Will you join Pope Francis in the call for climate action?

Pope Francis released an unprecedented and universal call to action on climate change in a letter to over 5000 bishops and 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide.

Call upon the faith leaders in your community to join the call for climate action.

The Vatican’s stance couldn’t be clearer: climate change impacts us all, especially the poor. And to prevent its catastrophic consequences we need an ethical and economic shift, a revolution in hearts and minds. Pope Francis’s encyclical letter puts the link between climate change and human activity centre stage at a crucial moment for the climate movement:
"Humanity is called to create awareness of the need to change styles of life, production and consumption, to combat this warming or, at least, the human causes that produce or accentuate it.” With this extraordinary call to safeguard the earth and mankind’s common good, it’s time for faith leaders across the planet to add their voice to the chorus calling for climate action. And this can start with your own community:

Ask the faith leaders in your community to join the call for climate action.

Pope Francis has now joined a chorus of faith groups, businesses, and government leaders who recognize that climate change is a massive threat to our planet and its people. We need all voices speaking out about the moral urgency of climate action to help push world leaders for a transition from burning the fossil fuels responsible for fuelling the climate madness we’re experiencing.
The encyclical is an historic, faith-led call to action for millions to stand together against climate change — a moral issue we can’t ignore. The more voices in the chorus, the stronger the signal we’ll send to government leaders meeting in Paris later this year to set a climate agreement.
The louder we become, the bolder we’ll make the case for our home, our planet, and our future.

Please urge your faith leader to join the call for climate action.

Encyclical Letter: Laudato si’ on Care for our Common Home
 

Laudato si’ - On the Care for our Common Home is the Pope’s Encyclical Letter on the environment and human ecology.

Download to read for yourself here:
Laudato si’ 556.55 kB
Laudato si’ – Summary 223.57 kB

View online here: w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Pope Francis challenges us to consider the kind of world we want to leave to those who come after us. It’s not just an ‘environment encyclical’, it leads us to ask ourselves about the meaning of existence and the values at the heart of social life: “What is the purpose of our life in this world? What is the goal of our work and all our efforts? What need does the earth have of us?”

Pope Francis, quoting Pope Saint John Paul II, reminds us that, as Christians, we are called to be responsible custodians of creation:

“Christians in their turn ‘realise that their responsibility within creation, and their duty towards nature and the Creator, are an essential part of their faith’”.

The Encyclical is divided into six chapters.

It starts by presenting the current situation based on the best scientific findings available today (Chapter one), followed by a review of the Bible and Judeo-Christian tradition
(Chapter 2).
The root of the problems in technocracy and in an excessive self-centeredness of human being are analysed in Chapter 3.
In Chapter 4, the Encyclical then proposes an “integral ecology, which clearly respects its human and social dimensions”, inextricably linked to the environmental question.
With this in mind, Pope Francis proposes to initiate an honest dialogue at every level of social, economic and political life, that builds transparent decision-making processes (Chapter 5).
In the final chapter, recalling that no project can be effective if it is not animated by a formed and responsible conscience, ideas are put forth to aid growth in this direction at the educational, spiritual, ecclesial, political and theological levels.
The text ends with two prayers. One offered for sharing with everyone who believes in “God who is the all powerful Creator”, and the other to those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, punctuated by the refrain “Praise be to you!” which opens and closes the Encyclical.
Several central themes run through the text that are addressed from a variety of different perspectives, thus traversing and unifying the text:

• the intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet
• the conviction that everything in the world is connected
• the critique of new paradigms and forms of power derived from technology
• the call to seek other ways of understanding the economy and progress
• the value proper to each creature
• the human meaning of ecology
• the need for forthright and honest debate
• the serious responsibility of international and local policy
• the throwaway culture and the proposal of a new lifestyleChapter List

Bishop Declan, Chair of the Bishop’s Conference Department for International Affairs, said of the Encyclical letter:
I welcomed the recent encyclical of the Holy Father Francis: Laudato si’ – On the Care for our Common Home. 
Pope Francis’s significant encyclical reminds us of our common humanity and our part in the whole of creation.
I think this is a due reminder to us all of the responsibility that we have towards one and other and the whole environment and its well-being. To have a love for humanity is to have a love for the environment and to have a true love for the environment is to love humanity.
The Pope calls us to have an honest look at our lifestyle and to see in which areas we need to change. Two areas he points out is the waste of food, and the suffocating of our sensitivity towards others, which can arise through consumerism.
He calls upon Governments to act for the common good both towards its own citizens and towards the other nations of our world. He reminds us that man is more than an economic unit and we need to recapture a deeper sense of what it is to be human.
 
Chapter One
What is Happening to our Common Home
Chapter Two
The Gospel of Creation
Chapter Three
The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis
Chapter Four
Integral Ecology
Chapter Five
Lines of Approach and Action
Chapter Six
Ecological Education and Spirituality
Download
You can download a 10-page PDF summary that will guide you through an initial reading of the Encyclical and the full Encyclical Laudato si’ by using the links below or to the right of this article.
Laudato si’ 556.55 kB
Laudato si’ – Summary 223.57 kB
Purchase
If you want to buy a hard copy of Laudato si’, you can pre-order from the Catholic Truth Society. Click to purchase for £4.95.
ISBN: 9781784690700
Section
catholicnews.org.uk/laudato-si
Our full web section for the Encyclical Letter Laudato si’.