VATICAN - The Christian realism of "Laudate Deum"

by Gianni Valente

Rome (Fides News Agency) - " Praise God” is the title of this letter. For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies." These words conclude the new Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum, published by Pope Francis today, Wednesday, Oct. 4, on the day when the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops dedicated to the theme of Synodality begins in Rome and the universal Church celebrates the liturgical memory of St. Francis of Assisi. Once again, as with the encyclicals Laudato si' and Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis draws his inspiration from the words of the saint he was named after ("Praise God for all his creatures") to look with Christian realism at the evils and pitfalls that darken the future of the entire human family, and to suggest ways that can rescue the world from the processes that push it toward self-destruction.

Eight years have passed since I published the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, notifies the Pope, when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. (§ 2)The 73 paragraphs of the Exhortation, through auspices, reminders, considerations and proposals, express critical thinking about the mechanisms of development that through objective data and pressing observations document "the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations(§2).

Pope Francis does not shy away from confronting the ideological controversies that often swirl around the environmental issue: "No one can ignore the fact that in recent years we have witnessed extreme weather phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other cries of protest on the part of the earth that are only a few palpable expressions of a silent disease that affects everyone. Admittedly, not every concrete catastrophe ought to be attributed to global climate change. Nonetheless, it is verifiable that specific climate changes provoked by humanity are notably heightening the probability of extreme phenomena that are increasingly frequent and intense. If it should rise above 2 degrees, the icecaps of Greenland and a large part of Antarctica [5] will melt completely, with immensely grave consequences for everyone."(§5). In recent years, some have chosen to deride these facts. They bring up allegedly solid scientific data, like the fact that the planet has always had, and will have, periods of cooling and warming. They forget to mention another relevant datum: that what we are presently experiencing is an unusual acceleration of warming, at such a speed that it will take only one generation – not centuries or millennia – in order to verify it." (§6). "In order to ridicule those who speak of global warming, it is pointed out that intermittent periods of extreme cold regularly occur. One fails to mention that this and other extraordinary symptoms are nothing but diverse alternative expressions of the same cause: the global imbalance that is provoking the warming of the planet." (§7).There is also no shortage of "who would place responsibility on the poor, since they have many children, and even attempt to resolve the problem by mutilating women in less developed countries. As usual, it would seem that everything is the fault of the poor. Yet the reality is that a low, richer percentage of the planet contaminates more than the poorest 50% of the total world population, and that per capita emissions of the richer countries are much greater than those of the poorer ones." When in contrast, "Africa, home to more than half of the world’s poorest people, is responsible for a minimal portion of historic emissions"(§9).

The Pope also refers to the campaigns of those who claim "that efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing the use of fossil fuels and developing cleaner energy sources will lead to a reduction in the number of jobs." What is happening, notes Pope Francis, is that millions of people are losing their jobs due to different effects of climate change: rising sea levels, droughts and other phenomena affecting the planet have left many people adrift. Conversely, the transition to renewable forms of energy, properly managed, as well as efforts to adapt to the damage caused by climate change, are capable of generating countless jobs in different sectors". (§10).

Pope Francis reports that "it is no longer possible to doubt the human – “anthropic” – origin of climate change" (§11), sometimes challenged by "because of certain dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions that I encounter, even within the Catholic Church. . Yet we can no longer doubt that the reason for the unusual rapidity of these dangerous changes is a fact that cannot be concealed: the enormous novelties that have to do with unchecked human intervention on nature in the past two centuries." (§14).

At the root of the current upheaval in the relationship between humankind and Creation, Pope Francis repeats, is the "technocratic paradigm" already described in Laudato di' as "a certain way of understanding human life and activity that has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us," and consists in thinking and acting "as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such." (§20).

In recent years, the Pontiff points out, the "technocratic paradigm" has made strides: "Artificial intelligence and the latest technological innovations start with the notion of a human being with no limits, whose abilities and possibilities can be infinitely expanded thanks to technology. Thus, the technocratic paradigm monstrously feeds on itself" based on an "the ideology underlying an obsession: to increase human power beyond anything imaginable, before which nonhuman reality is a mere resource at its disposal. Everything that exists ceases to be a gift for which we should be thankful, esteem and cherish, and instead becomes a slave, prey to any whim of the human mind and its capacities" (§22).

Not every increase in power represents progress for humanity. We need only think of the “admirable” technologies that were employed to decimate populations, drop atomic bombs and annihilate ethnic groups" (§24). In refuting the "technocratic paradigm," Pope Francis also stigmatizes " the human being is extraneous, a foreign element capable only of harming the environment. Human beings must be recognized as a part of nature" (§26), whereas "a a healthy ecology is also the result of interaction between human beings and the environment, as occurs in the indigenous cultures and has occurred for centuries in different regions of the earth. Human groupings have often “created” an environment, [20] reshaping it in some way without destroying it or endangering it.The great present-day problem is that the technocratic paradigm has destroyed that healthy and harmonious relationship." (§ 27).


Pope Francis also refers to the mechanisms of marketing and manipulated information used by "those with greater resources to employ them to shape public opinion." When " a project involving significant changes in the environment or high levels of contamination, one raises the hopes of the people of that area by speaking of the local progress that it will be able to generate or of the potential for economic growth, employment and human promotion that it would mean for their children" (§29).

The global dimension of the climate emergency can only be addressed together by geopolitical actors through multilateral collaboration, "that the emerging forces are becoming increasingly relevant and are in fact capable of obtaining important results in the resolution of concrete problems, as some of them demonstrated during the pandemic. The very fact that answers to problems can come from any country, however little, ends up presenting multilateralism as an inevitable process." (§40).

Pope Francis devotes the fourth and fifth parts of the Exhortation (paragraphs 44-60) to the "successes and failures of climate conferences," expressing the hope that COP28 (the Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development that opens in Dubai on Nov. 30) can "be a turning point, proving that everything that has been done since 1992 was serious and appropriate, otherwise it will be a great disappointment and will jeopardize all the good that has been achieved so far."

To Catholic believers, the Pontiff reminds that the motivations for taking care of Creation to heart "born of their faith," and encourages their brothers and sisters of other religions to do the same" (§61). Precisely in the light of the Bible's teaching," the Bishop of Rome stresses, it is appropriate to put an end "to the idea of an autonomous, omnipotent and limitless (§68).

In the final paragraphs of the Exhortation, the Pope acknowledges that "the efforts of families to pollute less, reduce waste, consume wisely, are creating a new culture (§71). And "If we consider that per capita emissions in the United States are about twice that of an inhabitant of China and about seven times greater than the average of the poorest countries, we can say that a widespread change in the irresponsible lifestyle associated with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact. Thus, with much-needed policy decisions, we would be on the road to mutual healing” (§72). (Fides News Agency 4/10/2023)

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