Pope Francis released Laudate Deum (Praise God) on Oct. 4 – the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The letter focuses on the worldwide climate crisis, which he notes has become a matter of grave concern, needs immediate attention and requires global cooperation.
It has been eight years since the release of Laudato Si, the pope’s encyclical on caring for our common home, the planet earth. During those years, he notes that the reactions and steps taken to address the worldwide climate crisis have been increasingly insufficient.
Laudato Si invited us to listen to "both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” he said, adding that Laudate Deum focuses on the climate crisis. “Please bring it to your people and their leaders,” he asked bishops around the world.
In the new letter, Pope Francis said that personal experiences and scientific evidence show us that “the climate crisis is overwhelming” and has caused suffering. Global governance has been disappointing in its ability to adequately address the issue. He questions what is the way forward with the “little time we have left?” The solution is personal changes, cultural changes, alliances, global agreements and multilateralism with real authority … and walking together in the same direction, he said.
Climate change is undeniable, the pope said, and its effects are becoming more evident. Despite some attempts to minimize or ridicule them, he calls the reality “pressing” and says human activity is the main cause of the situation. Also, the speed with which catastrophes or natural phenomena deepen made them irreversible in many cases. Although all damage may not be able to be corrected, the pope said measures still could be taken to avoid more serious damage.
We should begin by accepting “some responsibility for the inheritance we will leave behind us after our passage in this world.” Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, he said if we learned anything from that experience, it is the close relationship with other living beings and the environment. “Everything is connected” and “no one is saved alone,” he writes.
We may think that technology and economic power can solve all the problems, as if “our capabilities and possibilities could be expanded to infinity thanks to technology.” He said it’s worth asking ourselves in whose hands is and can so much power lie. “It is tremendously risky that it resides in a small part of humanity,” he said. The pope notes that we are so immersed in what he calls a “technocratic paradigm” that we believe nature is a resource to be exploited and we forget, in our ambition, that we are an intrinsic part of it.
The pope warns that we must rethink our use of power and recognize that excessive ambition is not ethically sustainable. If we allow ourselves to be carried away by a “logic of maximum profit at the lowest cost … it makes any sincere concern for the common home impossible.”
Global cooperation is essential to address the climate crisis, he said, The upcoming COP28 in Dubai, sponsored by the United Nations, could be an important turning point if it demonstrates that the efforts since 1992 have been genuine.
“We need to overcome the tendency to look for isolated technical solutions,” the pope said. Those who need to intervene must think of the common good, of the future of their children “rather than the circumstantial interests of some countries or companies,” he added, because “what is the point of preserving today a power that will be remembered for its inability to intervene when it was urgent and necessary to do so?”
He asks everyone to react, noting the Catholic faithful are reminded of their faith in God and their responsibility to care for God’s creation. This responsibility implies “respecting the laws of nature and recognizing the beauty and richness of divine creation.” The pope invites us to walk in communion together, synodally, and to work for “reconciliation with the world that shelters us.”
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, a Cleveland native and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement welcoming Pope Francis’ new exhortation on the environment. Read it here.
Click here to read more about Laudato Deum from Vatican News and to see an accompanying video