Creighton co-sponsored a virtual conference on “Laudato Si’ and the U.S. Catholic Church” this summer with the Catholic Climate Covenant, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that attracted more than 2,500 attendees worldwide and featured Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, as the keynote speaker.
The biennial event, which focuses on Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on climate change, explored the reasons U.S. Catholics have been slow to address the climate crisis with necessary urgency and discussed ways to incorporate climate stewardship into several areas of Church life.
Cardinal Cupich spoke of resisting divisions in today’s contentious political climate to find common ground on the issues that matter most.
“Each of us must reject all attempts to divide us as a people,” Cupich said. “We have to understand, as the Holy Father reminds us, that we are faced with … one complex crisis, which is both social and environmental.”
The conference featured several breakout discussions led by teams of ministry leaders about how to more faithfully incorporate Laudato Si’ into eight areas of the U.S. Catholic Church: advocacy, colleges and universities, communications and media, creation care teams, environmental justice, preaching for creation care, parochial school education and youth and young adults.
