Methods of further incorporating “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on care of creation, into the life of the church at the local and national level was a point of discussion for the US bishops.
During their fall general assembly 13 November, they included the suggestion of returning to the church’s long-time practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays.
Archbishop Borys Gudziak, chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop A Elias Zaidan, chair of the conference’s Committee on International Justice and Peace, spoke on the upcoming 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical, which is May 2025.
The bishops spent some time in table discussions 13 November talking about how their dioceses and the USCCB can mark the anniversary and “help Catholics care for our common home.”
“News is filled with wars, political polarisation and violence, threats to life and inequality just to name a few,” said Archbishop Gudziak, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.
“It can be tempting to let care for creation become less prominent. The response I believe is found in ‘Laudato Si” itself: ‘Everything is connected.'”
Archbishop Gudziak suggested that the document could be “integrated into our core mission of evangelisation.”