Caritas: Ecological conversion needed before it's too late

ICN/JS

Source: Caritas Internationalis

In a message for Laudato Si' Week which started on 16 May, the Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis, Aloysius John said an ecological conversion is needed before it's too late.

"The Covid-19 pandemic has given us clear indications about the vulnerability and fragility of our modern world," he said.

It's been five years since the publication of the Pope Francis' encyclical letter on the care for creation, which the Secretary General emphasizes is a document that demonstrates, "clearly, how we are all interconnected and how we cannot live in ignorance of others or in isolation."

He added: "We are all co-responsible for everything and it is our duty to protect the human person, the environment, nature and the society in which we live.... An ecological conversion is needed before it is too late."

"Let the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the encyclical be, therefore, a Kairos, an opportune moment of reflection and change to commit ourselves to building a new world in which each of us can hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, in order to build a just society and to safeguard the environment."

In conclusion, the Caritas Secretary General urged all communities and parishes to celebrate this encyclical, calling people to become protagonists in changing our world, and "converting our hearts and minds. The spirit of spontaneous solidarity that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic, he says, must continue" to exist also in relation to Creation from the perspective of an "individual and collective." responsibility."