‘LAUDATO SI’: PROTECTING ‘OUR COMMON HOME’ AND THE DIGNITY OF THE POOR

By CARDINAL SEÁN P. O’MALLEY

Thursday, June 18, 2015

I welcome with joy and gratitude the encyclical letter, “Laudato Si'” (“Praise be to You”) on the urgent human, moral and religious issue of the environment. The first pope to take the name of Francis opens the letter with a phrase from St. Francis of Assisi whose spirit and vision is evident throughout the encyclical.

 

The Holy Father has given us a powerful, careful, prayerful analysis of two great ideas. The first idea, “Our Common Home,” the phrase he uses to describe the environment; the “home” for the human family is in severe danger and needs immediate protection and healing at the global, national and local levels of life. The second idea is that while the threatened state of the environment is a universal challenge affecting us all, those most in danger in the present and future are those already poor and vulnerable, within states and across the globe.

 

This constant linkage throughout the encyclical of the dual need to respect and protect “Our Common Home” and the need to respect and protect the dignity and lives of the poor may be regarded as the distinctive characteristic of this powerful message of Pope Francis. Both of these themes have been evident since the beginning of Pope Francis’s pontificate but this letter joins them with new depth and specificity.

 

“Laudato Si'” is permeated by a sense of human, moral and religious urgency, but the Pope recognizes the factual complexity of the joining of the environment and poverty. He states his case this way: “We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental” (#139). In preparing the encyclical the Holy Father has consulted broadly in the scientific community, convinced, as he says, that the challenge facing “Our Common Home” provides a moment when religion and science can be joined in a crucial partnership.

 

The encyclical letter provides an overview of the specific issues which are well known in secular discussions of the environment: climate changes, shortages of safe clean water, the economic impact of choices made to address environmental threats and the need for wise and courageous political choices nationally and globally.

 

The letter is the voice of a pastor and teacher who leads a universal church across regions, cultures and nations. Pope Francis draws deeply on the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and the Catholic social tradition as he develops the religious and moral foundation of his message. He relies heavily on the teaching of his immediate predecessors in the papacy; beginning with John XXII though Paul VI and particularly St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Chapter Two of the encyclical “The Gospel of Creation” draws deeply and broadly from biblical and theological scholarship to stress the specific meaning the environmental challenge is for Catholics. But the letter in the Pope’s mind has a broader audience. He states his intention at the outset to enter into the diverse global dialogue already underway about the threats to “Our Common Home.” He offers this letter as a contribution to the global conversation. He acknowledges with gratitude the resources other religious communities and traditions have made to the conversation, and he explicitly states that while many participants addressing the environment do not hold a religious perspective, he invites consideration of what religious vision and tradition can offer.

 

When Pope Francis turns to the moral dimensions of the environment and poverty, his themes are solidly grounded in the Catholic tradition of social teaching. Familiar Catholic themes of social justice, the option for the poor and the demands of the common good permeate the letter. The Holy Father adds a distinctive note to these in his call for an “integral ecology” seeking to bring the traditional ideas to confront the authentically new challenges posed by the environment and poverty.

 

“Laudato Si'” is a teaching document to be sure; but it is also a call for action at every level of our common life. In the final two chapters of the letter, Pope Francis highlights some of the choices which face individuals, states and international institutions if the twin problems of protecting the environment and honoring the equal dignity of all are to be faced effectively.

 

This encyclical, appearing still early in a new century, is designed to have a long shelf-life. The problems it analyzes are both urgent and complex; the responses to these must begin now, but will take time to come to fruition. I commend the letter to audiences inside and beyond the Catholic community and I pray for its reception and effective implementation.

Source: Archdiocese of Boston

 

Dom Odilo Scherer wrote an article related to the theme of environmental issues to be addressed in the Encyclical “Laudato Si” of Pope Francis

Archdiocese of Sao Paulo

For months there is talk of the publication of a new encyclical by Pope Francis; this time on environmental issues. Now it is a fact. . .The theme is the same environmental issues, with its various implications.

It is not the first time that the Magisterium of the Church is concerned with environmental issues. Benedict XVI has addressed the issue in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009), inviting humanity to a new relationship with nature, taking into account the plan of God the Creator and social solidarity (cf. No. 48-52). It dealt with the ecology of the ethical point of view – the “urgent moral need for a new solidarity”; He taught that the responsibility for the care of nature is global; that we must think of a “government responsible for nature to take care of it, make it bear fruit and grow, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the human family and who else inhabits.

The Pope’s teachings are fundamental to the ethical dimension of our relationship with nature, “the natural environment is more than raw material that we can have our own pleasure, but admirable work of the Creator containing a ‘grammar’, which indicates purposes and criteria for wise use, not instrumental or arbitrary “(No. 48). In his encyclical, Benedict also officiated in the Church’s Magisterium language the concept of “human ecology”, dealing with the correct coexistence of people in society and in relation to the environment.

Pope Francisco, since his election, has indicated that this would also be a concern of his. Nor could it be otherwise, it is the Magisterium’s task to speak of the supernatural sense of all reality. Shortly after being elected in the general audience on June 5, 2013, he has spoken of the need to adjust the economic progress and the use of new technologies to the respect for nature and for “human ecology”. On several occasions in the 27 months of his pontificate, he returned to environmental issues, showing its implications for faith and morality, social solidarity and peace.

The publication of his encyclical brings now an unprecedented systematic reflection on ecology. Let no one imagine that the Pope is interested in some ideology or Green Party. The questions posed are basically three major motivations, the light of which invite one to read the encyclical.

First, the question has to do with the Christian faith in the Creator God. We are being led by current theories about the origins of the universe, “believing” that the world arose by itself, eliminating the need for a Creator. The theory of evolution is not incompatible with the Christian faith, as long as it does not exclude the Creator God. But the absolute exclusion of God’s creative act – “in principle” – requires an act of faith even greater than faith in God. We need to re-value the first article of our profession of faith: “I believe in God, Creator Father of heaven and earth …” Treat with due respect to nature, God’s work is the result of our faith in God.

Second is the concern with the responsibility of man over nature: the man is given the care of nature, which is the “common home” of the human family and the “garden”, which welcomes, supports and brings joy to the human family and other creatures. We can not consider the “absolute masters of the world” and turn us into predators of nature; We should be responsible growers, to continue to be lavish goods for God’s creatures it houses. Spoil and vandalize nature is sin against God and others.

The third “environmental concern” of the Pope Francis, the Magisterium and of the Church is that of social solidarity: the land, with its fruits, air, water and sunlight are for everyone;nature is not owned by anyone at all, but is well meant for all God’s creatures. The selfish and greedy use of nature is contrary to justice, solidarity and peace. And threatens the sustainability of nature itself.

St. Francis of Assisi understood this very well and expressed it in his Canticle of the Creatures: “Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Sun, the mother earth, through Sister water … and all being” invite receive and read the encyclical with deep interest.

Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer

Portuguese Version of Cardinal Scherer’s words