INTERDICASTERIAL WORKING GROUP The Interdicasterial Working Group The world has been shaken by the crisis created by OF THE HOLY SEE ON INTEGRAL ECOLOGY “The urgent challenge to protect of the Holy See on Integral Ecolo- the Covid-19 pandemic, which has led to the death of our common home includes a gy was established in 2015 for the many thousands of people and is changing our way of concern to bring the whole hu- study, promotion and implemen- life. At this difficult time, which will certainly bring man family together to seek a tation of integral ecology in the sustainable and integral develop- changes to the societies in which we live, we are called light of Laudato Si’. It brings to- HOME ment, for we know that things can gether institutions associated with to care for one another and to avoid becoming closed change… It is my hope that this the Holy See, Episcopal Confer- in on ourselves. The crisis we are experiencing makes Encyclical Letter … can help us to ences and Catholic organizations ever more evident – five years after its publication – acknowledge the appeal, immen- involved in this area. the importance of the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ sity and urgency of the challenge that Pope Francis wrote on care for our common home, we face”. COMMON which teaches that everything is connected within the POPE FRANCIS, Laudato Si’ lens of integral ecology. Seriously facing the causes (n. 13, 15), 24 May 2015 OUR of this crisis will require a real change of direction and JOURNEYING a spiritual conversion which can lead to a renewed FOR awareness of our relation with ourselves, with others, TOWARDS CARE FOR with society, with creation and with God. In light of OUR COMMON HOME this, the Interdicasterial Working Group of the Holy CARE See on Integral Ecology proposes some operative Five Years After guidelines born of a careful reading of Laudato Si’, with the aim of inspiring action on the part of the Church’s Laudato Si’ institutions, the faithful and all men and women of OWARDS good will. T JOURNEYING € 12,00 Interdicasterial Working Group of the Holy See on Integral Ecology JOURNEYING TOWARDS CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME Five Years after Laudato Si’ Celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of the Encyclical Laudato Si’ © Copyright 2020 – Libreria Editrice Vaticana 00120 Vatican City Tel. 06.698.45780 – Fax 06.698.84716 E-mail: [email protected] ISBN 978-88-266-0464-0 www.vatican.va www.libreriaeditricevaticana.va “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change… It is my hope that this Encyclical Letter… can help us to acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face”. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 13, 15 The present text is being published on 31 May 2020, the Solemnity of Pentecost, the liturgical feast on which, five years earlier, on 24 May 2015, the En- cyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Pope Francis on care for our common home was published. The present document was prepared by institu- tions belonging to the Interdicasterial Working Group of the Holy See on Integral Ecology, established in 2015 for the promotion and implementation of -in tegral ecology. The Working Group brings together the institutions associated with the Holy See that are most involved in this area, as well as several Episco- pal Conferences and Catholic organizations which contributed significantly to the preparation of the present text. INTRODUCTION “The time is running out” (1 Cor 7:29). This ex- hortation addressed by the Apostle Paul to the in- habitants of Corinth, today sounds as urgent as ever. The world has been shaken by the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a virus that has taken tens of thousands of victims and is changing our lifestyle by endangering the economic systems of our society. The health emergency, and the loneliness and isola- tion resulting from the measures adopted to prevent the spread of this infection, have suddenly led us all to realize how fragile we are as human creatures and to discover or rediscover what is really essen- tial in our lives. Pope Francis, during the extraordi- nary prayer service held in Saint Peter’s Square on 27 March 2020 to implore the end of the pandemic, urged us “to seize this time of trial asa time of choos- ing. It is not the time of your judgement [Lord], but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is neces- sary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others. We can look to so many exemplary companions for the journey, who, even though fearful, have reacted by giving their lives.” 1 1 Francis, Meditation during the Extraordinary Prayer Service in Time of Epidemic, 27 March 2020. 5 In this difficult time, which will definitively change the society in which we live, we are called to care for one another, to avoid shielding ourselves in selfishness, to promote and defend human life from conception until its natural end, to offer adequate medical care for all, to foster international solidarity, to combat the throwaway culture, to study, to build together new and fairer economic and financial sys- tems, and to commit ourselves to dialogue, peace, rejection of violence and war. The crisis we are ex- periencing shows the undeniable importance, some five years after its publication, of the Encyclical -Let ter Laudato Si’ (LS), which Pope Francis wrote on care for our common home, teaching us how everything is connected. We can no longer be indifferent to the sufferings of the poorest and to the exploitation of our com- mon home. This is a point clearly made in the En- cyclical: “These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what he desired when he creat- ed it, and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness” (LS 53). An exciting mission! In this context, the so-called ecological crisis be- comes a propitious moment for conversion and for concrete decisions that can no longer be postponed. It summons us to an interdisciplinary and operational 6 dialogue at every level, from the local to the interna- tional. It calls for an educational process aimed at an integral formation of conscience. At the root of the ecological crisis there is in fact a profound moral and cultural crisis affecting our societies, characterized by an exaggerated individu- alistic anthropocentrism that has led, among other factors, to altering the relationship between human beings and nature, with consequences now appar- ent to all: “We have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste… we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We car- ried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick”.2 We have come to realize that “we are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environ- mental” (LS 139) that is exemplified in the throwa- way culture repeatedly denounced in the magisteri- um of Pope Francis. It must, however, be noted that, “we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis. We lack leader- ship capable of striking out on new paths and meeting the needs of the present with concern for all and with- out prejudice towards coming generations” (LS 53). 2 Ibid. 7 In order to seriously confront the root causes of this crisis, we need a real “change of course” based on the awareness that everything is intimately relat- ed, as well as a “spiritual conversion” (cf. LS 202-221) capable of leading to a new consciousness of our re- lationship with ourselves, with others, with society, with creation and with God. Ecological conversion requires people to let “the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them” (LS 217); it is a process with roots that are transcendent even before being social or political. “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handi- work is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an option- al or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience” (LS 217). Ecological conversion is a real conversion to Christ which takes place when we interpret the events of our time in the light of the Gospel and of the encounter with Jesus. In recent years, there have been many situa- tions in which Christians have chosen to defend our common home, even to the point of laying down their lives. Women and men, religious and lay, they realized that the defence of creation is an indispen- sable requirement of Christian life, even before this became a conviction shared by the majority of be- lievers. The idea that “everything is connected” (LS 91; 240) is inherent in the guiding principle of the En- cyclical: that of an integral ecology, understood as a complex and multidimensional reality calling for long- 8 term vision.3 Integral ecology is not just about the en- vironment; it involves an integral vision of life that can inspire better policies, indicators, research and devel- opment processes and criteria for evaluation, while avoiding distorted concepts of development and growth.