The testimony below comes from Monsignor Eugène Cyrille Houndékon, Bishop of the Diocese of Abomey in Benin, and was delivered via recorded message on 20 November 2025 as part of the fourth annual celebration of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. You may watch his full video recording in French here.
Monsignor Houndékon has served the Church with remarkable dedication for decades. Appointed Bishop of Abomey by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, he holds dual doctorates in Canon Law and Civil Law from Rome. His ministry has included service as a professor at the Major Seminary of St. Gall in Ouidah, Secretary General and later Vice-President of the Episcopal Conference of Benin, President of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Cotonou, and founding pastor of several parishes. Since 2008, he has also led the Episcopal Commissions for Social Communications and for Economy and Finance.
His episcopal motto, Operemur bonum ad omnes — “Let us work for the good of all” — reflects his lifelong commitment to service, integrity, and the flourishing of every person and community.
We are deeply grateful for his witness and for this generous contribution to our global celebration.
Brothers and sisters in Christ and in our shared humanity, it is with great joy and gratitude that we gather for this special moment dedicated to promoting ecological transition and the “green church” within the Diocese of Abomey in Benin.
I give thanks to God, who inspired Pope Francis not only to awaken the conscience of all humanity through his encyclical letter Laudato Si´, published on May 24, 2015, but even more profoundly through the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum “praise God” published on October 4, 2023.
I can say that it was this apostolic exhortation that deeply moved and challenged me. The call it contained was so strong that, upon my return to the diocese after the ad limina visit of bishops of Benin to Rome in October 2023, I gathered our various collaborators to foster greater awareness.
We realized that we had not yet taken concrete action in response to the Pope’s first appeal through Laudato Si´. The visit of the Beninese bishop to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development was a huge blessing for me. Thus, together with my collaborators, we decided to dedicate the year 2023-2024 to raising awareness.
Last pastoral year, we made it a priority to establish, in every parish, a commission for ecological transition and the green family. This year, we have been gradually taking steps to address the global ecological challenge through cleanliness efforts like garbage recollection and sorting.
Our greatest challenge today is not only to collect waste but also to process and treat it properly. I therefore encourage all dioceses around the world to take to heart this apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum, so that we may move forward together, walking side by side in this mission.
In our diocese, we wanted to go even further. That is why, last September, we organized a trip to the Diocese of Brescia in Italy to visit a waste treatment facility operated by the company A2A S.p.a, which since 1998 has been a pioneer in waste transformation at every level. We were trained there so that we, too, might begin something similar together, truly contributing to the well-being of our planet.
Let me share a small testimony. Since we began this initiative, something beautiful happened in one of our parishes, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus parish in Zogbodomey. A woman named Ziti Levine was praying when she felt an inner call, the call of Mary, asking her to cover the grotto area with flowers.
We can therefore say that Mary herself has joined into the promotion of ecology, that she has joined in the preservation of the environment through care and protection of this beautiful world that God created, through the cultivations of flowers and through the protection of all that might otherwise be degraded.
So we have one more reason to glorify God in our lives, by truly caring for His creation. It is therefore a joy for us to take part in this webinar, so that hope may become a lived and fulfilled reality.
We have only just begun, and we can already see clear signs of progress. For example, in one of our parishes, Our Lady of the Wolf of Corvée, at any time of the day, you will not find a single piece of paper on the ground.
I encourage you to recall two words of Pope Francin from Laudate Deum. In paragraph 15, speaking about the climate crisis, he says: “The manifestations of this climate crisis have grave consequences, extending already over hundreds of years”. And in paragraph 16, he says: “We can only slow down this degradation so that the resulting damage is reduced”.
So let us walk together to safeguard creation. Let us walk together so that future generations may also enjoy the beauty of God´s creation, and that we may truly live lives fully assigned with His will.
Thank you.