Laudato Si’: The End of the Beginning for the Journey Toward Care for Our Common Home and One Another

by Josianne Gauthier

© Alexandre Degaki, “Sunrise in Shamane-Ken, Japan”

Three years ago, the world waited impatiently for the new encyclical letter on integral ecology by Pope Francis. For months ahead of its unveiling, people in the know—social activists, theologians, ecologists—Catholic or not, speculated, theorized, and dreamed of all that this important message might contain. We knew that the words from the Holy Father would be coming at a critical time, in the lead up to the COP21 Climate talks in Paris. Those of us who had been praying for the world to wake up to the urgency of the current ecological crisis put our hopes in the hands of Pope Francis and this encyclical.

When Pope Francis finally shared Laudato Si’ with the world, he did not disappoint those of us who were expecting a powerful moral voice to support the need for an urgent change of course. Indeed, Laudato Si’ not only highlighted the urgency of the ecological crisis but also tied it intrinsically to the social and political crises that surround us. It spoke not only to Catholics but to all people of the earth. We were not referring to an environmental encyclical, as some wanted to describe it, but to teachings on integral human ecology, on the sacredness of our common home and our deep responsibility toward one another and toward the earth.

Pope Francis’s words of daring simplicity and clarity provoked us to go back to the basics: back to the Gospel and back to our solidarity with each other. He called us to take action, to believe that change was possible and that we have the capacity as human beings to do better than we have done so far. Through Laudato Si’, he called us to a profound conversion and to change our destructive lifestyles that are at the heart of political, social, and economic choices that hurt our sisters and brothers around the world as well as the earth (which Pope Francis called our sister and our mother).

This inspiring, moving, and new discourse reinvigorated the Catholic movement for a holistic approach to justice, peace, and reverence for the environment. Pope Francis empowered concerned people around the world with hope and courage to find a stronger voice in public spheres.

Laudato Si’ has had the power to unite social justice activists and environmentalists, scientists, theologians, journalists, and politicians. However, the work is far from finished. In fact, it is just beginning. Three years later, people still need to harness and direct the power of Laudato Si’. We have seen that the early enthusiasm in 2015 in the Paris Agreement slowed to a crawl in Bonn in 2017 at the COP23 Climate Talks.

What has changed since Laudato Si’? Everything. Nevertheless, we need to stay strong. There is greater awareness and greater empowerment among Catholics, but there is also closer collaboration and sharing of knowledge with new friends who cherish the same dream of global social justice and care for our common home and one another.

We have words, we have a book, and we have Catholic social tradition to guide our work to change course and fuel our advocacy toward public and private centers of influence. We have the confidence that we are working together to do good.

However, what is most important, we have each other, the community of people of hope around the world who are already living differently, whose inspiring stories we are sharing. We are many and we believe in each other and in our power to do better. “Truly there is much to do”.

Laudato Si’ and Caring for Migrants and Refugees

by Fr. Michael Czerny, S.J.

This sculpture by Timothy Schmalz was blessed by Pope Francis and given to the Migrants & Refugees Section. To learn more about the artist and the sculpture, visit: https://migrants-refugees.va/2017/05/02/vision-bronze-angels-among-us/. Photo and video courtesy of Migrants & Refugees SectionRifugiati.

“There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. . . . We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family. . . . The poor and the earth are crying out.^[1]

Center of Concern has asked me what, from my perspective, has changed since the release of Laudato Si’, what has not, and what gives me hope.

From the very beginning of his papacy in 2013, Pope Francis has encouraged the Church to accompany all people who have to flee. He wept with the asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants huddled at Lampedusa and Lesbos, major transit points in Italy and Greece. He brought some Syrian refugee families back from Lesbos to live in the Vatican.

Compassion also marks how Pope Francis wove the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth together in his 2015 Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home. The encyclical had a positive impact on international gatherings from the World Meetings of Popular Movements to the Paris Treaty on Climate Change. It continues to inspire practical actions to reverse climate change or desertification and to promote and integrate the newly arrived. Welcoming migrants and refugees has even helped some communities to revitalize.^[2]

When Pope Francis created a special Section on Migrants and Refugees (M&R), he decided to lead it personally; and he appointed Fr. Fabio Baggio, C.S., and me to manage it. This small, action-oriented Vatican office helps the Church worldwide to support those who endure forcible displacement due to conflict, natural disaster, persecution, or extreme poverty; it also supports victims of human trafficking. This is a tall order: today there are 250 million international migrants, of whom 22.5 million are refugees.^[3]

The 2018 papal message for peace^[4] describes two linked sets of four actions and four stages to respond truly to the needs of forced migrants. First, we need “to welcome, to protect, to promote and to integrate”. Second, there are four important phases of the journey: in the country of origin, in transit, in the destination, and possibly in returning to the country of origin.

This past year I have been blessed several times to witness compassion in action in parts of this journey:

On Easter, I went with the parish priest in Lampedusa to the harbor at 3:00 a.m. to meet a boatload of migrants from Africa. He and his parishioners equally divide every financial donation to meet the needs of the arriving migrants and of the local poor.

In August, on the border in Chiapas between Guatemala and Mexico, I saw poor families—once migrants themselves—share not only food but their very hopes with youth fleeing the violence in Central America.

Different forms of community-based sponsorship for refugee resettlement are taking place in several countries, including the United States.

For Pope Francis, this “Church without frontiers, Mother to All, spreads throughout the world a culture of acceptance and solidarity, in which no one is seen as useless, out of place or disposable.”^[5]

The 2018 World Peace Day Message invites all to respond at the local and international level, and Pope Francis repeats the invitation in this brief and powerful video.

The Migrants and Refugee Section has published 20 action points to guide the response of Christian communities.^[6] It has presented these points to the United Nations to influence the ongoing negotiation of a global compact for safe, orderly, and regular migration and another global compact on refugees. The process began with the New York Declaration of September 2016. In December 2017, I participated in the Stock-Taking Conference in Mexico and the High Commissioner’s Dialogue in Geneva, where I saw participating states paying real attention to the circumstances of the most vulnerable. The prospects for adoption of the global compacts in late 2018 are looking brighter.

This hopeful message of peace addresses all peoples, as the angels’ message was not only for the shepherds, but for everyone today. For “the Scripture reminds us: ‘Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it’” (Hebrews 13:2).

 

^[1] Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 25, 52, 246, available at http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/ encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf.

^[2] See, for example, https://thinkprogress.org/refugees-are-rejuvenating-dying-italian-towns-d403160e71be/.

^[3] Of about 250 million international migrants around the world, 65.6 million are forcibly displaced and 22.5 million are refugees. Cf. U.N. International Migration Report, 2015. UNHCR Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2016.

^[4] Message of Pope Francis for the 51st World Day of Peace 2018 Migrants and refugees: men and women in search of peace, available at http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20171113_messaggio-51giornatamondiale-pace2018.html.

^[5] Message of Pope Francis for the 101st World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2015, Church without Frontiers, Mother to All, available at https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/migration/ documents/papa-francesco_20140903_world-migrants-day-2015.html.

^[6] See https://migrants-refugees.va/20-action-points/.

Mindfulness and Thankfulness: The Ignatian Examen as a Discipline of Care for Our Common Home and One Another

by Katherine R. Tromble, Esq.

As Thanksgiving draws near, I find myself thinking about the various people and things for which I am thankful. Identifying the good and being grateful for it keeps me grounded. It keeps me from distorting the bad or wallowing in it. God might not, as Fr. Brian J. Lehane, S.J., suggests, “want us always to be saying ‘thank you’.” [1] But he does want us “to be noticing how much we are loved and cared for by Him and, in turn, respond[ing] by living a life of gratitude.”[2]

A life of gratitude. Isn’t that what Pope Francis lives, models and asks of us as well? It is not surprising that Pope Francis, formed in Ignatian tradition, approaches his ministry with a sense of gratitude. We can see this in how he greets each person who approaches him in his travels, how he seeks out the most vulnerable to remind them that their lives have as much dignity as anyone’s life, and how he has prioritized caring for creation in Laudato Si’: “Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude.”[3]

But in the two years since publication of Laudato Si’, it feels as if the world has hardened toward the earth and its inhabitants. Nativist groups no longer lurk in the shadows, but openly shout their messages of hate and violence. Politicians seem singularly focused on withdrawing healthcare and support from the poorest among us. Wars rage. Nations shut their borders to desperate refugees. Even the climate seems to be flexing its muscle with a series of wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes; many of these events hit the most vulnerable.

But being surrounded by a hardening world does not mean we have to be hard. Now more than ever, the light of Christ is needed. For me, connecting with that light comes most easily when focusing on what I am grateful for each day, using the Ignatian Examen as a way to encounter that gratitude. It’s “a simple life-changing prayer,” as Jim Manney says.[4]

It first asks you to review your day and to discern within it the people and things for which you are grateful. Before your thoughts turn to where you might have strayed, you intentionally identify things that made you happy. It sounds so simple. But too often we fail to notice, really notice, the things that make us happy: the help of a co-worker, a woman walking the largest and smallest dogs I’ve ever seen at the same time, a clear blue sky, or a comforting shoulder in a moment of sorrow.

Calling these things to the top of my mind and saying thank you for them helps remind me just how real Christ’s presence is in my day. What is more important, it helps me be more generous with my actions, maybe offering that shoulder or helping another co-worker the next day. It also grounds me in my faith. I am grateful not for these lovely moments in and of themselves, but because Christ is in them. Christ walks with me every day. Not just with me, though, but with everyone, especially the poor and vulnerable who are suffering most right now. And as His hands and feet on earth, I must also walk with them.

Gratitude is no small thing. It can help us soften and brighten the world.

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[1] Brian J. Lehane, S.J., “Attitude of Gratitude: The Examen of Prayer of St. Ignatius,” Partners, March 2011, available at http://www.jesuits-chgdet.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Partners_FA09.Sprituality.pdf.

[2] Id.

[3] Pope Francis, Papal Audience, 3, May 21, 2014, available at http://http/www.news.va/en/news/pope-at-audience-if-we-destroy-creation-it-will-de.

[4] Jim Manney, A Simple Life-Changing Prayer (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2011).

Untying the Knots

by Emilie Bouvier

© Michele Jokinen

“I… I had no idea what the Doctrine of Discovery was. It’s unbelievable, really, it meant that land could be taken if there were no baptized Christians there.” I was jolted out of a moment of distractedly gazing at the stained glass windows during announcements. It was a Sunday morning in early September, and I was visiting a deep suburban congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that I didn’t know well, but had worked with to coordinate an eco-stewardship project.

There he was, on a blue carpeted footstool at the pulpit microphone, leaning in with a pause: an entirely typical member of the congregation—certainly not the “peace-with-justice-committee” type—unable to hold back the passion welling up about an issue that was entirely new to him. In jolting sentences, clearly still processing, he shared what he was learning with the congregation in what would otherwise be a rather dry report about the Churchwide Assembly. The crack in his voice mid-phrase betrayed the vulnerability he felt at uncovering anguish in a history he claimed as his own. He was expecting just to show up as a delegate for a large-scale church meeting. Little did he know a resolution passed there on Repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery would cause a radical shift. Our social statements as church bodies matter. They can be transformational in unnoticed corners where we wouldn’t even anticipate.

I felt much hope listening to this lay member’s reflections, because I saw colonial history as being deeply related to our environmental crisis.

Having spent time at Standing Rock last fall, I was very aware of how pipeline routes in the Midwest exemplify the ways environmental degradation harms those who are already poor and marginalized, the undying chorus to Pope Francis’s plea for greater care for this earth. Oppression of people and exploitation of the land are integrally related, parallel parts of the structural sin we carry in our world today.

As people and institutions of faith, we have often been on the wrong side of history. As a religion that came from the margins, we’ve historically been awfully comfortable in siding with Empire for the sake of safety and economic benefit. It takes slow and careful work to untie these knots, to seek reconciliation with our sisters, brothers, and the land; and ultimately to mend ourselves and our faith. I believe that social statements on the part of faith leaders and church bodies are critical in recognizing these histories—in naming these knots—and empowering people of the church to get to work unbinding their hold on us.

© Emilie Bouvier

I have found Laudato Si’ to be one of the most profound examples of a social statement doing just that: addressing the harm and empowering action. Its reverberations have been far-reaching. When I first spent time with the document, I was moved by such a deep and faithful challenge to business as usual of overconsumption and extraction. I found grounding in Pope Francis’s abiding gratitude that stands counter to commodification and in his unabashed stand with the marginalized whose resources others are decimating. Even more, the authoritative weight of Pope Francis’s words has strengthened faith communities and church leaders well beyond the Catholic Church and invigorated me.

As an environmental justice organizer for a Lutheran bishop (ELCA), I can’t even tell you the number of times after the encyclical’s release in 2015 that I found congregation members or pastors in Lutheran churches excitedly asking me “Have you read the pope’s encyclical yet?” Countless more times I, or Bishop Ann Svennungsen, started a statement to elected officials or community leaders with, “Given Laudato Si’, we’re clearly at a kairos in the religious community’s response to the environment….” The encyclical has marked a turning point for how people of faith, across traditions, have engaged environmental justice in the public sphere. We have stood up to match the tenor the pope set: that we are here, and we have work to do.

What has that work looked like? It has looked like the following:

• confirmation groups cleaning out and stenciling neighborhood storm drains, in efforts to keep trash out of our rivers and streams
• members from seven congregations showing up in a packed room downtown to get commitments from mayoral candidates on clean energy and equity
• running energy audits and incorporating green principles in renovations
• following in the footsteps of indigenous leader Sharon Day on a “Nibi Walk” (water walk), with each step as a prayer for the healing of the water
• adult forums and creative worship services that invite congregations to learn, pray, and sing their way into environmental practices
• writing letters to members of an energy utility board of a rural electric cooperative, advocating to expand clean energy options for members
• a meet-up at a local watershed district, learning the basics of water stewardship and heartily belting of “Shall We Gather at the River” through rain gardens to the bank of the Mississippi to read scripture and bless the water

This is resounding: the methods are many, but the essential feature is that we find opportunity in our own communities and contexts, always in relationship with our neighbors. It has profoundly impacted how we think about being “church together” in the synod of Lutheran congregations I serve. It falls in line with the sort of “EcoReformation” for which many are calling, as the Lutheran Church celebrates the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

It’s at this 500-year moment that we also are seeing a coming together of Lutheran and Catholic judicatories. Last fall, I witnessed Bishop Ann Svennungsen, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, and Bishop Patricia Lull plan a joint worship service in recognition of this milestone anniversary. What’s striking to me is the way that we’re able to come together on social issues, even amid theological differences, to work the common good. In the current political realities, it fills me with hope to see people of faith work ecumenically on issues bound to the heart of our faith—care for the disenfranchised, the immigrant, and the earth. We have an opportunity at hand to imagine a different future together—a world that honors this earth from which “our very bodies are made up… [whose air] we breathe… [and from whose waters we] receive life and refreshment” (Laudato Si’, 2).

Addressing Climate Change Without EPA

by John J. O’Grady

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the mission of which is to protect human health and the environment, takes the lead in addressing global climate change. President Nixon established the EPA with bipartisan support on December 2, 1970, in response to the public outcry over rivers catching on fire, thermal inversions of smog literally choking people to death, valleys filled with drums of spent chemicals, lakes dying from pollution, and fish that were inedible due to high levels of toxins.

Yet, today, some economists, business leaders, and government officials seem to believe that the free market and forces of competition alone can solve our environmental problems. Some have deified the free market and imputed salvific powers to it as we approach another gilded age, while the fragile environment, asthmatic children, and vulnerable seniors are defenseless before the lobbyists that influence this administration and Congress.[1] I believe that we should join Pope Francis in rejecting “a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals.”[2]

Funding for the EPA has been flat for years and current financial appropriations and staffing levels are at their lowest since 1989.^[3] Its budget represents only 0.2 percent of the overall federal budget.[4] Now, the administration proposes to gut the EPA’s budget and staffing.^[5],[6] Moreover, after 156 Parties out of 197 ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Paris Agreement),[7] this administration has withdrawn from the agreement, running counter to global momentum for taking climate change seriously and working to curb it.

Pope Francis has reminded us that “the time to find global solutions is running out.”^[8] So, if we truly care about implementing the Holy Father’s message in Laudato Si, then we need to call, e-mail, or visit our congressional representatives and U.S. senators, and tell them to fund and staff the EPA at levels sufficient for it to be effective at discharging its mission. We simultaneously should demand accountability for the stewardship of these resources for the public interest and the common good through effective congressional oversight to ensure that the agency applies these resources efficiently and effectively in support of this mission.

One of the features of Catholic social thought is pluralism of institutions. The rich conversation to which Pope Francis contributes in Laudato Si’ recognizes that public and private institutions have strengths and limitations in advancing global social justice and care for our common home and one another. In practice, this pluralism means that each of these institutional centers of gravity has roles to play—and boundaries. Safeguarding clean air, land, and water should not be subject solely to the fluctuations of market forces. This is all the more the case when the market is not fully “free,” e.g., when public and private forces hostile to the mission and work of the EPA subvert the agency through the “capture theory” of regulation. The reason for protecting the EPA is simple: we need to protect the EPA to protect our nation and our world. The EPA is at the vanguard of protecting America’s health and environment, and helping to respond in informed and principled ways to global climate change.

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[1] Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 55, May 24, 2015, sec. 55, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html, accessed July 29, 2017,

[2] Ibid., 190.

[3] United States EPA Budget and Performance History, “EPA’s Budget and Spending,” https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/budget, accessed July 29, 2017.

[4] “EPA budget, as a percentage of total US government spending,”  https://www.theatlas.com/charts/SJMHpDKbe, accessed July 29, 2017.

[5] U.S. Office of Management and Budget, “Budget of the U. S. Government: A New Foundation for American Greatness, Fiscal Year 2018,” Whitehouse Website, 48, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/budget.pdf.

[6] 115th Congress, 1st Session, “A BILL Making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2018, and for other purposes,”62-79, https://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fy18_interior_xml.pdf, accessed July 29, 2017.

[7] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Paris Agreement – Status of Ratification, http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9444.php, accessed July 31, 2017.

[8] Lydia O’Kane, “Pope: Climate Change a serious ethical and moral responsibility,” Vatican Radio, December 12, 2014, http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-climate-change-a-serious-ethical-and-moral-re.

 

For Generations To Come: The Questions That Bind

By Rabbi Jennifer E. Krause

 

What are we?

What is the meaning of our lives?

What is our kindness? 

What is our righteousness? 

What is our liberation? 

What is our strength?

In the Jewish liturgical tradition, these are the questions we ask ourselves every morning at prayer.  It is with these questions that we not only begin our days, but the questions by which we shape our lives.

In reading and reflecting upon Pope Francis’s encyclical on integral ecology, Laudato Si’, the passage about what Pope Francis calls “justice between the generations” brought these core questions from my own inherited tradition to mind.  Pope Francis writes:

What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? . . . .What is the purpose of our life in this world? Why are we here? What is the goal of our work and all our efforts? What need does the earth have of us? (Laudato Si’, 160)

How true that how we choose to answer these questions, whatever their source, becomes in aggregate the signature we leave as individuals during our short time on the earth.  How true all the more so that our answers to these questions as one human family leave an indelible inscription upon the earth in our generation and for all generations.

As Pope Francis asserts, the planet’s present and future health and well-being are inextricably bound up in the lives of each and every person, present and future, who calls it home.  The earth’s dignity and our dignity are connected.  What we see when we take a conscious look at ourselves, at our friends and loved ones, at neighbor and stranger alike; what we see when we look at our communities, our countries, the world, also is reflected in the visage of the planet we share—the planet gifted to us, placed in our hands by our Creator, that we do not own but that we have the ability to nurture or destroy.  The world, and all the inhabitants thereof, rise and fall by how we answer these questions and build lives in accordance with our daily response.

As we read in Laudato Si’, “Nothing in this world is indifferent to us.” Yet, without a deep understanding of the human ecosystem, of how we are connected to and through one another by how we choose to lead our lives in even the smallest of ways, it is within the realm of our choices to be indifferent to the world.  When we forget that our lives matter, that we count, that we are here to make something of our lives and to serve a purpose that transcends the tiny borders of our individual existence, how can we possibly see the big picture of a planet that is counting on us to preserve its existence?

Without a daily commitment to what is truly at stake in the details of how we live our lives—not just for ourselves but for all, we cannot fathom, let alone heed, the clarion call of Creation crying out to us all to be the tender, trusted, proactive, and stolid stewards of the environment that we, the descendants of Adam, were placed on earth to be.

Surely it could be said that we live in a moment in the history of the world in which we have never been more connected or more disconnected. The screens we use to link ourselves to others can be the same screens that become a barrier between ourselves and the world. With myriad devices we can hear the voices of people across oceans and continents, bearing witness to the lives of those we might never otherwise have the chance to meet; and yet far too easily those voices can become little more than background noise as we turn our attention to everything and nothing at all.

Part of that noise is the din of hopelessness and negativity, the sound of too many in need and too much to be healed for us to believe that it is within our power to make a difference.  When we lose our faith in ourselves and what we can do to change the lives of our brothers and sisters for the better, we are all diminished.  When we cede that faith to futility, the planet also pays the price.

Yet somewhere in all of that noise, I must say that in nearly two decades of being a rabbi, of serving Jews of all different backgrounds, ages, movements, and religious practice, never before have I heard more talk of social justice; and, what is most important, never have I seen more engagement in social action.

Never before have I seen more Jewish organizations created for the sole purpose of putting the word and the spirit of Jewish teaching and tradition to work in the world.  Never before have I seen more passionate people, young and old, fan out into their communities to make a difference in all aspects of the human ecosystem.  Be it Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps, Bend the Arc, American Jewish World Service, Repair the World, Keshet, or Hazon to name but a few; whether focusing on gender-based violence, immigration, homelessness, food insecurity, poverty, fair labor practices, racial inequality, sustainability, and the environment they demonstrate through the daily unwavering pursuit of justice in all its forms that every positive step we take begins with seeing ourselves in the other—walking with the awareness that every human being is created in the image of G-d, imbued with infinite value, possibility, and unique purpose.

As Pope Francis affirms in Laudato Si’, and as I am heartened to see happening in my own community, when we see our lives, the contours of our kindness, the quality of our integrity, our decisions to redeem or degrade, and the way we use (and when necessary choose not to use) our power and freedom as having a direct and lasting impact on everything and everyone around us, we can do the sacred work of making a healthier planet that thrives and sustains us all.

Young People Demand Change

by Terese Corkish

Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 13

© Catholic Earthcare Australia

I held this quote in my heart the first time I read it. I held it in my heart as I prepared to take on a new role as Youth Engagement Officer at Catholic Earthcare Australia, the ecological agency for the Catholic Church in that country. Since accepting this responsibility, I have travelled around Australia, and sometimes the world, as I shared the news of Laudato Si’ with young Catholics like myself. As a 16-year-old, I came to the environmental movement frustrated and heartbroken by the inability of adults to secure for my generation a safe climate future. At 21, I joined the team at Catholic Earthcare Australia, elated to find that Australia was the first country to have a church agency dedicated to care for creation. At 22 and at the end of my initial contract, Jacqui Rémond, the director of Catholic Earthcare Australia, and I created a new role, promoting me as a speaker in Australian Catholic schools, linking care for creation to faith and social justice.

Young Australian Catholics are exactly as Pope Francis described them in Laudato Si’. We are buzzing and aching for change. When I speak with my peers about politics, climate change, and the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, they are irate, as I was, that adults can claim to be creating a better future without properly tackling the anthropocentrism and selfishness that are leading to climate change. They ask me why others are selling us a narrative that we can live lives that so clearly damage the planet, and that these lives are not only desirable and necessary, but also inevitable. When we speak about our lifestyles and how our lives are having progressively stronger impacts on the planet, they don’t ask me, “How can I change?” They ask me, “How can we change?”

Laudato Si’ not only affects what I say, but how I say it. When I can easily get caught up in frustration where I feel like I am screaming into an abyss and where no one is listening or changing, I find comfort in Pope Francis’s words:

How wonderful is the certainty that each human life is not adrift in the midst of hopeless chaos, in a world ruled by pure chance or endlessly recurring cycles! The Creator can say to each one of us: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jer 1:5). We were conceived in the heart of God, and for this reason “each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary” (Laudato Si’, 65).

When we run up against the challenge of a lifestyle that others sell us—and that we sometimes sell ourselves—that things and possessions make us happy and define who we are, it is easy for us to feel insignificant and lost. It’s easy to feel that our actions are futile and that we might succumb to what Pope Francis calls the temptation toward indifference. However, there is nothing like the warm embrace of our loving God to fortify and renew one in the fight for justice and to inspire us towards the globalisation of hope.

Jordan Waters: Preservation for Sustainable Living

by Fr. John Predmore, S.J.

© John Predmore

When human pride explodes, it destroys and exploits nature. Think of water. Water is something precious and very important. Water gives life; it helps us in everything. But to exploit the minerals, which leads to the contamination of water, then messes up the environment and creation is destroyed! This is just an example. There are many more.

Pope Francis, February 22, 2017

I read this quote from a homily by Pope Francis in which he emphasized our care for the environment. It had an immediate effect upon me as I was visiting the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan during a school break. I previously worked in Jordan as the pastor of the English Language parish for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

The World Health Organization ranks Jordan among the lowest in the world for water resource availability per capita, with water scarcity becoming a more menacing challenge as the population doubles and climate changes make precipitation more uncertain and variable. In addition, the desert kingdom hosts over 1 million Syrian refugees and displaced persons, creating an enormous strain on a fragile water infrastructure.

King Abdullah presses on with responsible stewardship as the kingdom uses its gifts to compensate for its deficiencies. The most abundant vital resource is the sun. Under the King’s directives during the past five years, developers and construction companies have been advancing solar energy technologies to produce clean and efficient energy. With long cloudless days, these photocells produce great quantities of energy in the summer and companies are able to apply the excess production toward credits for their energy bills in the colder seasons. Lobbyists are urging the government to create tax deductions for credit incentives if businesses use solar energy, thereby decreasing taxes. Such governmental regulations will spark increased incentives for companies to switch to cleaner energy consumption methods. Additionally, companies are switching from diesel gas to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a low carbon, cleaner alternative source of energy that emits 35 percent less carbon dioxide than coal and costs 12 percent less than oil.

The kingdom has required builders to designate green space within all new construction projects, including exterior building renovations (even for residential apartments); the builder then must get municipality approval for the green space. Vegetation in the desert is sparse; in the city of Amman, it is not uncommon for one walking along a sidewalk to find a tree planted in the middle of the path. The Jordanians do like their trees and bushes and want them planted wherever their growth can be sustainable.

Construction companies extend their good will to residents of the poorer southern parts of the kingdom by building parks in those areas, creating soccer and playing fields, and then planting trees so the fields are shaded from the sun. The Saudis are installing windmills in the barren Arabian desert, and these conserve the desert lifestyle.

When I left Amman for the United States three years ago, I was lamenting the pervasive habit of littering that tarnished the city. Jordanians were always boastful that Amman was the cleanest Arab city, but this littering became a source for shame as they built up their tourism industry. The Amman municipality within the past two years has doubled its efforts in sanitation and trash collection to return the city to a place of pride. The government has removed abandoned cars from sidewalks and parking areas and the residents are caring for their small corners of the city. They are practicing care for their common home and for one another, a commitment to the common good.

© John Predmore

Historical and eco-tourism are burgeoning industries that are showcasing Jordan’s natural resources. The marvels of Petra and Wadi Rum attract foreign visitors to the nation, and smaller gems are appearing on the tourism map, like the Dana Reserve and its Biosphere that sustains a fragile but important arid ecosystem with distinctive threatened wildlife, like Nubian Ibexes, Syrian serins, caracals, and lesser kestrels.

In addition, the Dead Sea will soon come back to life. An extensive project of channeling water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea will replenish the rapidly evaporating waters. Cooperation between the Israeli and Jordanian governments benefits both nations, and Jordan will get a steady supply of potable water for its residents.

Tourism is drawing attention for sport enthusiasts, some who are able to run the Red to Dead Sea marathon, hang-glide through the mountain terrain, spend a spa weekend at the Ma’in Hot Springs, or wade through the Mujib Dam’s tributaries. Tourism companies like Wild Jordan lead eco-tours and sell products that emphasize Jordan’s new interest in preserving its environment.

The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) is a big player in setting new environmental standards. Two impressive efforts are the restoration of the Al Azraq Oasis and rain production in Ajloun (the forests of Gilead).

Jordanians also plan to dam the springs that have fed Al Azraq, an oasis at the intersection of three deserts in the eastern part of the country. This was the winter home to Lawrence of Arabia before his attack on Ottoman Damascus. The wetlands have been shrinking as they have become the primary source of drinking water for the growing metropolis of Amman. A wide variety of birds stop at the reserve each year to rest during their migration routes between Asia and Africa, and Jordanians have reintroduced water buffaloes to the area. While the restoration project is in its initial stages, it is the first of its kind in Jordan and is a real attempt to reverse a destructive trend.

Cloud seeding that uses ionizing technology has yielded promising results, virtually doubling rainfall levels in 17 days of December 2016. The technology mimics sun ionization and uses no chemicals. Ionized particles are 100 times more electrically attracted to water vapor and they form vapor clusters that eventually become raindrops. The technology is new and it has been successful in Australia and the United Arab Emirates; it could reap tremendous benefits for this water-starved kingdom.

I am certain that few Jordanians have heard of Laudato Si, but the people know that, in a land with few life-sustaining water resources, they are prudent to conserve and judiciously manage their precious natural resources. Jordan’s geography encompasses a fertile East Bank of the Jordan River that flows into the saline-saturated Dead Sea, which does not sustain many living organisms. From the lowest elevations to barren rugged mountains surrounded by vast deserts, the presence of water means life.

Jordanians long have forged a delicate balance between human society and the natural world. Their pragmatism requires them to work with their neighbors for sustainability, which increases stability, security, and peace for the region. Their innovation helps them reduce levels of poverty, especially as they struggle to provide for the influx of war refugees. Their spirit of determination makes them a model for other nations and serves as a reminder that the survival and flourishing of humanity is intricately linked to the preservation of the world’s natural resources.

 

Can Market Forces Be Aligned with the Vision of Laudato Si’?

by Stu Dalheim

Perhaps no environmental challenge calls for more urgent action than climate change. If we are to avoid dangerous climate change, science tells us we must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions during the next decades.

Of course, Pope Francis addresses this topic directly in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’:

“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day” (Laudato Si’, 25).

I work in the investment industry and know many people who have welcomed Pope Francis’s clear and forceful call for changes in the way we live as a global community and produce and consume goods in order to slow and very quickly reverse the widespread harm to the environment.

We have seen that the goal of maximizing short-term profits far too often has driven business and investment decisions, with little attention to long-term sustainability or impacts to communities, employees, and the environment.

During my time in the field, however, I have seen a change in how business and investors think about their relationships with the people whose lives they touch and the natural environment.

Take climate change: increasingly business and investors recognize that climate change represents a risk to their own firms and to the global economy. However, they also understand it as a huge opportunity. Growth in renewable energy and energy efficiency is stimulating investment, driving innovation and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, while also curbing the threat of global warming and reducing harmful air pollution.

As the risks and opportunities that climate change represents come into sharper focus, market participants have begun to develop products, change processes, and make commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy. An inspiring example is the business coalition RE100, made up of large companies that have “committed to 100% renewable electricity, working to massively increase demand for—and delivery of—renewable energy.”

It is critical that members of the private sector also have become more willing to make their views public. Since November 2016, more than 1,000 businesses (including major global brands) and investors have signed the Business Backs Low-Carbon USA statement calling on the Trump administration and the new Congress to maintain and strengthen policies that drive clean energy development and arrest climate change.

The Natural Capital Coalition, made up of representatives from a diverse set of fields—including conservation, research, science, accounting, finance, corporate responsibility, and civil society—has come together to facilitate a “vision of a world where business conserves and enhances natural capital.”

The group seeks to help business understand the value of natural capital, including plants, animals, air, water, soils, and minerals, in part by underscoring the benefits that natural capital provides: clean air and water, nutritious food, renewable energy, shelter, medicine, and the raw materials for sustainably designing, producing, and distributing products on which the economy and business depend.

However, one can address a central theme of Laudato Si’ by asking whether these corporate and investor environmental initiatives simply make us feel better without driving the true change we need. Are we simply reducing the harm, while not addressing the underlying problem of an economic system that treats people and the environment simply as exploitable commodities?

While these are important questions to ask, here in the United States, where there cannot be confidence that government will act to protect the environment and uphold human rights, private sector progress in addressing these challenges deserves our attention, support, and encouragement.

Respect for the strengths and limitations of public and private institutions, and their respective spheres of responsibility, is an important part of the vision of Laudato Si, too. We can welcome Pope Francis’s message as an invitation to dedicate talent and tools from the social sciences, including business, alongside the natural sciences, to support his urgent appeal on behalf of integral ecology.

Private sector practices can and must complement governmental, civil society, religious, and other approaches to caring for our common home and one another.

Planting Seeds for the Legacy of Laudato Si’

 

by Christopher G. Kerr

2016 Ignatian Family Teach In for Justice participants share public witness and pray for United States political leaders in Washington, D.C. (© Ignatian Solidarity Network)

Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 13-14

In the wee hours of a June morning in 2015, I awoke at 4 o’clock to begin furiously reading Laudato Si’. As a father with young children, giving up sleep is not a choice I made lightly — I was making a commitment! As I began to sift through the text, I could not help but think about how my three boys, ages three, three, and six at the time, would experience the legacy of this document. How would this collection of words influence a new generation to “care for our common home”? After just a few paragraphs, it was obvious to me that Pope Francis was thinking about this, too.

Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life.

Laudato Si’, 213

In our work at the Ignatian Solidarity Network, we are constantly reflecting on how we can invite a new generation of Catholics to respond to the realities of injustice as contemplative people of action. Laudato Si’ has provided us with a framework to do just this.

Pope Francis frames his invitation in section II of the document to educate “for the covenant between humanity and the environment” by noting that young people “have a new ecological sensitivity and a generous spirit” (209). However, he also cautions that the presence of “extreme consumerism and affluence” create an “educational challenge” (ibid.).

In late 2015, two faculty members from Cheverus High School, a Jesuit coeducational college preparatory school in Portland, Maine, approached our staff with an idea to develop a program to challenge high school students and their institutions to more deeply reflect on the themes of Laudato Si’. As they began to share their ideas for the themes and structure of the program, I was in awe of the ways that the pope’s document was taking hold of these educators and leading them to respond to this “educational challenge” in ways that could impact young people and their schools for generations to come.

Grounded in various themes of Laudato Si’, the resulting Ignatian Carbon Challenge responds to our current ecological context, the needs of the global community, and Pope Francis’s call to practice responsible stewardship for creation by demonstrating care for it. The program invites both individuals and institutions to address climate change and environmental justice through a series of monthly challenges arranged in eight categories that coincide with themes of Laudato Si’: consumerism, transport, person-to-person interaction, relationship with the earth, energy, food, intellectual understanding, and prayer.

To date, nearly 4,000 students and upwards of 35 Catholic high schools across the United States and Canada are participating. Program leaders are collecting, analyzing, and sharing the results of participants’ ability to meet the challenges so that others can learn from their commitment. Will these young men and women change the world with their actions alone? Likely not. However the Ignatian Carbon Challenge is responding to the invitation to “plant seeds” and engage young people in a “new dialogue” of care for our common home and one another.