A decade on, Laudato si’ continues to shine light on humanity’s connection to the environment

By the time Pope Francis sat down to write his encyclical Laudato si’ in 2015, there were many reasons to feel discouraged. Earth was becoming ‘an immense pile of filth’, he said bluntly, describing a planet drowning in waste, where the poor bear the brunt of environmental degradation.

His predecessors had also sounded the alarm on impending environmental catastrophe: in 1971, Pope Paul VI called it a tragic consequence of unchecked human activity; St John Paul II urged a global ecological conversion, saying environmental neglect was a moral and spiritual crisis; Pope Benedict XVI warned that the natural and social environment had been gravely damaged by our irresponsible behaviour.

Laudato si’ drew on the Church’s longstanding vision of human stewardship and moral responsibility, but it also broke new ground. The message of the first papal encyclical dedicated to the environment pulled no punches: the earth is a gift from God, it said, and humanity’s reckless exploitation of it is a sin against both creation and the poor.

A decade after Pope Francis issued his call to care for our common home, the world continues to grapple with environmental crises and social inequity, but it is clear that Laudato si’ has inspired many to take action. The document is the epitome of hope.

Adrian Foley from Christ Our Light Parish in Cheltenham and Highett says that for him, the encyclical’s impact was immediate. ‘It reminded me of Vatican II, when the pope of that time, Pope John XXIII, said he wanted to throw open the windows of the Church,’ he says.

Laudato si’ ‘seemed to be saying pretty much the same sort of thing. The style of the document also was very exciting, and that raised a whole lot of issues about care for our environment … the culture of indifference that we see between rich and poor countries, and so on.’

A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach.

His parish formed a Care for Our Common Home group, focusing on education and small-scale actions like tree planting, ‘to deepen people’s awareness of the fundamental issues of Laudato si’, to take better care of the earth, its climate, all living things, to have a preferential regard for the poor people of the world.’

The group also liaises with the parish’s two primary schools. ‘We seek to engage with them … in activities where they can come together with the parish, because that’s a wonderful experience for young families—who very frequently don’t go to church these days for various reasons—to come along from time to time,’ Adrian says. ‘And the oldies in the church love to see the young children and what they’re doing in the schools.’

At the heart of Laudato si’ is the idea of integral ecology: the understanding that environmental, social and spiritual issues are intertwined. ‘We have to realise that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach,’ Pope Francis wrote. ‘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.’

Denis Fitzgerald, from St Dominic’s Parish in Camberwell and a former executive director of Catholic Social Services Victoria, says this thinking reshaped his perspective. ’When you looked around, in fact, the people getting the rough end of the pineapple on every ecological disaster are poor people; the ones who suffer from higher energy prices; the ones who suffer from degradation of water systems, deforestation.

‘I saw things differently after reading the encyclical, not just from the words, but from the reflection and the dialogue that that encyclical opened up. I think it did change hearts and minds of people who hadn’t previously seen this as a core part of the response we’re called to make to the Gospel.

‘It went to the heart of Catholic social services. Pope Francis said a couple of times that he’s writing this into Catholic Social Teaching; it’s not just a flash in the pan.’

Elizabeth Diaz of the Mercy Hub—a community centre and base for outreach programs run by the Sisters of Mercy of Australia and Papua New Guinea—runs a ‘Living Laudato si’’ program of activities and volunteering opportunities for people to meet the challenge to ‘bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development’, in the words of Pope Francis.

Laudato si’ really deepened our commitment to integral ecology and ecological conversion.

Elizabeth says Laudato si’ touched her personally, through the sense of kinship she felt with the Argentinian pope as a fellow South American (she is originally from Paraguay), and professionally, because of her environmental engineering background.

‘He really spoke from the heart in terms of raising awareness of the care of our common home and all the issues that we’re facing with that,’ she says. ‘We really took it as part of the Works of Mercy, and it really deepened our commitment to integral ecology and ecological conversion.

‘We make sure to include the message of Laudato si’ in our daily activities, in our mission in general and also in the programs and activities that we do at the Mercy Hub.’

We need a conversation that includes everyone, said Pope Francis in 2015, ‘since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.’

A decade later, Denis Fitzgerald predicts that with the evidence of ecological disaster continuing to mount, people will be brought back to Laudato si’. ‘It’s embedded in that corpus of Catholic Social Teaching,’ he says. ‘Pope Leo has mentioned it in his initial statements. I hope that those mechanisms will continue to keep alive the insights and the momentum that Pope Francis turbocharged with Laudato si’.’

The world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.

For Adrian Foley, the conversation is just beginning. ‘The enormity of what Francis contributed to the Church and to the world personally I think will take years to digest, to absorb,’ he says. ‘He wrote some landmark works, one of which was Laudato si’, which I think will certainly bear the test of time.’

The message of Laudato si’ is hope, says Elizabeth Diaz. ‘It’s seeing that there is a living God [present] in the environment as well ... That’s really what I hope personally, that we as Catholics can extend that understanding of this is what God is and realise that he is present in every part of this world.’

In Laudato si’, Pope Francis gave the world a clear way forward in dealing with climate change and social injustice, pollution and poverty. He was frustrated with the destruction he saw around him, but he was not despairing. Citing his namesake, St Francis of Assisi, he said, ‘rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.’