Message for the 4th Anniversary of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform Rome, 20 November 2025

This message was delivered by Fr. Patricio Sarlat during the 4th Annual Celebration of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform on 20 November 2025. To watch the full recording of the celebration, please click here.

Fr. Patricio is a diocesan priest from Yucatán, Mexico, and currently serves as the Officer of Research and Reflection in Integral Ecology for the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Throughout his ministry, he has carried significant responsibility in the Church’s social mission, including service as diocesan coordinator for social pastoral care, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Social Pastoral Ministry, national director of Mexican Caritas, and coordinator for Caritas CAMEX, supporting the Caribbean and Mexico.

He is also a founding leader of the Mesoamerican Ecological Ecclesial Network (REMAM) and has been an important voice in global climate advocacy through Caritas Internationalis at multiple UN climate conferences (COPs).

We are deeply grateful for his presence, his witness, and his leadership on behalf of the global Church.

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Dear brothers and sisters, good afternoon — or good morning, depending on the place from which you are joining us.

On behalf of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, it is a true joy for me to greet you and join this celebration of the fourth anniversary of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform.

Today, as we gather for this global webinar, yesterday morning’s catechesis by the Holy Father — Pope Leo — during the General Audience still resonates in our hearts. He strongly reminded us that ecological conversion is not a secondary option nor a spiritual accessory, but a path of faith that springs from the encounter with the Risen Christ and is expressed in a lifestyle marked by simplicity, gratitude, justice, and care. As he emphasized, it is a path that begins with small, everyday steps, yet profoundly transforms individuals, communities, and institutions.

For this reason, today we want to congratulate and encourage you. You, who have registered and chosen to embark on this journey as part of the Platform, are responding generously to this call. Each of you — families, parishes, dioceses, religious congregations, schools, universities, healthcare institutions, businesses, social movements, and entire communities — is taking a concrete step in the integral ecological conversion that the Church proposes with hope.

When the Laudato Si’ Action Platform was launched four years ago, it was done with a great dream: that the encyclical would not remain simply inspiring words, but become real, committed, verifiable, and transformative processes. You are the living part of that dream.

Today we give thanks for the thousands of projects, both small and large, sprouting in the most diverse corners of the planet. From community gardens to renewable energy programs; from formative and liturgical initiatives to climate-resilience projects; from pastoral efforts that teach love for creation to networks of solidarity with the most vulnerable — those who suffer disproportionately from the environmental crisis. All of this is Laudato Si’ brought to life!

But we also know that true conversion never ends. Pope Leo reminded us yesterday: to be converted is always to begin again. It is to hear once more the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor; to allow the Holy Spirit to touch the deepest part of our hearts so as to transform our gaze, our habits, our relationships, our structures.

This path is not walked alone: it is traveled in community, as the People of God, with the certainty that every small gesture counts and that the sum of many humble fidelities can change history.

Therefore, on this anniversary we want to invite you to renew your enthusiasm. The environmental and social challenges facing our common home are great, and at times may seem overwhelming. But Christian hope is not founded on our own strength; it rests on the certainty that God continues to act, continues to create, continues to sustain our mission. Each one of us is called to be an instrument of that hope in our own context.

And the Laudato Si’ Action Platform is precisely a place of encounter, mutual learning, accompaniment, and discernment — a space where we can help one another persevere on this path with creativity and courage.

Allow me to express special gratitude to those who coordinate, facilitate, organize, and accompany these processes at every level: to the Laudato Si’ Animators, to diocesan and parish teams, to the leaders of educational and healthcare institutions, to community leaders, and to the many volunteers who sustain this network with their time and dedication. Thank you for not growing weary, for believing that another world is possible, and that a more coherent, simpler, and closer Church can be a prophetic sign in the world.

Dear friends, the Gospel teaches us that all creation is groaning in expectation for the revealing of the children of God. Today, as we celebrate these four years, we recall that our response is not theoretical: it is an act of love. Love for God, who created us and entrusted His work to us; love for our brothers and sisters, especially the most fragile; and love for future generations, who deserve to inherit a habitable, beautiful, and fruitful earth.

May this celebration renew our conviction and our joy. Let us continue walking together, with our eyes fixed on the Lord, our feet on the ground, and our hearts ready to listen to His voice calling us to safeguard life in all its forms.

May Mary, Mother and Queen of Creation, accompany us and teach us to care tenderly for what the Father has given us.

On behalf of the Dicastery, thank you for your commitment, thank you for your witness, and happy fourth anniversary to all of you!