Laudato Si' Research Institute Launched

The new Laudato Si’ Research Institute (LSRI) housed at Campion Hall intends to provide a research platform for projects relevant to the profound agenda set out in Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, released in June 2015.

This encyclical, sub-titled ‘On Care for Our Common Home’, puts ecological and social justice right at the heart of Catholic faith and practice. Laudato Si’ has already made significant impact, not only on the life of the church, but in scholarly communities across numerous disciplines. LSRI’s mission is to generate multidisciplinary research projects relevant to the concerns of Laudato Si’ at the intersection of the natural and social sciences, theology, ethics and philosophy.

As a ministry of the Jesuits in Britain, the LSRI will have Ignatian traditions as a defining element of its research identity, while being open to insights from other faith traditions, including indigenous traditions.

It will support scholarship that can inform the practical ministries and projects, both present and future, of the Society of Jesus, in Britain and worldwide, while collaborating with other religious and secular traditions working on these themes. In the spirit of Laudato Si’ it will pay particular attention to the insights of those most marginalised, on such crucial issues as the sustainable development goals, and international climate agreements.

With its partners it will seek to become a public voice of Catholic scholarship at the global level.

Celia Deane-Drummond, Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, is the Director Designate and will take up her appointment on a full time basis in July 2019.

Article reproduced from the Jesuit in Britain website.