A global ecumenical process is underway for various Christian churches to jointly elevate “Creation Day” (September 1), also known as the World Day of Prayer for Creation, to become a new liturgical feast. 

UISG and USG recently participated in various dialogues which have reaffirmed that this prophetic proposal is extremely important and needed in light of the “signs of the times”. We encourage all congregations to join the process by signing a joint letter endorsing the new feast.

To that end, a working group co-convened by the UISG-USG JPIC commission, Laudato Si’ Movement, and Laudato Si’ Research Institute has prepared a memo with more details: www.bit.ly/memo-feast 

For context, it is worth naming that the Dicastery for Divine Worship, besides issuing a statement about the Feast, has clarified that the next step would be to receive requests for the feast. This need is driven by:

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• a synodal approach, which – before taking a step at the global level – would first make sure that there is a desire from local churches and the People of God, also in line with
• the precedent of recent “new feasts”, which were also preceded by requests to the Pope from various corners of the Church; e.g. Feast of the Holy Family (1921), Feast of Christ the King (1925), Feast of Christ the Priest (2012), etc; see example.

 
It is worth noting that three out of five continental episcopal conferences have already signed a parallel joint letter to Pope Francis, from their perspective as bishops.

For that reason, our working group has prepared a joint letter to be delivered privately to Pope Francis (i.e. it is not an open letter).  

 
Your congregation is warmly welcome to join as a signatory. Please:

1. Review the Joint Endorsement Letter, available in the Annex.
2. Add the signature of your organization through the Sign-on Form.

Contact for more info: CreationFeast@gmail.com