AMERICA/PERU - Young Peruvians, Bolivians and Ecuadorians question themselves on how to respond concretely to the encyclical "Laudato Sì"

Friday, 16 February 2018 environment   youth   pope francis  

Partnerschaft Juventud

Lima (Agenzia Fides) - The II National Meeting of Youth of the Partnerschaft was convened in response to Pope Francis’ appeal contained in the "Laudato Sì" and with the aim of "promoting the protagonism of young people in the care of the common home". About 150 young people from more than 50 parishes in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador will meet from 22nd to 25th February, at the "Don Bosco" house in Chosica, in the province of Lima, to develop environmental projects that will later be proposed to realize in their respective places of origin.
"Dialogue with the new national and local policies are necessary that promote projects in favor of creation and that have real continuity", said to Agenzia Fides father Carlos Rosell de Almeida, rector of the Catholic University of San José, recalling that Pope Francis, with his encyclical "Laudato Sì", calls for fruitful dialogue at all levels in order to overcome the ecological crisis. "An authentic ecology has necessarily to do with the moral reconstruction of man - continues the rector -, with a new style of life that overcomes obsessive consumerism and the self-referentiality in which man today is immersed".
Fr. Rosell, commenting to Fides the importance of this kind of space for dialogue and awareness of young people, underlined that "for Pope Francis it is essential to recognize the presence of God in creation and therefore we must not forget that the whole creation must be contemplated in a Christological key, because it is all part of the mystery of Christ. The Pope knows very well - he concludes - that the ecological crisis cannot be overcome only by a rigorous diagnosis of the current situation, but it is necessary to reach the root of the maltreatment that all creation suffers, and the problem is in modern anthropocentrism".
The meeting was organized by "Yanapachikun Immer" (youth association of the Partnerchaft), together with the Association for children and their environment "ANIA" and with young German volunteers from the Archdiocese of Friborg.
This brotherhood of mutual help between the German Bishops and those of the countries of Latin America was instituted at the behest of Pope John XXIII during the Second Vatican Council. The collaboration between the German Archdiocese of Friborg and the Church of Peru was established in 1986 with the intention of mutually sharing faith, life, reality and commitment for the poorest, and now also the care of the common home. (DB/LG) (Agenzia Fides, 16/02/2018)


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