In a brief video message addressed to the participants in the event, which will be held from September 1 to 4, the Pope said that ‘Laudato Sí’ is not only a ‘green’ encyclical, but also a social one.

I hope that this Congress will help to see all its breadth and consequences, stressed Francis, who last May 23 said that this document, written by him in 2015, ‘is a path to walk together, listening to the cry of the Earth and the poor’.

In a comment then, after concluding the Sunday prayer Queen of Heaven, the pope thanked those who participated in the activities carried out around the world during the year dedicated to that text, which concluded a day later.

The successor of Peter chose as the title of the second encyclical of his pontificate a phrase from the work ‘Canticle of the Creatures,’ a prayer in verse written by St. Francis of Assisi in the third decade of the 13th century.

In the volume, Francis addresses the theme of the protection of nature from the perspective of the interaction between the environmental and social crises, based on what he defined as ‘ comprehensive ecology’, in order to care for the ‘common home’.

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