Laudato si'… five years later!

Five years already! Francis published his second encyclical, “Laudato si'— on care for our common home”. To mark this anniversary, he has declared a special week of initiatives related to the environment, from May 16 to 24, more precisely on "global warming". Let us recall that Laudato si ' preceded the historic Paris Climate Summit by three months. Historic because of the participation of the vast majority of nations: 197 countries were represented, and the signing of a binding agreement for the reduction of greenhouse gases was expected.

To show his own commitment, during the week Francis will visit a region of Italy devastated by illegal pollution. The following link will allow you to listen to the short video invitation that he launched.

As a scientist, I have always been interested by problems related to pollution and their consequences for the planet, our "common home". Our environment is highly complex because of inter-connectivity between ecosystems. We can see that globalization accelerates and upsets the interactions between living organisms; it accentuates, through a domino-effect, the consequences of crises such as that of the coronavirus (microscopic scale) or global warming (macroscopic scale). The problem is not due to the existence of interactions between the living elements of creation, but to the fact that too often conflicting ideologies distort the management of these interactions and make them deviate from the "original project", that of God. Perhaps a deep reflection on the “integral ecology” model proposed by Francis is needed?

A lot of individual and collective efforts - and money - have been invested in ecology, sometimes to the detriment of the common good and without a global vision. The current crisis has shed light on the living condition of seniors. We are discovering that we have cared for the planet at the expense of well-being, including the elderly; there is a lack of logic. We have done all kinds of ethical, scientific, psychological and legal gymnastics to offer them assisted death. This pandemic shows that our choices have resulted in a flagrant lack of measures and means to help them live. Among the “hottest” topics in related to the global warming issue, there is the concern for overpopulation. How many NGOs have thrown themselves at the problem by offering means to facilitate birth control? Would stopping births become the solution? Burn the candle at both ends… destroy life at both ends?

To solve our "ecological" problems, the scale of the task and the stakes are enormous and we are tempted to give up, because it is obvious that the required effort exceeds our individual and collective wills. However, five years ago, like a wind of hope, Francis arrived with the concept of integral ecology, the key offered by Laudato si '. This text is rich in considerations and prophetic. His reflections are permeated by the "vertical dimension" that points to the Creator. This is what I hoped to find as a Christian. There is, in the expression of the natural laws that science helps us to formulate, a school of wisdom which governs the relations between the components of the universe, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. It is no longer just on the shoulders of humanity - has it ever been? -: we find there the keys that open the doors for hope, a tool to commune with the Author's project. A young American writer by the name of Nathaniel Rich published the book “Losing Earth” last fall, a summary of the fight against global warming in the United States, over the past forty years. Rich did not hide his admiration for Francis' gesture. In his prologue, he confronts us with the consequences of turning our back on natural laws and continues his reflection on these few powerful verses of topicality, taken from the book of Proverbs:

“Wisdom calls aloud in the streets, she raises her voice in the public squares. She calls out at the street corners, she delivers her message at the city gates, You ignorant people, how much longer will you cling to your ignorance? […] Pay attention to my warning! Now I will pour out my heart to you, and tell you what I have to say. Since I have called and you have refused me, since I have beckoned and no one has taken notice, since you have ignored all my advice and rejected all my warnings" (Proverbs 1, 20-25)

The most eloquent expression of the moral significance of this problem came from Pope Francis in this encyclical: “Our collective failure to respond to crises intensified by rising temperatures […] shows how much we have lost this sense of responsibility towards our human brothers and sisters, the foundation of any society. ”

What “ecological” conclusions do we draw from this pandemic? To be able to answer, shouldn't we think about the mechanisms that made our elders the main victims? Is this not another example of this loss of sense of our responsibilities?

While we have the impression of walking on eggshells with our deconfinement protocols, we are at the end of the week proposed by Francis on global warming. How to answer to this invitation?

To face the COVID-19 pandemic, radical and global measures had to be taken; these were going to have countless consequences. It will be the same for global warming. Our leaders will have to take action to guide the changes, and we will have the responsibility to implement them. Don't we have the duty to pray for this to be done according to the model of integral ecology offered by Francis, so that creation emerges more alive than ever?

Read also:

Francine Dupras and Jean-Marc Rufiange, The prophetism of an encyclical

Jura Church, LAUDATO SI ': a synthesis

Pope Francis, Laudato si '