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Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ Call to Ecological Conversion: Responding to the Cry of the Earth and the Poor—Towards an Integral Ecology

Part of: The Pope’s Encyclical and Climate Change Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Ileana M. Porras
Ileana M. Porras*
Affiliation:
University of Miami School of Law
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The recent Encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, is a remarkable document, both original and continuous within the tradition of Catholic social doctrine. Emerging from and grounded in a very specific religious tradition and constrained by the peculiar encyclical literary form, the document nonetheless seeks to open a dialogue with “every person living on this planet,” about care for our common home. Using the urgency of addressing global climate change as its point of departure, the Encyclical does a superb job summarizing the scope of the present environmental crisis and the disproportionate harms suffered by vulnerable populations of the poor and excluded. It also provides a careful analysis of the root causes of environmental degradation, mapping out the complex linkages and tensions between globalization, economic growth, liberalized trade, unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, environmental degradation, involuntary migration, immiseration and growing inequality. In this respect, the Encyclical, may well come to serve as a useful position paper for the upcoming Paris climate change negotiations or as a background text for a course on climate change or sustainable development. Yet, properly understood, this is not its true purpose. Rather, in its deepest sense, the Encyclical is an appeal to all of humanity to listen to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” to reject the “throwaway” culture of consumerism, and to embrace a culture of care and a commitment to pursue integral ecology. It is, in other words, a call to ecological conversion: a call addressed not only to individuals but also to individuals-in-community.

Type
Symposium: The Pope’s Encyclical and Climate Change Policy
Information
AJIL Unbound , Volume 109 , 2015 , pp. 136 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2015

References

1 Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home, para. 21 (2015).

2 Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004).

3 Pope Francis, supra note 1, at para. 3.

4 Id. at para. 49.

5 Id. at para. 219.

6 For a critical evaluation of sustainable development see Porras, Ileana, Binge Development in the Age of Fear: Scarcity, Consumption, Ine quality and the Environmental Crisis, in International Law and Its Discontents: Responding to Global Crises 25 (Stark, Barbara ed., 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Pope Francis, supra note 1, at paras. 216-221. The term “ecological conversion” was used by Pope John Paul Ii in 2001, see Pope John Paul II, General Audience, para. 4 (2001), but receives its first full development in Laudato Si’.

8 Pope Francis, supra note 1, at para. 139.

9 Id. at paras. 22, 43.

11 Id. at para. 123.

12 Id. at paras. 48-52, 216-221.

13 See Leo XIII’s seminal, Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Captial and Labor (1891).

14 Pope Francis, supra note 1, at para. 21.

15 Id. at paras. 48-52.

16 Id. at paras. 47, 101-114.

17 Id. at para. 104.

18 Id. at para. 123.

19 Id. at para. 161.

20 Id. at para. 217.

21 Id. at para. 219.

22 Id. at para. 137.

23 Id. at paras. 138-142.

24 Id. at paras. 143-146.

25 Id. at paras. 147-155.

26 Id. at paras. 156-158.

27 Id. at paras. 159-162.

28 Id. at para. 33.

29 Id. at paras. 67-69, 75-76, 82-94.

30 Id. at paras. 156-162.

31 Id. at para. 159-162.

32 See Porras, Ileana, The Rio Declaration: A New Basis for International Cooperation, 1 Rev. Eur. Community & Int’l Env’l L. 3, 249-251 (1992)Google Scholar. The Encyclical alludes to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities see Pope Francis, supra note 1, at paras. 52, 170.

33 Pope Francis, supra note 1, at paras. 164-184.

34 Id. at paras. 159-162.

35 See World Commission on Environment and Development, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, UN Doc. A/42/427, Ch. 2 (Mar. 20, 1987)(“[S]ustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”).

36 Pope Francis, supra note 1, at para. 160.

37 Id. at paras. 163.

38 Id. at paras. 163-201.

39 Id. at paras. 53.