Laudato si’ Circle in Assisi: a gift serving the poor and creation

By Giada Aquilino

Vatican News

March 16, 2021

Since February 2019, in the places hallowed by St Francis, a small group of people formed by the Global Catholic Climate Movement was mobilized to create deeper relationships with the Creator and their neighbors in light of the Laudato si’ Encyclical. From this group, initiatives and collaboration have begun, including a commitment to the poorest carried out at the Casa Regina della Pace (Queen of Peace House) and ecumenical prayer services. We learn more from Antonio Caschetto who granted us an interview.

We can all collaborate as “God’s instruments” in caring for creation, everyone with their own “initiatives and capabilities”. Pope Francis’s words about the commitment to care for our common home in the Encyclical Laudato si’ is what motivates Antonio Caschetto, Program Coordinator for the Italian Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and leader of the Laudato si’ Circle in Assisi. Originally from Sicily, Antonio who is in his forties, is an architect, and now lives in Umbria with his wife and two children. He says paragraph 14 of the Pope’s document is “particularly dear” to him. It references the South African Bishops’ 1999 pastoral statement on the environmental crisis. He maintains that personal involvement and talent – that is, “the gifts that God has given to each of us” – are “needed” today to repair the harm we have caused to God’s creation.

Read the full article here.