The Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM), born in 2015, is the fruit of a kairos – the Greek word used in the Gospel to express “an opportune moment.” The kairos of 2015 was the combination of two transformative events that would shape how the Church and humanity responded to the ecological crisis: the Laudato Si’ encyclical release and the Paris Climate Agreement.

First, Pope Francis wrote and released the encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, the first-ever papal encyclical devoted to the crisis of our planetary home. Inspired by his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi and his deep communion with all Creation (best captured in the Canticle of the Creatures that inspired the encyclical’s title), the Pope issued a powerful appeal to the Church and “all people of good will” to urgently come together and respond to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”

Second, with the backdrop of increasingly starker warnings from the scientific community about the severity of the climate emergency, leaders from nearly 200 nations gathered at the U.N. Paris Climate Summit (COP21) to agree and sign the Paris Agreement. After 21 years of failed negotiations, nations of the world had a deadline to finally agree on a common plan that would tackle the climate crisis before it was too late.

Members of the founding Steering Committee had their first in-person gathering in Rome in May 2015, on the occasion of a pre-encyclical preparatory meeting with Vatican officials and Caritas leaders from different continents. The Rome trip included an inspiring encounter with Pope Francis, in which he encouraged the movement to prepare for the upcoming encyclical and shared that he supported the Catholic Climate Petition that GCCM had just launched.

As stated in the petition text, GCCM’s goal was to push governments to adopt the ambitious goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5°C, rather than the less ambitious goal of 2°C that the most polluting nations were backing. Energized by the Laudato Si’ release in June 2015, more than 900,000 Catholics signed GCCM’s petition. The effort was largely driven by the Church in the global south, especially in the Philippines, where Cardinal Tagle helped the petition receive widespread support.

The petition signatures were symbolically carried by Filipino “climate pilgrim” Yeb Saño, a member of GCCM’s founding board, from the Vatican to Paris in a prophetic two-month pilgrimage. Saño hand-delivered the signatures in deeply moving interfaith events with the high-level officials who hosted the COP21 summit: French President Francois Hollande and UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.

Eventually, after two weeks of frenetic negotiations and huge pressure from the climate movement, including from the memorable Global Climate March that saw 40,000 Catholics participate, the Vatican and many others, the negotiating block of the poorest nations successfully enshrined the 1.5°C goal in the Paris Agreement. The miracle had happened, “for nothing will be impossible for God.” (Luke 1:37) This 1.5°C victory, in which we Catholics had an important role, set an ambitious bar for all climate action to follow.

After the hectic ride of 2015 (see photos and timeline), the following year saw GCCM start what have become some of the cornerstones of its holistic approach: the Laudato Si’ Animators formation program, Season of Creation celebrations, prophetic initiatives, such as the fossil fuel divestment campaign, and creative projects that raise awareness about Laudato Si’, such as the providential screening of a Pope video to three million World Youth Day pilgrims at Krakow.

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