Reflections on Caring for Our Common Home

A new resource guide is now available for SSNDs, Associates, staff and all people of good will looking to take action to address the climate emergency and ecological crisis. This guide contains a brief overview of Laudato Si’, as well as suggested changes to make in your life to promote stewardship of creation and resources for further learning. Best of all, this guide can be easily shared with others. View the guide here.

Learn more about Laudato Si’ and ways to build a better future together at ssnd.org/shalom/laudato-si.

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality

222. Christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption. We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that “less is more”.

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality

221. Various convictions of our faith, developed at the beginning of this Encyclical can help us to enrich the meaning of this conversion. These include the awareness that each creature reflects something of God and has a message to convey to us, and the security that Christ has taken unto himself for this material world and now, risen, is intimately present to each being, surrounding it with his affection and penetrating it with his light.

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality 5

213, 214. Ecological education can take place in a variety of settings: at school, in families, in the media, in catechesis and elsewhere.... Political institutions and various other social groups are also entrusted with helping to raise people’s awareness. So too is the Church...

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality 4

210. Whereas in the beginning it [environmental education] was mainly centred on scientific information, consciousness-raising and the prevention of environmental risks, it tends now to include a critique of the “myths” of a modernity grounded in a utilitarian mindset (individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market). 

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality 3

208. Disinterested concern for others, and the rejection of every form of self-centeredness and self-absorption, are essential if we truly wish to care for our brothers and sisters and for the natural environment. These attitudes also attune us to the moral imperative of assessing the impact of our every action and personal decision on the world around us. 

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality 2

206. A change in lifestyle could bring healthy pressure to bear on those who wield political, economic and social power. ... When social pressure affects their earnings, businesses clearly have to find ways to produce differently. This shows us the great need for a sense of social responsibility on the part of consumers.

Laudato Si’ - Ecological Education and Spirituality

202. Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change.... A great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge stands before us, and it will demand that we set out on the long path of renewal.

Laudato Si’ - Lines of Approach and Action 5

200-201. If a mistaken understanding of our own principles has at times led us to justify mistreating nature, to exercise tyranny over creation, to engage in war, injustice and acts of violence, we believers should acknowledge that by so doing we were not faithful to the treasures of wisdom which we have been called to protect and preserve.... 

Laudato Si’ - Lines of Approach and Action 4

195. The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from other considerations, reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is given to whether it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the environment...

Laudato Si’ - Lines of Approach and Action 3

182. 188. An assessment of the environmental impact of business ventures and projects demands transparent political processes involving a free exchange of views.... I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.

Laudato Si’- Lines of Approach and Action 2024

178. The myopia of power politics delays the inclusion of a far-sighted environmental agenda within the overall agenda of governments.... True statecraft is manifest when, in difficult times, we uphold high principles and think of the long-term common good. Political powers do not find it easy to assume this duty in the work of nation-building.

Laudato Si’ - Lines of Approach and Action

164. An interdependent world not only makes us more conscious of the negative effects of certain lifestyles and models of production and consumption ..., it motivates us to ensure that solutions are proposed from a global perspective...

Laudato Si’ - Integral Ecology January 5th 2024

159, 162. The notion of the common good also extends to future generations. … Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us. ...many problems of society are connected with today’s fast-paced culture of instant gratification.

Laudato Si' - Integral Ecology December 29th 2023

156-157. An integral ecology is inseparable from the notion of the common good... the common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues.

Laudato Si' - Integral Ecology December 22-2023

147. Authentic development includes efforts to bring about an integral improvement in the quality of human life, and this entails considering the setting in which people live their lives. These settings influence the way we think, feel and act. ...

Reading Laudato Si’ - Integral Ecology

#141. Economic growth, for its part, tends to produce predictable reactions and a certain standardization with the aim of simplifying procedures and reducing costs. This suggests the need for an “economic ecology” ... The protection of the environment is in fact “an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it”. …

Laudate Deum - December 1st 2023

60. May those taking part in the Conference be strategists capable of considering the common good and the future of their children, more than the short-term interests of certain countries or businesses. In this way, may they demonstrate the nobility of politics and not its shame. 

Laudate Deum - November 2023

69 – 70. I cannot deny ... the most effective solutions will not come from individual efforts alone, but above all from major political decisions on the national and international level...Nonetheless, every little bit helps, ... there are no lasting changes without cultural changes, ... and there are no cultural changes without personal changes.

Laudate Deum - November 17th 2023

[44-52: Review of the Climate Conferences] 44. For several decades now, representatives of more than 190 countries have met periodically to address the issue of climate change. ... (52) “international negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which place their national interests above the global common good.”

Laudate Deum - November 10th 2023

38, 43. “unless citizens control political power – national, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment”... there would necessarily be required spaces for conversation, consultation ... conflict resolution ... and, in the end, a sort of increased “democratization” in the global context, so that the various situations can be expressed and included.   

Laudate Deum - November 3rd 2023

We look at Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation up until the start of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference (COP28) on November 30 in Dubai. 

Laudate Deum - October 27th 2023

27. Human groupings have often “created” an environment, [20] reshaping it in some way without destroying it or endangering it. The great present-day problem is that the technocratic paradigm has destroyed that healthy and harmonious relationship. ... We need to rethink among other things the question of human power, its meaning and its limits.
Continued