American leaders will participate from May 15 to 17, 2024 California Governor Gavin Newsom And Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy will participate in a worldwide conference on environmental issues. The host? The Vatican.
The summit, “From the climate crisis to climate resilience“will focus on human adaptation and not just trying to mitigate climate change. “We must start building climate resilience so that people can reverse the emissions curve and return from the climate crisis to a sustainable world safer, healthier and wealthier,” the Pontifical Academy of Sciences said in a press release announcing the workshop.
The Catholic Church appears to be a surprising institution to convene an event on climate change. But many saints, activists and non secular leaders have called on their faith to encourage look after the earth. Pope Francis specifically was vocal in regards to the risks of climate changeparticularly its impact on the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.
Here are five elements of Francis' views — and Catholicism's broader relationship with the environment — that students have written about for The Conversation.
1. God's creation
Care for the Earth has an extended Catholic tradition that goes back centuries.
Miniature from the Rupertsberg Codex of Liber Scivias/Wikimedia Commons
“One of the core beliefs of Christianity is that the material world was created directly by God and is therefore fundamentally linked to the goodness of God,” he explains Joanne M. Piercea non secular studies scholar on the College of the Holy Cross.
One saint who took this teaching to heart was Hildegard of Bingen, who died within the twelfth century. A German expert in herbal medicine and botany, she was also a author and “represented a type of 'green' theology called viriditas.”
Another Catholic saint known for his love of nature is Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology: an Italian monk who treats animals “with the same dignity as humans.”
Read more: Concern for the environment has an extended Catholic tradition – tons of of years before Pope Francis
2. Faith – and reason
When Pope Francis published an encyclical on the environment in 2015, he actually took the title from a poem by his saint of the identical name: “Laudato Si.”
The encyclical links concern about climate change with Catholic teachings. But it's not only for Catholics; Francis also makes science-based arguments that folks with or without religious faith can appreciate, noted Lawrence Torcello. a philosopher on the Rochester Institute of Technology.
“Laudato Si” is a remarkable “example of how reason should be included in public discourse,” Torcello wrote. In a time as polarized as our own, arguments have to be framed in a way that everybody can understand, even in the event that they disagree, “regardless of private religious or ecclesiastical commitments.”
Read more: The Pope as Philosopher: Faith, Climate Change and Public Reason
3. An influential messenger
Likewise economists from the University of Michigan Andrew Hoffman And Jenna White emphasized the pope's ability to talk to people across all borders: Catholics and non-Catholics, Republicans and Democrats, individuals who care deeply about climate change and others who’re skeptical of it.
They identified that debates about climate change within the United States are sometimes more about worldviews than scientific evidence. “Calling people to protect the global climate because it is sacred … will generate far more personal commitment than a government call to action on economic grounds or an activist call on environmental grounds,” the pair wrote.
Filippo Monteforte/Reuters
Read more: The Pope as a Messenger: Making climate change an ethical issue
4. Environmental Front Line
Francis has often highlighted the unequal impact of climate change on people around the globe. This was evident in 2019 when the Vatican hosted an “Amazon Synod” – a region particularly vulnerable to environmental destruction.
“As a theologian who studies religious responses to the environmental crisis, I find the Pope’s efforts to learn from the indigenous people of the Amazon remarkable,” wrote a University of Dayton professor Vincent Miller.
“Some might dismiss this synod as just a meeting,” he acknowledged. But “the Synod of the Amazon marks a significant shift from high-minded papal exhortations on climate action to a global religious community that gives a voice to those living on the front lines of ecological destruction.”
Read more: Pope reiterates Catholic Church's duty to indigenous Amazonians affected by climate change
5. Warnings and wonders
In 2023, Francis published an addendum to “Laudato Si.” Like the unique document, it linked environmental, social and technological challenges – reminiscent of rebuking wealthy countries and individualistic attitudes for ignoring the results of climate change.
In the pope’s eyes, “all life exists in relationships,” wrote Lisa Sideris. an environmental ethicist at UC Santa Barbara: Nature, Man and the Divine. “I believe Francis's social criticism flows from his vision of life – a vision of awe at the depth of meaning and mystery found in an interconnected world.”
Part of the issue, as Francis presents it, is that folks have forgotten how deeply connected we’re to 1 one other – a problem more likely to be a spotlight at this week's summit.
Read more: The Pope's recent letter shouldn’t be only a “reminder” in regards to the environment – for Francis, the whole lot is connected, which is cause for astonishment
This story is a summary of articles from The Conversation's archives.
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