Laudato Si' Movement (formerly GCCM), born in 2015, is the fruit of a kairos – the Greek word used in the Gospel to express “an opportune moment.” The kairos of 2015 was the combination of two transformative events that would shape how the Church and humanity responded to the ecological crisis: the Laudato Si’ encyclical release and the Paris Climate Agreement. First, Pope Francis wrote and releas
ed the encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, the first-ever papal encyclical devoted to the crisis of our planetary home. Francis of Assisi and his deep communion with all Creation (best captured in the Canticle of the Creatures that inspired the encyclical’s title), the Pope issued a powerful appeal to the Church and “all people of good will” to urgently come together and respond to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”
Second, with the backdrop of increasingly starker warnings from the scientific community about the severity of the climate emergency, leaders from nearly 200 nations gathered at the U.N. Paris Climate Summit (COP21) to agree and sign the Paris Agreement. After 21 years of failed negotiations, nations of the world had a deadline to finally agree on a common plan that would tackle the climate crisis before it was too late.
