An Invitation to the World from Pope Francis to Shape the Future of Our Planet on the fifth anniversary of his Encyclical:
On Care for Our Common Home
What kind of world do we want to leave to those who will come after us, to our children who are growing up now? It is a global campaign on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the encyclical letter on the care of our common home. Pope Francis has renewed his urgent call to respond to the ecological crisis, the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor which cannot continue. Let’s take care of creation, a gift of our good Creator God. Let’s celebrate Care for Creation Week together.
A Brief Commentary
on Pope Francis’ Encyclical:
Care for Our Common Home by Fr. Ed Ciuba
Pope Francis calls the Church and the world to acknowledge the urgency of our environmental challenges and to join him in embarking on a new path. Even more imminently, in terms of our present corona virus pandemic, we can draw some needed values and ideas of how we might better understand and cope with our own ominous situation.
The encyclical covers three major points:
Created life is a network of relationships.
We are incredibly inter-connected with all created reality and with everything and everyone on this planet Earth. We are a web of relationships. The human community and the earth community are related. We depend on one another. As we are related to trees, plants, animals, soil and water, we are also dependent on one another. To the extent that we destroy our earth community, we destroy ourselves. To the extent we violate these relationships, we destroy also the potential for harmony, mutual support, cooperation, and peace that should exist with one another. We can cause disharmony and chaos.
Most ecological crises have human roots.
Modern technology has brought us enormous benefits as well as power. If we don’t use our power wisely, it can become greed. Power has to be accompanied by human responsibility, ethical values and conscience. Our responsibility over Mother Earth is not dominion, but responsible stewardship. As responsible stewards, we can’t interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention to the consequences of such interference in other areas. Could this not have responsible applications in indiscriminate molecular and genetic manipulations? Could this possibly come into play, as we still search for the origins of the corona virus? Was it a mistake, an accident, or, God forbid deliberate? Are we in certain cases overstepping our boundaries? As indicated in point 1, we are “kin;” we have responsibilities to one another.
We are summoned to profound interior conversion.
The ecological crisis which is become increasingly apparent, as well as the Covid 19 virus which we are presently experiencing is a call to profound interior conversion. What personal values do we want to guide us as we push on into an uncertain future? If we can overcome realities like greed, a compulsive consumerism, unrestrained self-centeredness, an unwillingness to accept limits, we will never be able to experience the profound peace with ourselves, the world around us, and the God who loves us and in whom we place our trust.
During this week we can enter more deeply into these topics in discussion with people from around the world.
“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like. But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does.” (James 1: 22-25)
