Green Junction - Faith in Action: Ten Years of Pope Francis’s Environmental Plea
The MaryKnoll Office of Global Concerns recently summarized the focus of Pope Francis’s work as “care for creation, justice for the poor with an emphasis on migrants and refugees, and the pursuit of peace.” Pope Francis was the one of the greatest voices for the natural world, which he beautifully noted as Our Common Home. He authored Laudato Si’ (2015) and later reaffirmed the main messages/warnings of human destruction of nature in Laudate Deum (2023).
It has been almost ten years since Pope Francis released Laudato Si’. From page 19, “these problems (waste and pollution) are closely linked to a throwaway culture which affects the excluded just as it quickly reduces things to rubbish.” And, “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” Last year, Pope Francis stated in a television interview that climate change is “a road to death” and that industrialized nations are responsible for addressing carbon pollution. For years, Pope Francis messaged the need for an ecological conversion, which he defined in Laudato Si’ as “transformation of hearts and minds toward greater love of God, each other, and creation. It is a process of acknowledging our contribution to the social and ecological crisis and acting in ways that nurture communion: healing and renewing our common home.”
The fifth anniversary event of the Pope’s Laudato Si’ was held online and featured prominent international speakers that also voiced the urgent moral crisis of climate change and environmental degradation. One headline of the event was “Earth doesn’t need saving - we do.” Cardinal Turkson emphasized Pope Francis’s message that “Mother Nature is calling to us.” “The relationship of the human person toward creation is to till, but also to keep. And keeping enables the earth to always exercise its life-sustaining powers for every generation that comes.”
How have faith communities and people of good will responded to a decade of written and spoken words of moral obligations messaged by Pope Francis and others? What actions have been taken to heal and protect the earth, the most vulnerable and humanity at large in response to Pope Francis’s passionate pleas and decades of scientific data? Maybe one way to honor this great man of faith is to walk more gently on the earth, showing the care for nature and for one another that Pope Franics eloquently and frequently spoke to all people willing to listen.
Sincere gratitude.
