2023-10-04 12:00:32
Pope Francis, during a consistory, in Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican, September 30, 2023. RICCARDO DE LUCA / AP
In 2015, Pope Francis dedicated an entire encyclical to the theme of ecology for the first time. By publishing Praised yes (“Praised be you” in old Italian), first words of Song of Brother Sun, a prayer by Francis of Assisi, a saint from whom Jorge Mario Bergoglio borrowed his pontiff name, the Argentinian was carrying out a revolution. Concern for the environment was not foreign to his predecessors but, for the first time, it took a central place.
Eight years later, Francis reiterates the exercise by publishing, Wednesday October 4, a new text devoted to the question and entitled Praise God (“praise God”). More modest, this sequel is not an encyclical, a text with magisterial value, but an apostolic exhortation, which is more of a recommendation to the faithful. It is also a charge against climate skepticism.
The urgency of the situation seems to fill the pope. “I realize over timehe writes, that our reactions are insufficient while the world that welcomes us is crumbling and perhaps approaching a breaking point. » “No matter how much we try to deny them, hide them, conceal them or put them into perspective, he continues, the signs of climate change are there, ever more obvious. No one can ignore that in recent years we have witnessed extreme phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, droughts and other groans of the Earth which are only some of the tangible expressions of a disease silence that affects us all. »
Educational demonstration
The text confirms that the “preservation of the common home”, in other words the planet, occupies a place of choice in the theology of Francis in the midst of social questions and human fraternity, from which it cannot dissociate itself. No one can say that this pope has neglected what could be the greatest challenge of modern times and the greatest threat to human life: climate change. As he did in the first text, the pontiff once again recalls the primordial role played by man in the ecological crisis. “We can no longer doubt the human – “anthropogenic” origin – of climate change »writes François.
Beyond this observation, it is a true educational demonstration, anchored in figures and references to the reports of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change, that the Pope is engaged in. Francis wants to show those who doubt the urgency of the situation that they are wrong and those who decide that action must be taken. Because in eight years, he says, “reflection and information” collected made it possible to “to clarify and complete what we stated some time ago. It is for this reason, and because the situation is becoming even more urgent, that I wanted to share these pages with you”.
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