Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality: On Care for Our Common Home

Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality: On Care for Our Common Home

Language: English

Pages: 192

ISBN: 1612195288

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The complete text of Laudato Si’, the landmark encyclical letter from Pope Francis that, as Time magazine reported, “rocked the international community”

In the Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, the beloved Pope exhorts the world to combat environmental degradation and its impact on the poor. In a stirring, clarion call that is not merely aimed at Catholic readers but rather at a wide, lay audience, the Pope cites the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change, and does not hesitate to detail how it is the result of a historic level of unequal distribution of wealth.

It is, in short, as the New York Times labeled it, “An urgent call to action . . . intended to persuade followers around the world to change their behavior, in hopes of protecting a fragile planet.”

With an insightful and informative introduction by Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes, famed for her bestselling Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

that no creature is excluded from this manifestation of God: “From panoramic vistas to the tiniest living form, nature is a constant source of wonder and awe. It is also a continuing revelation of the divine.”55 The bishops of Japan, for their part, made a thought-provoking observation: “To sense each creature singing the hymn of its existence is to live joyfully in God’s love and hope.”56 This contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to

is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that “an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed.” While the pope labels the paradigm technocratic, the criticism is not of technology per se, but of an uncritical technofideism—a “blind confidence in technical

takes place in any one area can have a direct or indirect influence on other areas. Thus, for example, drug use in affluent societies creates a continual and growing demand for products imported from poorer regions, where behaviour is corrupted, lives are destroyed, and the environment continues to deteriorate. II. Cultural Ecology 143. Together with the patrimony of nature, there is also an historic, artistic and cultural patrimony which is likewise under threat. This patrimony is a part of

members of society must be adequately motivated to accept them, and personally transformed to respond. Only by cultivating sound virtues will people be able to make a selfless ecological commitment. A person who could afford to spend and consume more but regularly uses less heating and wears warmer clothes, shows the kind of convictions and attitudes which help to protect the environment. There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions, and it is wonderful how

capacity to make different ones. Preface 1. “LAUDATO SI,’ mi’ Signore”—“Praise be to you, my Lord.” In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us 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. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs.”1 2. This sister now cries out to us because

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