Five years on from Pope Francis’s Encyclical Laudato Si’, the Diocese of Leeds is proud to announce our first official local advocates, known as ‘Laudato Si’ Animators’: members of our Justice and Peace Commission’s Climate Crisis Action Group, including four parishioners from St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Parish in Shipley and one from a Leeds parish.
Completing their course during the annual Season of Creation, which runs from 1 September to the Feast of St Francis on 4 October, the online programme from which Shipley parishioner David Jackson and others will ‘graduate’ in October, is an initiative of the Global Catholic Climate Movement which is based in Rome with close links to the Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
Our parishioners joined more than 600 people of all ages and backgrounds from across the Universal Church via ‘Zoom’ meetings, hearing many speak movingly of how climate changes are already impoverishing swathes of poor communities around the world with loss of life, livelihoods and homelands.
Laudato Si’ Animator David Jackson said that he, like many others, is anxious that we do ‘all we can to act to reduce the damage we are inflicting on our common home, so that coming generations will not need to ask, “What did you do to prevent it?”’
For more information, prayers, resources and ideas regarding the Season of Creation, visit their website: https://seasonofcreation.org/ – and to join our local advocates for living sustainably and acting for climate justice, visit the Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission Website
Our next Diocesan Laudato Si’ Mini Pilgrimage through the Myddelton Grange estate in Ilkley to the Calvary is provisionally planned for Saturday 17 October – but as with all events at present, this will be subject to local restrictions and if it is able to go ahead numbers will be limited. To register your interest, please email communications@dioceseofleeds.org.uk
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