Last month, I attended a national ecclesial gathering which brought together lay leaders, religious, scholars, bishops, and priests to delve more deeply into Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si and its attendant call to ecological conversion and ecological stewardship. Released in 2015, this groundbreaking document was promulgated ahead of the Paris Climate Summit in an effort to galvanize global support toward collective action in sustaining our planet and its fragile environment. This past October, near the beginning of the Synod on Synodality in Rome, Pope Francis promulgated Laudate Deum, which repeated the urgent warning from eight years ago that our planet’s habitability is in danger and thus requires a response that is intentional, integral, and sustained.
Below, I offer some key takeaways from this informative gathering. I wish to also offer a few words about Laudato Si and the witness of our modern popes – the consistency of which, both in the area of Catholic social teaching and environmental stewardship, has been compelling. I come away from this gathering inspired to do more as a pastor and professor in response to climate change and its attendant pernicious effects. In addition to this blog piece, an upcoming episode of The Basilica of Saint Mary’s new podcast will feature a conversation I recently had with two parishioners who work in the area of environmental justice and conservation.
In the summer of 2017, I was afforded the opportunity to teach in an international summer law program at a Catholic law school in Budapest. The topic of the program was sustainability and law. I was tasked with providing a primer on Catholic social teaching and the Church’s teaching on environmental ethics and sustainability. Our primary text for my section of the course was Laudato Si. It is a sprawling text rich in theological reflection and practical wisdom. Many point to Laudato Si’s emphasis on integral ecology as its primary novel contribution to this vital discussion. I don’t disagree with this claim, but I was as impressed by the fact that the document marshaled robust teaching from the world’s episcopal conferences, especially those most adversely affected by climate change.
Pope Francis also made good use of the wisdom of his predecessor popes – including persuasive quotes on the call the ecological conversion and stewardship from Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. Benedict’s crisp section (CIV, 48-52) on the environment in Caritas In Vertiate is a master class on the issue and contains many of the themes that Francis more fully develops in Laudato Si, including the call to intergenerational solidarity and justice.
The other thing that struck me from this opportunity to engage with international Catholic law students was the fact that the non-American law students were much more conversant than American students in the soil and ethos of Catholic social teaching (CST). After an intense section on the foundations of CST and environmental ethics, one of the exam questions I asked was whether the decision by the United States to pull out, at the time, of the Parish Climate Agreement was consistent with the global common good. The answer seemed obvious to most of the students and the professor, but the key to a good law school exam answer is in the analysis. Memorably, two women aced the final – one from Nigeria and the other from Indonesia. Also memorable was the answer of one student who remarked in conclusion that not only was the decision to pull out of the Parish Climate Agreement contrary to the global common good, it will also not make America great again!