(ANS - Vatican City) - "The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.” So says Pope Francis in paragraph 13 of his encyclical Laudato si.

This is an encyclical on the environment and ecology, but it is not limited exclusively to these issues. It starts from an analysis of "various aspects of the current ecological crisis," and repeats "arguments arising from the Judeo-Christian tradition", to identify "the specific place that the human being occupies in this world ".

For this reason the Pope's encyclical is addressed not only to people of Catholic faith, but to a broader audience. It is ecumenical - with references to the contributions of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew - and in a broad sense also universal, because of its concern for the care of our common home. “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all."

The papal text consists of six chapters, preceded by an introduction. It concludes with two prayers, one for the earth and the other a Christian prayer in union with creation.

The first chapter is entitled What is Happening to our Common Home. The Pope repeatedly condemns the throwaway culture that affects humanity and the entire planet. The second chapter is entitled The Gospel of Creation. It is a reminder of the Judeo-Christian theology of Creation, while in the third, The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis the Pope asks for “an integral ecology, which does not exclude human beings”.

In the fourth chapter Integral ecology, the focus shifts to “the moral law, which is inscribed in our nature.”  

In the fifth chapter Lines of Approach and Action, the Holy Father calls for dialogue, transparency in decision-making and a return to the centrality of the human being as ways to escape from the throwaway culture. In the last chapter Ecological Education and Spirituality the Pope asks for the formation of an "ecological citizenship" based on a renewed alliance between humankind and the environment. This can come about through education and the rediscovery of nature and creation as manifestations of divine love, but also through a return to the sacraments, "a privileged way in which nature is taken up by God," and Sunday as a day of rest and celebration.

Published 19/06/2015