July, the evening will include virtual 90-minute session on the goals of the Vatican's Laudato Si' Action Platform. Each session will feature a scholar who describes the goal, U.S. faith-driven practitioners who outline their work to achieve the goal, and a moderated Q&A. The sessions will include Spanish-language interpretation.
The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Voluntary donations will be encouraged to help offset conference costs that include Spanish language translation, speakers, and conference staffing.
Catholic Climate Covenant is coordinating the Laudato Si' Action Platform in the U.S. Catholic Church through its God's Plan(et) initiative, and Creighton University is a Platform signatory.
The first "Laudato Si' and the U.S. Catholic Church" convening was held at Creighton in June 2019 and the presentations were published in the Journal of Moral Theology. The second was held virtually in June 2021 and the presentation recordings are available here.