Laudato Si’ – Care of Our Common Home

by Honora Nolty, OP

Sister Honora, spiritual advisor to RENEW International, shares with CUSANs some thoughts for reflection, prayer, and—if possible— action in response to the encyclical and initiatives by Pope Francis.

It seems you can’t turn on the news these days without hearing something about the critical state of planet Earth. Unusual winds, blistering temperatures, rising seas, tornadoes, floods, forest fires, and the list goes on. Our home–Earth–is in crisis. Scientists around the globe concur that human use and abuse of the natural world and consumerism run rampant are the primary causes.

In May of 2015, Pope Francis published Laudato Si’, an encyclical letter to the world about the status of the earth. According to theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, this is the most important encyclical in the history of the Catholic Church. The first encyclical on social teaching was Rerum Novarum, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, and there have been subsequent ones, all important and challenging. However, Laudato Si’ not only analyzes the danger that the ecological crisis poses to all life on the planet, but it also connects this crisis with human

misery of poverty and social injustice. The two are integrally intertwined throughout the encyclical as are suggested ways forward.

What is so new and challenging about Laudato Si’ is that it calls us to a new understanding of who God is and a realization that the human race is not the center of the universe.

In May of 2021, Pope Francis initiated the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. In this initiative, he invites all people of good will to join a seven-year effort to turn climate change around; to make a plan for oneself, one’s family, and one’s community to take action that will impact, for the better, our natural world. He encourages us to make a plan for one year and then update and add to it each year for the next seven years.

As individuals, we are invited to do what we can do given our personal circumstances. No effort is too small. Some may choose to pray for world leaders that they might have the wisdom and courage to pass meaningful legislation to restore and protect the environment and to lead all persons to care for our common home. Others might decide to pray for the success of the groups throughout the world that are working on climate change projects. Some may decide to study and learn more about Laudato Si’.

Recycling more consistently, using re-usable glass containers rather than plastic, turning off lights and computers when they are not in use, not running