The following interview by Lucia Capuzzi with Cardinal Michael Czerny S.J., Undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is republished with permission from the May 17, 2020 issue of AVVENIRE.
1) This Laudato si’ 5th anniversary week — 16-24 May 2020 — takes place in a dramatic moment, amidst the COVID-19. What meaning does it have in light of this situation, this ‘sign of the times’?
Five years ago Laudato si’ revealed the fault-lines of human injustice and environmental degradation. COVID-19 is amplifying and magnifying the same, in a tragically concrete, dramatic, and vivid manner. It’s the “rapidification” which Pope Francis identified (LS 18). Not only the manner and speed of the virus’s spread but also the highly accelerated digitalization underway, the millions of conventional jobs being lost, the online communication replacing meetings and changing events.