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ACU commits to Laudato Si’-inspired seven-year plan

Australian Catholic University has committed to be part of a global implementation plan led by Pope Francis and inspired by Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. The Laudato Si’ Action Platform opens on Monday 4 October on the Feast of St Francis of Assisi with a period for prayer and pledges until 14 of November, World Day of the Poor.

ACU Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Zlatko Skrbis said: “Our commitment as a university is to create a seven-year Laudato Si’ plan that will be integrated through research, learning and teaching, and forms of engagement with respect to the seven Laudato Si’ Goals.”

Pope Francis announced the seven goals during the Laudato Si’ Special Anniversary Year of 2020 as a guide to actions with respect to all that is connected with our spirituality and our ecology.

The Laudato Si’ Goals are: Response to the cry of the earth; Response to the cry of the poor; Ecological economics; Adoption of sustainable lifestyles; Ecological education; Ecological spirituality; Community engagement and participatory action.

Pope Francis, with the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development, is inviting seven key sectors of the Catholic Church to take part in this historic ground-up approach, beginning with listening to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. The leader of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, Cardinal Peter Turkson, published a letter of support and encouragement for people to engage with the plan.

Anyone interested can register their commitment: families, parishes and diocese, schools and universities, health care facilities, businesses and farmers, religious men and women, agencies and movements of the church.

“This signals our intention to grow in our earthly mission as a Catholic university together with the diverse cultures and unique bioregions in Oceania, with the universal Church and all people of goodwill to face the complex crisis that is both social, ecological and ‘set out on the long path of renewal’, (Laudato Si’, 66)” Professor Skrbis said.

ACU is celebrating Sustainability Week from 4-8 October. The university is already making real progress toward the Laudato Si’ Goals, such as waste reduction, sustainable buildings and ecological theology education.

Media Contact: Jen Rosenberg, 0407 845 634, jen.rosenberg@acu.edu.au