Ten Quick Takeaways from Laudato Si'
Anthony Annett
June 18, 2015
1.
The encyclical strongly affirms the climate
science and the gravity of the environmental
challenge. The pope states clearly that the recent
global warming is due to greenhouse gas emissions,
caused mainly by human activity. He delves into the
science, and even discusses risk factors like ocean
acidification, the loss of tropical forests, and the
release of methane from melting ice sheets. He calls
climate change one of the principal challenges facing
humanity in our day. Overall, the discussion of the
environmental threats is deep and wide-ranging, with
discussions of water, ecosystems, and biodiversity. In
places, the diagnosis is characteristically blunt: “the
earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more
like an immense pile of filth”.
2.
In the face of this crisis, the pope lambasts
those who fail to act. Noting the failure to find
solutions to the environmental crisis, Pope Francis
pins the blame on obstruction by vested interests,
general indifference, and blind confidence in technical
solutions. He is particularly critical of people who
possess more resources or more political and
economic power, who seem concerned with “masking
the problems or concealing their symptoms”. He notes
that special interests trump the common good and
manipulate information so that their own plans will
not be affected. He criticizes a habit of evasiveness
designed to feed “self-destructive vices”.
3.
The encyclical calls for a dramatic reduction
in the emission of greenhouse gases, and for rich
countries to help poorer countries on this path. It
notes that fossil fuels need to be “progressively and
quickly replaced” with renewables. This requires
action at the global, national, and local levels. Given
the complete failure of governments to reach
agreement almost a quarter century after the Rio Earth
summit in 1992, the pope notes that “we believers
cannot fail to ask God for a positive outcome to the
present discussions”. Noting that the poor pay the
price for climate change—and indeed, that an
“ecological debt” exists between north and south—
Pope Francis also calls for the richer countries, who
have enjoyed prosperity at the cost of polluting the
planet, to help the poorer countries overcome climate
change and move to lower-carbon energy systems.
4.
The pope offers a beautiful meditation on the
profound interconnected of all creation. Drawing
deeply on the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope
Francis notes that everything is interconnected,
including time and space, and even atoms or
subatomic particles. All life is part of a network that
we will never truly explore or understand. We are part
of nature, and living things have a value of their own
in God’s eyes; all creatures have their own purpose.
The pope affirms a strong sacramental view of
creation: “soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it
were, a caress of God”. There is a “mystical meaning
to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop,
in a poor person’s face”. In a particularly beautiful
passage, he notes that we are “united as brothers and
sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by
the love God has for each of his creatures, and which
also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister
moon, brother river, and mother earth”.
5.
Drawing on this interconnectedness, the pope
affirms an integral ecology of humanity and all
creation. Pope Francis grounds human life in three
intertwined relationships—with God, with our
neighbor, and with the earth itself. If one of these
relationships is ruptured, then the others are ruptured
too. The implication is that there are not separate
social and economic crises, but one socio-economic
crisis, and that we need to hear “both the cry of the
earth and the cry of the poor”. When the environment
is degraded, including through climate change, it is
the poor who suffer most. And when we fail to respect
the worth of a poor person, a disabled person, or an
embryo, it also becomes hard to hear the cry of nature.
In this context, the pope emphasizes the traditional
teachings on the universal destination of goods,
solidarity, distributive justice, and the preferential
option for the poor—stressing that private property
always comes with a social mortgage, and that the
environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all
humanity. There is also a strong emphasis on justice
between generations, and he calls for both
intergenerational and intragenerational solidarity.
6.
The encyclical issues a jeremiad against the
human behavior at the heart of the ecological
crisis, especially the individualistic mindset. It lays
the blame for environmental degradation on the
ideology of power and profit, the theology of
domination and dominion. Pope Francis warns about
the abuses of technology, which can let people
dominate humanity and the entire world, meaing that
conquest and confrontation trump solidarity and
mutual responsibility. The pope notes that the
“modern anthropocentrism” at the root of the crisis
itself can flow from a flawed Christian theology that
stresses mastery and dominion. And when people put
themselves at the center, all that matters is their own
immediate needs. In this context, the pope rails
against the “rampant individualism” in our society, the
“self-centered culture of instant gratification”, and the
tendency toward “collective selfishness”. He reprises
his critique of the throwaway culture and the tendency
to treat people as mere objects, leading to the scourge
of modern slavery and human trafficking. He
denounces the “utilitarian mindset” that leads to
individualism, competition, consumerism, and free
market ideology. He notes that freedom today is
reduced to “freedom to consume”. And he draws a
connection between claims to absolute power over our
own bodies and claims to absolute power over
creation.
7.
The encyclical calls on the global economy to
prioritize people and the planet over profits. Over
and over, the pope rails against the idea that the
market alone can protect the environment and ensure
social inclusion and integral human development—he
refers to such erroneous thinking as the “magical
conception of the market”. He also issues a strong
condemnation of the “absolute power of the financial
system” that “overwhelms the real economy”—a
system that still lacks an ethical foundation and still
threatens the world with crisis. The business world is
called out for short-term thinking and for an obsession
with maximizing profit. Instead, business should be
seen as a noble vocation that serves the common
good, especially by prioritizing employment over
short-term financial gain. This is a vital point for
Francis and he devotes an entire section to it, as work
is “part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to
growth, human development, and personal
fulfillment”. He calls on business the pay the full
social and economic costs associated with their
activities, and notes that investments in sustainability
can actually be profitable. But he warns business not
to reduce sustainability to “a series of marketing and
image-enhancing measures”.
8.
The encyclical has a strong ecumenical
flavor. In light of the global nature of environmental
degradation, Pope Francis addresses the encyclical to
“every living person on the planet”. Right up front,
the pope quotes His All-Holiness, Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew, and we know that a
representative of his was part of the launch this
morning. The encyclical also quotes a Muslim mystic,
Ali Al-Khawas. The pope notes that other religions
express similar environmental concerns, and he calls
for “religions to dialogue among themselves for the
sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and
building networks of respect and fraternity”. And he
ends the encyclical with two prayers—one for
Christians, and one for all who believe in a Creator.
9.
The encyclical shows a pope with practical
experience of the lives of the poor. Francis devotes a
whole section to the “ecology of daily life”, where he
paints a vivid portrait of urban life in the developing
world—poverty, crime, shanty towns, derelict
buildings, congestion, pollution, a feeling of
uprootedness, lack of public transportation, the sense
of asphyxiation from dense population. At the same
time, he praises the poor for practicing “a
commendable human ecology” despite hardships—by
close and cordial relationships and by taking care of
the interiors of homes, even if the outside is ugly. In
this way, “any place can turn from being a hell on
earth into the setting for a dignified life”. He calls for
urban improvements, and for better integration of
different parts of a city.
10. The pope calls for an ecological conversion.
Policy is not enough, we also need a profound interior
conversion. This calls for the cultivation of new
virtues that emphasize “ecological citizenship”—
interior motivation and personal transformation rather
than just external laws and regulations. Inculcating
new habits requires ecological education in schools,
families, catechesis, the media, and elsewhere. But
self-improvement by individuals is not enough—the
pope calls for a “community conversion too”, based
on gratitude and gratuitousness, and a loving
awareness that we are joined to creation in a “splendid
universal communion”. This is central to what it
means to be a Christian. As the pope puts it, “living
our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is
essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or
secondary aspect of our Christian experience”