FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Elena Gaona, 202-907-9717
elena@catholicclimatecovenant.org
Washington, D.C. – The Catholic Climate Covenant and Creighton University today announced registration has opened for the July 13-15, 2021 virtual LSUS conference: “Laudato Si’and the U.S. Catholic Church: A Conference Series on Our Common Home.”
The U.S. conference was announced as Catholics around the world celebrate Laudato Si’Week (May 16-23.)
“There is much work needed to reverse the damage we have done to our common home. This conference will be a significant step forward in sharing the good news about how we better protect our beautiful earth,” said Dan Misleh, Catholic Climate Covenant founding executive director. “This second of three conferences will continue to discover ways Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’, can be woven more deeply into the fabric of U.S. Catholic life. Working groups have already been leaning into this challenge and will present concrete ideas and projects at the virtual gathering in July. As we close out Laudato Si’ Week with our global partners, we look forward to how our continued work together and this U.S. conference will inform responses to the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Action Platform.”
The U.S. Laudato Si’ conference will open on July 13th with keynote addresses by His Eminence Blase Cardinal Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, and Maureen Day, PhD, Assistant Professor of Religion and Society at the Franciscan School of Theology. Together, they will assess why the U.S. Catholic response to Laudato Si’ has not been commensurate with the urgency and gravity of the climate crisis. See full conference schedule.
On July 14-15, the conference continues, featuring interactive breakout sessions in eight areas of the U.S. Catholic Church working to more faithfully incorporate Laudato Si’:
· Advocacy
· Colleges/Universities
· Communications/Media
· Creation Care Teams (especially at parishes and dioceses)
· Environmental Justice
· Homiletics
· Parochial School Education
· Youth & Young Adults
Each ministry leadership team will share the strategies, plans, and resources being developed with members of their working group. Presentations will be followed by discussion with conference participants.
The conference concludes July 15with a closing address by Sister Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University. Sister Delio will consider Catholic spiritual and theological insights that can enliven a more faithful commitment to care for our common home.
The conference is free to all attendees, but registration is required, and a donation is encouraged to offset costs that include Spanish language interpretation.
More about the LSUS Conference Series:
“Laudato Si’ and the U.S. Catholic Church: A Conference Series on Our Common Home” is a biennial conference series co-sponsored by the Covenant and Creighton University to convene, equip, and inspire Catholics who can more deeply integrate Laudato Si’ and its climate change teaching into the U.S. Church.
The first convening was held at Creighton in June 2019 and the presentations were published in the Journal of Moral Theology. The second gathering will be held virtually July 13-15, 2021. In partnership with Creighton, the 2021 conference expresses Catholic Climate Covenant’s leading role coordinating U.S. Catholic enactment of the Vatican’s “Laudato Si’ Action Platform.”
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About Catholic Climate Covenant:
Catholic Climate Covenant is a national nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that includes 20 U.S. Catholic partner institutions. It was formed under the auspices of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2006. The Covenant helps guide the U.S. Church’s response to the moral calling to act on care for Creation including climate change and caring for the poor by educating, giving public witness and offering concrete resources.
