The Vatican has invited social activist Naomi Klein to help lead a high level conference on the environment later this week. Ms Klein, who campaigns for an overhaul of the global financial system to tackle climate change, will take centre stage at the conference alongside Cardinal Peter Turkson. The cardinal is president of the Pontifical Read more
“As a Catholic economist, reading this papal drivel masquerading as an encyclical is both embarrassing and infuriating,” says Oliver Hartwich, the executive director of the New Zealand Initiative, a libertarian think tank. He was referring to the the Pope’s encyclical Laudato Si’. “Thank God Catholics are free to disagree with this personal position of the Pope.” Read more
In his brief pontificate, Pope Francis has coined some colourful terms to get his points across, for example, using “bat Christians” to describe those who hide their faith. While the new phrases he uses in his ecology encyclical are not as punchy, they succinctly help illustrate his points that care for the environment is a Read more
Pope Francis deliberately restructured his environment encyclical Laudato Si’ in order to make it accessible to everyone. Italian Bishop Mario Tosi, formerly secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said the Pope changed the structure of the document from its first draft. The initial version had a long introduction of a theological, liturgical, Read more
Everybody is talking about the Pope’s new environmental encyclical, even though there isn’t much that’s unusual about it. In fact, it’s a document so perfectly in line with usual Catholic teaching that the most illuminating piece of commentary on it I could find was perhaps this 2009 column by The New York Times’ Ross Douthat Read more
English Cardinal Vincent Nichols has said that people should not regard the Pope’s encyclical “Laudato Si’” as puritanical in its message. At a press conference following the release of Laudato Si’, the cardinal was asked about the encyclical’s appeal for “sobriety and self-denial”. Cardinal Nichols said that people needed to go beyond reading the encyclical Read more
On the run? Don’t have time to read Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ 200-page encyclical on the care for the Earth? Here are some of the key quotes from the document: Introduction We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we Read more
It’s courageous, it’s prophetic, it’s challenging, it’s holistic, it’s wonderful: That’s what I think of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.” Quoting his patron saint, Francis of Assisi – who is also the patron saint of ecology – Pope Francis begins his papal letter with a beautiful verse from Read more
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand’s chief, Julianne Hickey has been in Rome recently and was in meetings preparing for Pope Francis’ new encyclical Laudato Si’. She was able to give an input from the Pacific perspective where oceans are so important for the sustaining of life. Hickey was able to speak of what is happening to Read more
Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ quotes the New Zealand Catholic Bishops’ statement on the environment which they published in 2006. Paragraph 95 of Laudato Si’ reads: “The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone. If we make something our own, it is only to administer it for Read more