Pope Francis released ‘Laudate Deum’, his apostolic exhortation on the climate crisis, on the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. Officially titled, ‘Laudate Deum: To all the People of Good Will on the Climate Crisis’, the exhortation has been commonly awaited as the ‘sequel’ to his ‘groundbreaking’ exhortation, ‘Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home [2015].

For Pope Francis, climate change is the single most pressing issue for all humanity and it reflects a cultural, ideological and spiritual problem, in which we fail to see ourselves as part of creation. At the heart of the climate crisis is the anthropocentric world view held by polluters entrenched in a technocratic paradigm. For when, as human beings, we think we can be substitutes for God, we become our own worst enemies, endanger everyone and, ultimately, lose the game.

Pope Francis calls us to humbly praise our Creator for the abundance and beauty bestowed on us. He asks us to pray for help to shift the status quo and move circles of influence to a new paradigm so that we can do justice to each other and heal our common home.

Laudate Deum is Latin for ‘Praise God’. The title is the essence of Pope Francis’ message in which, in a less kind nutshell, is this:-

As humans we are now too big for our boots, we need to stop seeing ourselves as masters of our domain, but as an intrinsic part of it; we are removed from nature and need to rekindle a sense of awe and wonder for the beauty of this planet which we did not create and do not own; climate change is real, it is caused by humans and there is no point in denying it; people with money and power have no more right to the world’s resources than anyone else; we need to remedy the impact of human-caused global warming, especially on the world’s most vulnerable people, and this will mean people in the developed world will need to live with less; we can’t solve all of our problems with technological solutions, but we can start with shifting our values, changing our lifestyle, living humbly and, of course, with prayer.

Read  pdf Laudate Deum (174 KB) .