University of San Diego Names Cardinal McElroy a ‘Laudato si’ Fellow

Award recognizes McElroy’s efforts to promote ‘Care for Our Common Home’

The University of San Diego (USD) presented Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy with a Laudato si’ Fellows Award following his keynote address at the university’s Lighting the Way Forward Conference inside the University Forums on Jan. 11. 

“Cardinal McElroy, in recognition of your exemplary leadership in educating the Church and broader society regarding the imperative, Caring for Our Common Home, it is a supreme honor for the University of San Diego to name you as a Laudato si’ fellow,” said USD Vice President of Mission Integration Michael Lovette-Colyer, PhD. 

USD President James T. Harris, DEd, presented McElroy with a framed plaque on stage to a round of applause from the audience of conference attendees. McElroy, the bishop of San Diego, was appointed as a fellow for his work promoting Care for Our Common Home, one of the university’s Envisioning 2024 pathways that embodies Pope Francis’ urgent call of Laudato si’.

In the 2015 papal encyclical, the pope called for urgent action to support the poor and the vulnerable who are disproportionately impacted by global environmental problems such as climate change, pollution, access to clean water and loss of biodiversity. Care for Our Common Home is one of USD’s six core values. 

Environmental and Ocean Sciences Associate Professor Michel Boudrias, PhD, introduced the award by providing the audience with a brief history of the university’s efforts during the past several years to live up to the pope’s call. 

“My first conversation with Jim [Harris] was in August 2015, Laudato si’ had just come out, and I said, ‘we can be a university of Laudato si’. We can be a university dedicated to environmental justices’,” Boudrias recalled for the audience.

In September 2021, USD became one of the first universities in the world to align its investment policy with Laudato si’. Included in the university's investment policy are the three key tenets of Laudato si’, which Boudrias detailed for the audience.

“Climate change is real and it’s happening now, it’s disproportionately affecting the disadvantaged and the poor, and we must work together in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary way to come up with solutions,” said Boudrias. 

In April 2022, USD through The Frances G. Harpst Center for Catholic Thought and Leadership honored 21 faculty, staff and community members as the first Laudato Si’ Fellows in recognition of their commitment and dedication to environmental issues and initiatives. 

“Your talk about what Catholic universities can do is really core,” Boudrias told McElroy, who sat in the front row next to Harris. “Tonight, in recognition of the efforts of Cardinal McElroy and others in Laudato si’, we present him this special award.” 

— Story and photo by Matthew Piechalak