Laudato Si

The Laudato Si' Ministry will be updating this web page frequently to provide information on the care of our common home.  We encourage you to check in with us each month.

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Pope Francis released his encyclical letter on the environment entitled,”Laudato Si’”  ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME in June 2015. On October 10, 2020, he appeared in a TED talk to address the socio-environmental crisis that was explained in the encyclical and that continues to be a global challenge. This crisis “requires us, all of us, to face a choice between what matters and what doesn’t. Urgent action is required.”

The Pope Francis TED talk addresses many of the important issues that are discussed in Laudato Si’ and can be viewed on Youtube with the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHuwaKrHuR0

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“The Gospel of Creation”

After the Pope’s diagnostic chapter about what’s happening to our “common home,” the second chapter of the Pope’s encyclical argues that our faith convictions can and should motivate Christians to assume their responsibility as caretakers of creation. Often many Christians feel that environmental stewardship is secondary to living out the faith, but the Pope wants to wipe this sentiment away. Science has a role to play in the conversation about the future of the world but so does our Christian faith. In support of this argument, Pope Francis begins by highlighting the many biblical narratives that speak of the love and wisdom of a God who is Creator and sustainer of all Creation. The biblical narratives “suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and close intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor, and with earth itself” (66). While all of these relationships have been negatively affected by our assertion of power and dominion, our particular calling as people of faith is for wholeness, reconciliation, and peace. This calling challenges us to be the kind of people who will not let the earth be despoiled and people forgotten.

The Pope also meditates on the mystery of the universe, which he sees as a continuing revelation of the divine, “a gift from the outstretched hand of the Father of all” (76). It is our faith in Christ that “allows us to interpret the meaning and mysterious beauty of what is unfolding” (79). Referencing the medieval Franciscan thinker St. Bonaventure, Pope Francis points to an ancient understanding of the world as the “book of creation,” God’s precious book “whose letters are the multitude of created things present in the universe” (85). In this way, the Pope asks us to re-learn how to “read” Creation in order to discover the message and meaning within it. One of the key messages that Pope Francis reads in the “book of creation” is that we are “linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family” (89). In God’s created order “everything is connected” (91). We are connected to the rest of the human family, to the created world, and to those who will come after us in future generations. Now we have the responsibility to care for and protect it and all people, who are part of creation. Protecting human dignity is strongly linked to care for creation.

The Pope ends this chapter with reference to Jesus who embodies the tenderness, the contemplative awareness, the in-touch-ness with nature and people, the wonder and awe before God’s gifts, and the reconciliation that the Creator so desires for all of Creation.

Picture credit: St. Michael's Catholic Church, Brattleboro, VT by Brian Buettner

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1. According to Francis, the Bible teaches that the harmony between the creator, humanity, and creation was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations.
   • What does it mean to presume to take the place of God?
   • How are our lifestyle and the ethics of our workplace overreaching creaturely limits?
2. How can our attitudes and actions this week be more like Jesus?

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A Simple Resolution for 2021

Each week make one of your dinners meatless. Meatless dinners can be delicious, healthier and often less expensive than meat. Try a vegetarian chili, homemade macaroni and cheese, black bean enchiladas, or potato cheddar cheese soup. Other meatless dishes can be made with lentils and legumes like navy beans, pinto beans and garbanzo beans.

Livestock production accounts for 4% of Americans’ greenhouse gases, according to the EPA. Adopting this pratice of going meatless one day per week will contribute to our commitment to take better care of Creation and honor Catholic social teachings.