We are celebrating Laudato Si’ week in communion with Pope Francis from 22 to 29 May. The Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of El Salvador received more than 40 pastoral workers from the different Franciscan presences in the region to begin the first of three JPIC workshops, focused on the Social Doctrine of the Church from the perspective of Franciscan spirituality.
On Sunday 22 May this year, during the Regina Coeli prayer, Pope Francis recalled the need to “listen ever more attentively to the cry of the Earth, which urges us to act together to care for our common home”. This cry of the Earth is the same cry of the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the face of the socio-environmental disasters, climate crisis and water crisis that the country is experiencing. The initiative of the JPIC Office, which is proposing this project for the provincial journey in Central America, responds to this need.
This is a historical response to one of the principles of the Provincial Project for Ongoing Formation. This formation aims to qualify pastoral workers to live, form and practice integral ecology as taught in Laudato Si’, enabling them to carry out sustainable projects in favour of the common home from their parish, community and pastoral organisations.
The first topics to work on were the history of JPIC in the Church and the principles that govern the spirituality of JPIC, including the Theology of Creation framed in the Encyclical Laudato Si’. Through various activities, prayer with creation, group work, plenary discussions and fraternal sharing, the pastoral workers are receiving the necessary training to share and promote it in their places of ecclesial and social service. The following workshops will be held on 16 and 17 July, where the physical version of the JPIC Resource Kit for lay teams will be available, and a final meeting scheduled for 10 and 11 September, where the first generation of JPIC teams will be sent out.
As JPIC Office, we friars ask for the intercession of the patron saint of those who work for ecology: St. Francis of Assisi, model of integral ecology par excellence, for this project.
