Integral Ecology, Georgetown Conference.

Between the 19^th and the 21^st of March the Internacional Conference “INTEGRAL ECOLOGY: a synodal response from the Amazon and other essential biomes / territories for the care of our common home” will take place, and it is looking forward to develop the approaches and essential axes of the category of INTEGRAL ECOLOGY in Laudato Si’.

It will also offer an opportunity to share about the process towards the Synod of the Amazon. Besides that, it will seek to encourage an innovative pastoral perspective that allows a territorial communion in the biomes that are essential for the planet and with this we will continue to  advance with the defense of our common home and with the project of the Kingdom of God in it.

The conference will join representations of most important biomes of our world: the Amazon, the Congo basin, the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, the tropical forests of the Asia Pacific region, with such an option we want to  find answers for the world as a whole, as humanity, so to respond to the urgency of our common home, and discuss the importance that it has  for the universal Church in Pope´s Francis  itinerary on LAUDATO SI and EVANGELII GAUDIUM for a Pastoral and Socioecological conversions.

The Pan Amazon region has been historically conceived as a space that must be occupied, controlled and integrated according to external interests; since at first it was considered a wasteland. The Pan Amazon region has a great socio-diversity, since it shelters 2,779,478 indigenous people, belonging to 390 groups-nationalities, 137 isolated or uncontacted groups; There are 240 spoken languages ​​belonging to 49 linguistic families. In view of this, the creation of the Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network REPAM has been promoted as an initiative that springs from the action of the Holy Spirit that has guided and guides the Church in the process of embodying the call to care for the common home and towards a socio-environmental conversion (Laudato Si -LS-) and also to a socio-pastoral conversion (Evangelii Gaudium -EG-).  In this context  the Pan-Amazon is building bridges to  collaborate with other biomes / territories essential for the planetary future. and other regions that have followed the path of the REPAM, such as the Ecclesial Network of the Congo Basin –REBAC. At the same time, processes of socio-pastoral and socio-environmental articulation are being promoted in the regions of Asia Pacific, Mesoamerica.

In this context, Pope Francis has summoned on October 15, 2017, the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to reflect on the theme “Amazon: New paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology”, which will be carried out in its closing phase in October 2019.

The International Conference that we now present to you, therefore, is part of the diverse actions and international advocacy that REPAM has been developing in communion with Laudato Si’, in coordination with Vatican offices, ecclesial networks, social and territorial organizations of indigenous peoples and Amazonian communities, academic institutions, international organizations and specialized institutions. The event “INTEGRAL ECOLOGY: a Synodal response from the Amazon and other essential biomes / territories for the care of our common home” will work from the methodology of SEE-JUDGE-ACT, will be developed from the approaches and essential axes of the category INTEGRAL ECOLOGY in Laudato Si’, it will also offer a dialogue with the process towards the Synod of the Amazon, and will seek to encourage an innovative pastoral perspective that allows the options for territorial communion around essential biomes for the planet to continue advancing for the defense of our common home and for the project of the Kingdom of God in it.

This event, under the coordination of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network -REPAM-, wishes to express special thanks to Georgetown University and to the Conference of Jesuit Provincials of the United States and Canada, and to our REPAM network of collaborators from various congregations and institutions in Washington and New York, as co-sponsors and co-hosts for this event. Likewise, we deeply appreciate the constant support of Vatican offices such as the Dicastery for the promotion of Integral Human Development, Caritas Internationalis, the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and the OAS, the participation of the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, and others.

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Source: REPAM