On-Line Course on Integral Ecology 2025: 

2025 marks the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical letter on the Care for Our Common Home, in which he invited all people of good to “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet” (Laudato Si’, 14). However, as Pope Francis recognizes in Laudate Deum, the apostolic exhortation published on 4th October 2023, “our responses have not been adequate” and “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.” (Laudate Deum, 2).

 The recently concluded Climate Summit in Baku in Azerbaijan (COP29) has painfully demonstrated that we continue to remain largely deaf to the growing “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Laudato Si’, 49). Time is running out. However, we have yet to wake up to the gravity of the existential threat to life and civilization on this planet that we call “home”.

 The unprecedented challenge facing the planet and people can only be addressed through the lens of an integral ecological vision that Pope Francis championed in Laudato Si’. Rebuilding of our common home and our common human and biotic family calls for an alliance of all members of our household, cutting across of all segments of society. It was in the spirit of this prophetic mission that the Pontifical Universities and Atheneums in Rome came together soon after the publication of Laudato Si’ to initiate the Joint Diploma in Integral Ecology. On the eighth anniversary of this collective and fruitful effort, we are happy to announce the re-launch of the English edition of this initiative offered on-line.

 The Certificate Course in Integral Ecology is taught by a renowned faculty of academics, leaders and activists from around the world, representing some of the major institutions and groups involved in the area of creation care. The course consists of six modules of 90 minutes each to be held from January to June 2025 (on every third Thursday of the month from 14.00 to 15.30 hrs CEST/GMT+1), and an on-line international conference to mark the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’ in May.

 The Course will be officially inaugurated on 30th January and admissions remain open until 15th March. Participants will be enrolled at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome (the secretariat of the course) and will have access to on-line services such as the digital library, course materials, etc. The enrolment fees has been deliberately kept low: 30 euros only (with the possibility of scholarships for needy students), in order to facilitate wide participation, with a view to creating the mass movement of people from below for the care of our common home and one another, in the current era of planetary emergency.

 Upon completion of the course, participants will be awarded a certificate upon request, and can also become official Laudato Si’ Animators (thanks to the Laudato Si’ Movement).

 For enrolloment: https://immatricolazioni.unigre.it

Contacts : jdei.english@unigre.it

 Source: ANS