‘Hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor’
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
In 1891, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum, examined the suffering of the industrial working class, endorsed labor rights such as the freedom to form unions, and laid the foundation for Catholic social justice doctrine and activism that continues to this day.
On June 18, Pope Francis issued a new encyclical, Laudito Si’ (“On Care For Our Common Home,”) which could potentially rival Rerum Novarum in terms of its sweeping impact on human affairs.
“Our house is going to ruin, and that harms everyone, especially the poorest,” Pope Francis said, on the eve of releasing Laudato Si’.
The theme of interrelated social and ecological harm runs throughout the document.
“[W]e have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor,” it states. “Mine is therefore an appeal for responsibility, based on the task that God has given to man in creation: Till and keep the garden’ in which he was placed.
“I invite everyone to accept with open hearts this document, which follows the church’s social doctrine.”
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles sent out an email in support of the encyclical, saying, “Today, Pope Francis called on world leaders and everyday people to come together to tackle climate change.” He urged people to “echo the Pope’s call for climate action! Call on world leaders to reach a meaningful climate agreement in Paris.”
The encyclical completely undercuts the climate denialism prevalent with the GOP, which is often camouflaged in religious hand-waving. Typically, the two Catholics running for president, Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum, both sought to wave off the encyclical, as if it were a random office memo.
“I hope I’m not, like, going to get castigated for saying this in front of my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” was Bush’s response.
“The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focus on what we’re really good at, which is theology and morality,” Santorum said.
But scientists have applauded the document, which is actually deeply rooted in Catholic social theology, and does not hesitate to label current economic practices as sinful—precisely the sort of “theology and morality” Santorum purportedly was asking for.
Indeed, the first several pages take pains to situate Laudato Si’ within the context of earlier church teachings, papal encyclicals and other statements. The encyclical takes its name from a passage from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures, “Laudato si’, mi’ Signore”—“Praise be to you, my Lord,” which continues, “through our sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs.”
After quoting that passage, the encyclical continues:
This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.
Turning to more recent social teachings, the encyclical first draws a parallel to Pope St. John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris, which, “not only rejected war but offered a proposal for peace…to the entire ‘Catholic world’ and indeed ‘to all men and women of goodwill.’ Now, faced as we are with global environmental deterioration, I wish to address every person living on this planet.’”
The encyclical then goes on to specifically cite environmental concerns, starting with Pope Paul VI in 1970 and 1971, and deepening with St. John Paul II, citing his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis. That text states “He warned that human beings frequently seem ‘to see no other meaning in their natural environment than what serves for immediate use and consumption.’” He goes on to cite several works of his predecessor, Benedict XVI.
In short, one framing purpose of the encyclical is to stress that it is not a departure from earlier church teaching, so much as an emphasis on our altered human circumstances.
From without, however, it was seen by some as most significant that this encyclical came from the first pope from the Third World, and also that it shared a great deal in common with the largely Third World-based climate justice movement. Author and journalist Naomi Klein, who has chronicled the climate justice movement for years and has been invited to speak at an upcoming Vatican conference on the encyclical, made this point on Democracy Now! On June 18:
A lot of the language of the climate justice movement has just been adopted by the pope—I mean, even of phrases like “ecological debt.” The pope is talking about the debt that the wealthy world owes to the poor. I mean, this is a framing that comes originally from Ecuador, from the movement against drilling in the Amazon. And, you know, this is a phrase that was never heard in mainstream circles until just now, actually. I mean, I’ve never seen such a mainstream use of that term.
Klein also pointed out that it was not just climate deniers who were criticized by the encyclical:
I think that it’s too easy to say that this is just a challenge to Rick Santorum and Jeb Bush. Frankly, it is also a challenge to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and to large parts of the green movement, because it is a rebuke of slow action. It very specifically says that climate denial is not just about denying the science, it’s also about denying the urgency of the science. The document is very strong in condemning delays, half-measures, so-called market solutions. It very specifically criticizes carbon markets, the carbon offsetting, as an inadequate measure that will encourage speculation and rampant consumption.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, which has coordinated global days of climate protests, said the encyclical was “Neither liberal nor conservative—but definitely radical.” More specifically:
[T]he heart of the encyclical is less an account of environmental or social destruction than a remarkable attack on the way our world runs: on the “rapidification” of modern life, on the way that economic growth and technology trump all other concerns, on a culture that can waste billions of people. These are neither liberal nor conservative themes, and they are not new for popes: what is new is that the ecological crisis makes them inescapable.
As the encyclical says, “We fail to see that some are mired in desperate and degrading poverty, with no way out, while others have not the faintest idea of what to do with their possessions, vainly showing off their supposed superiority and leaving behind them so much waste which, if it were the case everywhere, would destroy the planet.”
But it does not intend to be a message of despair. A primary drafter of the encyclical, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, on the morning of its release at the Vatican, said, “Pope Francis has a positive outlook for the possibility to change tack on the environmental issue. Humanity says Pope Francis still has the capacity to work to build our common home. Human beings are still capable of intervening positively.”
“This is really the first Third World encyclical,” Nathan Schneider, a columnist with the Catholic weekly, America, told Democracy Now!
“[T]his is coming from a pope who was shaped in really significant ways by economic crises during the Cold War in Argentina and being in the middle of a battleground between the First and Second World powers. It was drafted by a cardinal from Ghana,” he said.
“So this is coming from the side of the world that we don’t normally hear from. And it’s very much in line with things that popes have been saying for decades, you know, going back to Paul VI, then John Paul II, Benedict XVI. So, a lot of the content is actually not so new for Catholics.”
Considering that Christianity was originally the religion of the Roman Empire’s underclass, it is only fitting that such a cry now be heard.