English 
From 1 to 3 October 2025, on the outskirts of Rome, in the evocative setting of the Mariapolis Centre in Castel Gandolfo, the International Conference Raising Hope for Climate Justice was held, promoted by the Laudato Si Movement in collaboration with various ecclesial and civil society realities, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si.
Participation was by invitation; following it online was feasible, but still not enough for me. So I chose to be there as a volunteer: to be there to help, to give information, to accompany, to distribute, to organise, to set up, to load chairs and tables, but then, in the end, also to listen with others. An event that managed to hold together all facets of social life through the alternation of representatives of different faiths, political leaders, scientists, representatives of indigenous peoples and institutions from every corner of the world. Many were present, but even more so those connected via streaming. The spirit animating each intervention was to relaunch the global commitment to care for the ‘common home’; the aim, to trace concrete ways to respond to the climate crisis through social justice, spirituality and political commitment.
Borgo Laudato Si
The three days opened with the Celebration of Hope. Much more than an opening celebration: an interreligious and ecological liturgy featuring artists, singers, the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV, other international political leaders, and a 10,000-year-old ice block from Greenland, detached from the Greenland ice sheet due to global warming. This ice block, blessed by Pope Leo XIV, witnessed every moment of the Conference as it inexorably melted, becoming a symbol of the cry of the earth melting in our hands. The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are linked by a double thread, and so the tears of the earth, represented by the drops of melted ice, were mixed with the tears of the people, represented by the water from different areas of the earth already cruelly affected by climate change and brought by representatives of those lands.
The speeches recalled the urgency of responses in which the different religious denominations, the scientific world and the political world united in the common effort to look at and address the climate crisis seriously. The theme of climate justice was given ample space and, alongside the speakers who, with data in hand, demonstrated how the poorest and most vulnerable peoples are the first to suffer the effects of global warming, there was the living account of these same communities who, hit by extreme climatic events, testified how climate change is not theoretical and made up of studies and analyses, but experienced in daily life by millions of people and causes death, destruction, loss of cultures and territories.
Strong were the words of the Pope, who indicated a fundamental step that must be taken: ‘from collecting data to caring’. It is not enough to read numbers and do studies: it is urgent that we change our lifestyle, our connection with others, our responsibility towards future generations. The Pope insisted that “returning to the heart” is essential for true conversion, because the heart is the seat of freedom, discernment and authentic decisions. The Pope also emphasised that the most effective solutions come not only from individual actions, but from courageous decisions at the national and international political level, and concluded with a question: “When God asks us whether we have nurtured and cared for the world He has created and whether we have cared for our brothers and sisters, what will be our answer?”
The final message of the Conference was clear: Raising Hope was not just the title of the Conference, but a programme. Raising Hope, because hope is not a vague sentiment: it is responsibility that becomes action, it is a force capable of transforming fear into commitment and crisis into an opportunity for rebirth.
Sr. Laura Valtorta, General Direction
