Climate change is the order of the day: we experience extreme weather phenomena, such as prolonged droughts and devastating floods, with increasing frequency and intensity, but also the persistence of slow-onset phenomena such as melting glaciers and rising sea levels. All of this is caused by global warming, due to the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases produced by human activities on the planet. The repercussions on people’s lives are shocking, especially for those living in more fragile and difficult situations. Scientists have already gathered enough data to assert that we have until 2030 to reverse course, after which the favourable climate balance for life on the planet will no longer be restored.
This is why Pope Francis published the encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, with its call for ecological conversion. Since then, nothing decisive has been done; on the contrary, we have continued to move more and more in the wrong direction. Testifying to the urgency of raising awareness and committing to a real and concrete conversion to protect our common home, in recent years Pope Francis has taken increasingly prophetic steps as a testimony to the signs of the times:
= in 2020, he proclaimed the special year of the 5th anniversary of Laudato Si’ to relaunch its message;
= in 2021, he had the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development launch the Laudato Si’ Action Platform to engage the entire Catholic world in ecological conversion and action for integral ecology;
= in 2022, the Holy See signed the Paris Agreement on climate, pledging to achieve its goals;
= in 2023, Pope Francis published the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum prior to the holding of COP 28 in Dubai, to push world leaders for a breakthrough in climate action. The good news is that we still have time to safeguard ecological balance;
= in 2024, he wrote the Bull Spes non confundit, announcing the Jubilee 2025. This document underscores the Jubilee Biblical tradition of social justice, stating that the earth is the Lord’s and all of us dwell in it “as foreigners and strangers” (cf. Lev 25:23). If we really wish to prepare a path to peace in our world, we must ommit ourselves to remedying the remote causes of injustice, settling unjust and unpayable debts, and feeding the hungry.” (SnC 16)
This rapid sequence of interventions traces a trajectory in which Pope Francis and the Holy See support a strong commitment to integral ecology. There is indeed an acceleration in giving everything to counter the climate crisis, which involves multiple dimensions. As Laudato Si’ puts it, “we are faced not with two separate crises – one environmental and the other social –, but rather with one complex crisis, which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (LS 139).
The Catholic community is invited to put the Gospel into practice and accept the call to ecological conversion. However, we often do not see the connection between evangelization and integral ecology. That is why we need pastoral programs that sensitize Christian communities and help them embrace the invitations that the Word of God and the Holy Spirit make to us, to respond decisively and creatively to the crisis we are experiencing. “Everything is connected,” Pope Francis reminds us (LS 91 and 117), and therefore, when we talk about integral ecology, we are not simply referring to the environmental dimension, but also to the socioeconomic, cultural, spiritual, political, etc.
For this reason, the General Secretariat of Mission of the Comboni Missionaries in Rome joined forces with University Mtaani (“University in the slum”) of the Institute for Social Transformation (Tangaza University, Nairobi) and the Laudato Si’ Centre Comboni (Kampala) to design a pastoral programme to disseminate the vision, message and contents of Laudato Si’ among Christian communities in Africa. This pastoral tool aims to promote the message of Laudato Si’ and inspire paths of ecological conversion in religious and Christian communities, based on the methodology of the Pastoral Cycle and drawing inspiration from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
The message that Pope Francis addressed to politicians in view of COP281 (LD 60) can be paraphrased for Christian communities, pastoral agents, and missionaries thus: why do we want to continue today with an evangelisation that will be remembered for its inability to achieve ecological conversion, when it was urgent and necessary to do so?
Bro. Alberto Parise MCCJ
1«May those taking part in the Conference be strategists capable of considering the common good and the future of their children, more than the short-term interests of certain countries or businesses. In this way, may they demonstrate the nobility of politics and not its shame. To the powerful, I can only repeat this question: “What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power, only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?”»
