The “green” encyclical has arrived. It’s courageous, it’s prophetic, it’s challenging, it’s holistic, it’s wonderful. That’s what I think of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical “Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home.”
“St. Francis of Assisi reminds us,” writes the pope, “that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. …
“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”
Pope Francis explains, “Each year hundreds of millions of tons of waste are generated. … The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”
Siding with 97 percent of climate scientists he says, “A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system.”
The pope calls for worldwide conversion from the use of global warming fossil fuels – oil, coal, gas – to “clean renewable energy” found in wind, solar and geothermal.
The Holy Father writes, “The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming. …
“Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change.”
Francis writes that in political and economic discussions the poor seem to be brought up as an afterthought. “Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”
The church “must above all protect mankind from self-destruction.”
The Holy Father sees the environmental problem as part of a much larger, more serious problem: Our failure to consistently recognize the truth that everyone and everything is interconnected.
He explains, “When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected.”
Tony Magliano is a social justice and peace columnist who lives in the Diocese of Wilmington.
