Laudato Si and Laudato Deum
Pope Francis in 2015, in his encyclical Laudato Si, Caring for Our Common Home asks, “What kind of world do we want our children and grandchildren to inherit?” This encyclical is a rallying call to us to do something about halting climate change, “to hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
8 years on, on October 4th 2023, the Pope shared with the world an update to this encyclical called Laudato Deum. ( more information can be found here
In August, 2019, as part of our Jubilee year, some of our children were asked the same question. They were asked what kind of world they would like to see in the next 50 years. Some of their answers align with the Pope’s message. For example, “I want to be able to watch my children grow up in a world where they can see nature as I have.” “I would like to live in a world where our environment was our main concern. We made sure to preserve it.” “I don’t want to see people on the streets starving and having to beg for food.”
In September, 2020, we asked our parish communities to pull together to be eco-friendly parishes that show they care for our Common Home- parishes that seek justice for the poorest and most vulnerable in our community and globally.
As this was during the Covid-19 lockdown, a Zoom Parish Chat group was started. A number of parishioners shared ideas about how we could ‘care for our common home’. They also discussed building ‘community inclusion’ in our Parish during the pandemic. Below, you see our ideas:
We also discussed ways to be more inclusive of the wider community in the Menzieshill area during the meetings. In May, we received very welcome news. We had been awarded a grant from Dundee Partnership to take our plans forward. Download the file below to read what we planned to do with the funding for “Building our Community”
As we felt we were progressing on our eco journey, we registered to become an Eco Congregation parish. We registered with Eco Congregation Scotland, an ecumenical Christian initiative. This initiative helps churches to improve their environmental impact. In September 2021, we were assessed. We gained a Silver Award as a result of the many and varied activities we undertook!
During October 2023, a questionnaire was shared with parishioners. It was available online to save paper as well as in paper copies. This was to help us understand how we are progressing on our Eco journey in Caring for our Common Home. We are delighted and encouraged with the responses which can be seen in the document I’ve attached below.
Among Laudato Si’s seven goals are response to the cry of the earth, community participation, ecological education and economics.
We pray that our efforts go some way to achieving these aims. We continue to strive to care for our community and our planet. We hope to gain the Gold Award!
We have challenged our parishioners to reflect on how they are caring for our common through these reflections
Here are our 2023 Newsletters:
In 2024, we went for GOLD and we achieved it! Bishop Andrew presented us with the Eco Congregation Gold award. This was another great team effort.