The San Diego diocese has launched significant projects across its parishes and schools in response to Pope Francis’s urgent challenge to protect the environment and care for creation.
The Diocese of San Diego Laudato Si’ Action Platform Year One Plan is largely drawn from our Creation Care Action Plan, which states:
It is our sacred duty to preserve the beauty and bounty of our local ecology for generations into the future. The Judeo-Christian tradition mandates care for God’s creation and begins with the Book of Genesis. The Old Testament is filled with beautiful images of nature and the revelation of God in nature. God’s love is the fundamental moving force in all created things. Jesus used nature as a teaching tool many times. St. Augustine, writing in the early 400s, said “Creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of God.” St. Bonaventure referred to nature as a vestige, or footprint, of God. Now Pope Francis, in the face of global environmental degradation, raises the care of creation to a central part of our Catholic faith, defining the Seven Goals of the Laudato Si Action Platform:
These seven goals guide our Laudato Si’ Action Platform Year One Plan.
In July 2021, the Diocese of San Diego finalized an aspirational Creation Care Action Plan (CCAP), guiding and educating our local Catholic Community on the causes and effects of environmental degradation and advising actionable steps to reduce harmful human behaviors in our homes, our parishes, our businesses, and our society–in response to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor and vulnerable. Cardinal Robert McElroy, Bishop of San Diego, welcomes us to this action, imploring us: “We as the Catholic community of San Diego and Imperial Counties must adopt a radical new commitment to such goals if we as a planet are to survive meaningfully and hand on a life-giving existence to the coming generations.”
This comprehensive source document offers aspirational guidance for all Laudato Si’ Action Planners in the Diocese of San Diego region.
sdcatholic.org
