It usually begins in a similar manner each time. From the upstairs bathroom comes my daughter’s voice, “Papa!” From my wife in the living room, “Sweetheart – come in here please!” From the stairwell leading to her ground-floor apartment in the house we all share, my mother’s urgent inquiry “Where’s John?” Each of these calls generally […]
What Pope Francis has set down in this Encyclical is not perfect; as some have already pointed out it leaves out the idea that an ever-expanding global population is ecologically unsustainable even with greater care of the planet. However it is a a more far-reaching statement about the connection between the health of the planet and the health of humanity than I have ever known to have be written by any religious leader of comparable authority. Yes, it is a religious treatise but it is also an environmental one and even – as he draws heavily upon biology, chemistry, ecology, and climatology – a scientific one.
To say that Pope Francis’ “Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality; On Care for Our Common Home” was shocking to many would be as remarkable an understatement as his words were a breath of fresh air to many who had never expected such a dramatic message of environmental conservation to come from such a place of global power as the pontificate of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet that is precisely what happened.
For most of us, the creatures we encounter in the field are objects of interest, study, or even affection, but when it comes to the moths in our closet, the silverfish under the sink, or the roaches in our cupboard, our feelings generally switch to irritation, disgust, and violence.