In this presentation, John Mundell, a coordinator of the Laudato Si' Action Platform, outlines the Vatican‑facilitated online initiative inspired by Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si'. He frames the platform as a global "moonshot" for ecological conversion, emphasizing the shift from isolated individual actions (tiny ripples) to coordinated collective effort (a tidal wave) to address the Earth’s ecological crisis and the plight of the poor. The platform unites diverse sectors—dioceses, parishes, families, schools, universities, religious congregations, businesses, and NGOs—providing resources such as guides, webinars, expert advice, and action ideas. Within two years, roughly 7,600 organizations and 4,000 institutions have joined, collectively reaching about 15 million people, though the goal remains to engage the 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide. Participants set flexible, sector‑specific goals (e.g., ecological education, sustainable lifestyles, community resilience) and undergo annual self‑assessment. Ongoing engagement tools include monthly global webinars with simultaneous translation, newsletters, social‑media outreach, a tree‑planting relay, and World Youth Day events. Mundell calls on youth to amplify the platform’s visibility by posting, writing, presenting, and otherwise contributing, stressing that sharing success stories cultivates hope. He concludes with a quote from Richard Rohr, urging that the platform help people "live themselves into new ways of thinking" for planetary betterment.
Chapters
So we've spent the beginning of our day here contemplating life. We're thinking about integral ecology. We'll shift a little bit now to kind of like the acting part, the nuts and bolts. I'm not really the president of the Redundancy Action Platform. I'm a director. I'm a coordinator. President sounds way too important. So what is the Laudato Si' Action Platform? We'll talk a little bit about this in the 10 minutes. It's an ecological conversion for people and planet. And you saw the picture earlier of the Earth, and I put this up here in the same way. This was, this was the result of a large program called the Apollo program that put Humans on the face of the moon. It took many people. It was thought to be impossible to reach the moon, but it happened through the work and sweat of many people. I put this on here because every generation has its own moonshot, its own impossible task. In my lifetime as a, as an environmental consultant, I was able to put my work into cleaning up pollution around the globe. We had many problems for decades and still do. But today and in the future, we have a different kind of moonshot, and it's going to require a different kind of action. So what is the Laudato Si' Action Platform? It's it involves many things. It was inspired by the Pope's encyclical Laudato Si', and it involves dialogue. It involves reflection, planning, action, and looking at impact. And it's it's a Vatican facilitated online initiative. It's aimed at inviting Catholics and everyone. On a journey of ecological conversion, a journey toward integral ecology. And there are participants belonging to various sectors that are supported by resources, by guides, by action ideas, webinars, and that connect as a global community. And its mission is to respond specifically to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. And the cry of future generations. That's you. What's the vision? The vision is, when we do things alone, when we take our own initiatives but we do our part, it's like a drop of a pebble in the pond. There's a little ripple there. And if many people do this but they do it separately, you may see lots of little independent ripples in a pond. What impact is that? But if we do things together, with the same vision, the same direction, we can create a wave. A wave that inundates us and inundates the world and begins to transform it. So the platform that we have been developing is about connecting people. To the common mission of action. It's weaving or helping to weave a community, a global community that really tries to make an impact. And it helps build bridges between different continents, different cultures in order for this to happen. The value of joining this effort, which I'm going to invite all of you young people today to do, Is that it makes us more credible when we live what we believe. We've been talking the talk for a number of years since Laudato Si' came out, but we haven't been as good at acting, at being visible signs of transformation. We also become more effective when we act together. Remember the tidal wave I just showed you? The little So we think and act globally while we actually act locally. And we emphasize this idea of acting now, today. What can you do today in a small way to contribute? So what's happened since a year— within the last 2 years we started this community. It involves a number of sectors, dioceses, parishes, Families, individuals, schools, universities, religious congregations, business entities, organizations. In this amount of time, we've signed up close to 7,600 total organizations to this online platform and community with about 4,000 institutions. And this impact is roughly 15 million people these organizations impact within 2 years. Oh, that sounds impressive, 15 million, except we have 1.3 billion Catholics we've got to engage, and that includes all of you. But it is a sign of hope. This is a little map of, of the people who have signed up to the platform. When you make these dots big enough, it looks like it covers the whole planet, right? But it's really not that impressive when you look locally. This, for example, this is South America, Brazil. We have people who've signed up to the platform, whether it's churches, individuals, dioceses, to act, to begin creating actions. And this is the network. What's exciting about this is that you can say, well, this is a lot of statistics and dots. But I've had the pleasure of getting to know many of these people around the world, and it's been inspiring. When you see what's happening already, even small actions make it makes me feel hopeful. It makes me feel like I want to join this effort and contribute that we can actually make a difference. So we this platform put. puts these— facilitates this interaction of these sectors, various sectors across the world. Here's one in Madrid, Spain. That's a good start, I think. So what is all the action about? It's about looking at trying to achieve specific goals, either as an individual, as a parish, as a diocese, as an organization. So you can have sector-specific goals, like if you're in a family, and we have many resources to help you do this. It's also flexible. You can set a goal for the, the year you're in, the present year. You can take one goal at a time, or you can take on the whole world. It's up to you how fast you go. There are also experts all over in the platform that can help you do different things, whether that's recycling or energy-related or water-related or waste. And we also then track how we're doing from year to year. At the end of the year, you do a self-assessment. How did I do? How am I— what am I going to try to do? These goals include a lot of different things, everything from ecological Education, which many of you young people are perhaps undergoing at this university especially. Ecological spirituality, a greater deepening, as we heard, of being mindful, of having, you know, sensitivity towards what it means to be ecological. Also to adopt sustainable lifestyles, or how we— How we consume. Deal with money, what we invest in, what we put our faith in, in an economic sense, and then also community resilience and empowerment. What policies are we working to put in place locally to make a change? Just a couple of examples of things we've been doing this year: webinars every every month, global webinars where we all work together. Like the tidal wave, and on the same thing. We've had more than 1,000 on these webinars every single month, and it's incredibly rich. You're there with the whole world, simultaneous translations, developing relationships. We also have monthly newsletters, social media posts, which we need help, by the way, from you young people. We also have various global events. We sponsored a A global relay race where we plant trees. And of course, World Youth Day activities. So these are a whole bunch of things you can get involved in, you young people. You know what you want to do. Do something you would like to do. Uh, post on social media within the Lendatsi platform. Write an article. Present to your fellow people at your universities or schools. There's so many things we would like to involve you with. And again, our view is that— what are we doing? We're trying to become visible to show what we are, what we believe we are actually doing. And we're trying to show this yearly progress to give what? Hope. To give hope. I often think of the platform as harvesting hope. We gather this information, we gather and share these stories and these success stories to what? To give hope to the rest of the world. Wouldn't that be an amazing thing for the Catholic Church to contribute? And so I'll leave you with this final thought. I like this quote from Richard Rohr. We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking. May the Laudato Si' Action Platform be one of those ways we live ourselves into new ways of thinking for the betterment of our planet. Thank you. Thank you, Mario.
