Laudato Si'

Pope Francis's 2015 environmental encyclical — "On Care for Our Common Home"

Tradition: Catholic-Thomistic / Catholic environmental social teaching

Pope Francis's 2015 environmental encyclical — the first papal encyclical on ecological-climate questions

Promulgated 24 May 2015 (the eve of Pentecost), 'Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home' is Pope Francis's second encyclical and the first major papal teaching document devoted to ecology and the environment. The title is taken from Francis of Assisi's 'Canticle of the Sun' ('Laudato si', mi Signore' — 'Praise be to you, my Lord'). The encyclical is in six chapters: (I) What is happening to our common home — the empirical-scientific assessment of contemporary environmental degradation, climate change, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and the planetary-scale damage of industrial-consumerist civilisation; (II) The Gospel of Creation — the biblical-theological foundation for Christian environmental stewardship; (III) The human roots of the ecological crisis — the philosophical-cultural roots of the technological-consumerist orientation Francis calls 'the technocratic paradigm'; (IV) Integral ecology — the linking of environmental, social, economic, and cultural ecology in a single integrated vision; (V) Lines of approach and action — practical-policy proposals at international, national, local, and individual levels; (VI) Ecological education and spirituality. The encyclical's distinctive theoretical contribution is the concept of 'integral ecology' — the insistence that environmental crisis cannot be separated from poverty, economic inequality, technological displacement, and cultural-spiritual impoverishment. It draws on Latin-American liberation-theological currents (especially Leonardo Boff's ecological-liberation thought), the broader Catholic-social-teaching tradition, scientific consensus on climate change, and Eastern Orthodox theological resources (Bartholomew I's environmental teaching is cited extensively). Laudato Si' has been called the most important religious-philosophical statement on the environmental crisis from any major world religious leader; it shaped the run-up to the December 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.