Latin America – Contributions to COP26 by Ecclesial Network Alliance
The Church in Latin America and the Caribbean, through the Ecclesial Network Alliance for Integral Ecology (ENA), will have an important participation in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2021 - COP26.
The Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) is actively participating in this network, and Monsignor Miguel Cabrejos, president of this collegiate body, assured that together with the ENA they will present to COP26 the document "Let us build a planetary community that cares for all life on earth".
With this document, the ecclesial organizations "set out their position and make an ethical call to those who will make decisions in Glasgow", therefore "we hope that the decisions taken in this great event can help to 'change course' and undertake a true transition towards a system of sustainable, fraternal and solidary human coexistence".
The ENA is also made up of the REPAM (Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network), the Congo Basin network (REBAC), the Asia-Oceania region (RAOEN - Red Eclesial del Río sobre el Océano), Mesoamerica (REMAM), the Gran Chaco and the territory of the Guarani Aquifer, as well as those of Europe (ELSiA and CIDSE) and North America (Canada and the United States), with the support of the Laudato Si' Research Institute (LSRI) and the Vatican's Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development.
A work in articulation
For his part, Mauricio Lopez, director of the Center for Networks and Pastoral Action of Celam, explained that the ENA "was born from a process of articulation of territorial networks assuming the mandate and commitment of the papal encyclical Laudato Si', for the care of the common home and in perspective of inter-institutional, inter-congregational articulation and territorial dimension beyond the countries themselves".
"This alliance has been created from already existing experiences, but which have arisen especially in the light of the experience of the Pan-Amazonian territoriality, and where the Special Synod for the Amazon itself, called for a perspective in the key of four dreams: social dream, ecological dream, cultural dream and ecclesial dream", he added.
For this reason," assures López, "we are working closely and in coordination with the Vatican, specifically with the Dicastery for the service and promotion of integral human development, and with the significant support of the Laudato Si' Research Institute at Oxford University, which is run by the Jesuits at Campion Hall.
Presenting concrete faces
About the document he said: "This position that we present to you is an effort to give faces, to give voices, to present the living testimonies of men and women in the territory, so that in addition to the scientific political positions, and in ecclesial spiritual key, they can reveal concrete stories".
"There are already many instances doing a great job, both from civil society and the Church, to make visible the situation of climate crisis that we are living, we think that our most important contribution is to present the stories, the concrete faces of the impact that these most vulnerable populations are receiving", he said.
For now "this network will continue to work in key articulation, adding to the process of the 'Synod on synodality' so that the voices of these peripheral territories are not left out in the conversion of our Church, but above all trying to contribute in this very important space of the COP-26".
Source: CPAL
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