Two years into the Covid19 pandemic, humanity continues to experience growing uncertainty about the future that lies ahead, with pressing questions surrounding the horizon of life that is possible to expect in a global health crisis such as the one we are facing.

The pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of human life and the intimate correlation of health with the biological and social environment that makes human life possible. Life threatened by a microscopic virus, but also by health policies in the hands of governments and pharmaceutical companies that do not always count on the participation of the people in the care of life as a shared responsibility.

Concilium wishes to promote in this online conversation an open and informed debate, from diverse local experiences in charge of the communities in their cultural contexts Together with modern science, the wisdom of the people is also a source of knowledge to face the pandemic in its multiple dimensions. This is analyzed by Sofía Chipana in the Andean and Amazonian context and by André Kabasele in the Congo environment.

The scientific analysis of the pandemic is an essential element to know the origins of the virus, the role of vaccines and the social impact of public policies with the necessary ethical reference that must be maintained as a criterion for life and action. In this sense, the interview with Dr. Victor Manuel Toledo, researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, underlines the importance of political ecology to understand the scope of the pandemic associated with a deeper crisis produced by a new geological era called Anthropocene, which today the social sciences call more accurately Capitalocene. On the other hand, scientific contributions, as Prof. Austriaco from Providence College accurately points out, cannot be separated from an ethical framework that prioritizes the protection of the common good over private interests, particularly in the production and distribution of vaccines, especially to most of the population living in impoverished countries, as the present crisis has revealed.

This second online conversation, with the participation of experts in various disciplines from diverse cultural contexts, is open to receive new contributions that will allow us to better understand the social, ethical, and theological challenge that Covid19 represents.

Beyond uncertainty, it is necessary to recognize the horizon of life and hope that humanity is called to promote with urgency and creativity in these times.