Over the last month it’s been exciting to share with everybody a new ministry project, a free video series online that introduces Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si by providing theological and scriptural background, context, and explanation in language that is accessible.
The idea for the series arose over the summer of 2015 when I was traveling to a variety of cities around the United States to give lectures and lead retreats. Only a handful of those events were directly related to Laudato Si, but there was nonetheless an increasing interest expressed at each location for more information and easily accessible resources to aid understanding this new encyclical letter. People were fascinated with all the news coverage about the encyclical, but were having a difficult time situating the text and understanding its content (in truth, few are especially inclined to read the whole document). So after some conversation with people in North Carolina and Texas in August, this YouTube Channel was launched with the hope of meeting some of the need previously expressed.
Subsequently, additional videos have been added to the channel and more diverse content related to themes such as theology and spirituality is forthcoming. In the meantime, the primary focus is still on the series “Understanding Laudato Si,” the fifth episode of which was released today! You can find links for all the currently available videos below. At this time, we’re anticipating about 15 videos in total for this series, so there’s still more to come. Each episode of ULS is released on Tuesday, so be sure to subscribe to the YouTube Channel to get it directly as soon each new episode comes out!
Thanks for your support and enthusiasm, which has been tremendous so far! Please pass along your comments, suggestions, and questions. Feedback is very helpful — this whole endeavor was the result of the consistent feedback of people all around the country.
Understanding Laudato Si
Episode 01 — “Models of Creation”
Episode 02 — “Situating Laudato Si“
Episode 03 — “What is Happening to our Common Home?”
Episode 04 — “Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor”
Episode 05 — “Back to the ‘Beginning'”
Preview Trailer for “Understanding Laudato Si”
