Pope Francis's powerful call to ecological action

The late pope wrote with fluency about the ways in which our consumer obsessed culture has been driving Earth’s planetary systems toward collapse

Pope France at Áras an Uachtaráin with President Michael D Higgins and Sabina Higgins in 2018 where he planted an Irish oak tree. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Values of a society shift and adjust through time. The evolution of cultural perspectives is shaped by major institutions, by scholars, rebels and civil society movements. Pope Francis has been a leader who did much to evolve the values of our society, pushing towards an eco-centric outlook in which care for all people and care for all of creation are invited back in to the core of our shared cultural values.

I myself am not, and never have been, a religious person. However, I remember being intrigued when, in 2015, Laudato Si’ was published. In this eloquent, philosophical and comprehensive encyclical, Pope Francis wrote with fluency about the ways in which our consumer obsessed culture has been driving Earth’s planetary systems toward collapse. ‘Laudato Si’ — Encyclical letter of the holy father Francis on care for our common home’ is a powerful call for a global ecological ‘conversion’, for new ways of living that take responsibility for the health and wellbeing of all creatures, as well as for the most vulnerable people on the planet.

Cuidemos la creación, don de nuestro buen Dios Creador. Celebremos juntos la Semana Laudato si’. #LaudatoSi5 https://t.co/HVAEc5x7tW https://t.co/2s1MsUNWIG

— Papa Francisco – ARCHIVO (@Pontifex266_es) May 16, 2020

Pope Francis writes with stunning insight about almost every key environmental issue of the 21st century, whilst continually pairing these challenges with the intrinsic injustices that arise from ecological destruction. From the outset, ‘Mother Earth’ is referred to as ‘sustaining and governing us’, a significant shift from the perspective that creation was a gift to man, a set of resources to subdue, control and exploit. He discusses in depth the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation on the poor and vulnerable, a core moral imperative to urgently tackle to both the biodiversity and the climate crisis.

There are many radical statements in the encyclical, such as how “the cult of unlimited human power.... sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate interests". The encyclical is critical of how we prioritise economic growth over ecological and human well-being and states that “the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth.”

Pope Francis and Israeli President Shimon Peres (R), Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (2ndR) and Patriarch Bartholomaios I plant an olive tree during a peace invocation prayer at the Vatican Gardens in 2014. During his visit to the Holy Land Pope Francis invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to attend. Picture: Vatican Pool/Getty Images

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis also goes into the specifics of the harm and abuse we have inflicted on Earth's natural systems. There is much about living oceans, including strong critiques of practices such as fisheries discards; overfishing; and the specific means by which coral reefs are being destroyed. The encyclical calls for more countries to establish “sanctuaries on land and in the oceans” in order to preserve and restore their ecological integrity, echoing global campaigns for Marine Protected Areas that have been gaining momentum over the past two decades. It even goes so far as to call for the shortfalls in “the system of governance of the oceans” and how “the lack of strict mechanisms of regulation, control and penalization” undermine these efforts to protect oceanic “global commons”.

In the encyclical, Pope Francis presents impressive detail about the deficits of environmental regulation and participation in decision making, stating how, in assessing technological innovations, “profit cannot be the sole criterion to be taken into account”.

When it comes to the global balance of power, his language is forthright, calling out the pervasive extreme inequality that now characterises the world and how this manifests in the destruction of Earths ecosystems. He refers, for example, to “those richly biodiverse lungs of our planet which are the Amazon and the Congo basins” and how plans to further exploit these vital planetary systems “only serve the economic interests of transnational corporations”.

He states that “politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy”, words that are at least as necessary today as they were ten years ago.

Especially relevant in debates taking place currently about the role of private investment and market driven conservation is his statement that “the environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces”.

The role of civil society is held up as being integral to resolving the challenges of environmental and social injustice. Examples such as the power and efficacy of movements that boycott certain products are noted.

This is a momentous work, packed with compelling calls for a profound transformation in the attitudes and behaviours that are embedded in our culture. Pope Francis has been loud and clear in urging wider recognition of the moral imperative to care for all life on Earth and in mass collective action required to change the status quo.

In the 10 years since Laudato Si’ came out, I have often asked religious lay people about its teachings and whether they are filtering in to the messages of the Church here in Ireland or elsewhere. Few had ever heard of it. Pope Francis’s intended legacy, his “urgent appeal” for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet, does not appear to have had much of an influence on the conversations taking place at congregational level.

His eloquent plea for all his followers to become strong advocates for the Earth has, however, prompted a global grassroots movement around Laudato Si’, celebrating the legacy of Pope Francis.

One of the movements founding members is Scottish–Irish Dr Lorna Gold, a Maynooth-based academic and author and leading voice in climate justice movement in Ireland and beyond. In January of this year, Dr Gold became the executive director of the worldwide Laudato Si’ Movement.

There is hope yet that the depth of compassion and ecological wisdom embodied by Pope Francis throughout his life will be capably carried forward by the Laudato Si’ Movement, especially in combination with other civil society movements working to effect the transformative changes that are necessary to care for our common home.

There is hope, too, that “all people”, whom Pope Francis so eloquently addressed his wisdom toward, will be able to overcome individualism, to take urgent action for justice and peace, and awaken a new reverence for life.