In August 2016, one year after the launch of the encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis created a new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. The main objective of this Dicastery is to collaborate with the Pope in the Church’s mission to “promote the integral development of human beings in the light of the Gospel. This development is carried out through care for the immeasurable goods of justice, peace and the protection of creation”. (Motu Proprio “Humanam Progressionem”, Pope Francis).
Since its inception on 1 January 2017, the Dicastery has deepened the Church’s social doctrine in dialogue with all local Churches (episcopates), international Catholic institutions, and civil society organizations inspired by the Gospel on issues related to justice, peace and the care of creation.
In practice, Laudato Si’ is the ecclesial document that also articulates the dialogue and the activities developed outside the “catholicity”, with international governmental bodies, such as the United Nations, governments and governmental and non-profit institutions from all over the world that find in Laudato Si’ an inspiring basis for dialogue.
It is in these common work spaces that the Holy See has pondered the inspirational force of Laudato Si’ in global society in the face of the urgent challenges facing humanity, such as climate change, the growing gap between rich and poor, and migration, among others.
In this way, the importance of generating – in addition to providing the motivating values for action that are in the encyclical – a renewal of the social, political and economic structures that continue to govern society has been noted. In other words, to give a global impulse to the intuitions and practices that have begun to unfold little by little in the Church and the world, around putting into practice effectively the values of Laudato Si’ that help to create “a more united, fraternal, peaceful and sustainable world”.
It is this need to give momentum and visibility to gradual and progressive transformative action that lies behind this Special Anniversary Year, five years after the launch of Laudato Si’. And it is being celebrated at a crucial time for all of us to start “thinking about the world that will come after COVID-19”, which will need a holistic approach, “since everything is intimately related, and the current problems require an approach that takes into account all the factors of the global crisis”..
It is the wish of the Holy See through its Dicastery that “during this year and the following decade” we prepare “to live together an experience of true Kairos that will translate into a time of “Jubilee” for the Earth, for humanity and for all God’s creatures.”
