JOURNEYING TOWARDS CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME 
Five Years after Laudato Si’

Download the book in pdf format above...

A guide to reading this document

The idea of preparing this text was encouraged by the Holy Father and stemmed from the desire to help implement Laudato Si’, in light of the great inter-est with which it was received within the Church and in the larger community. The many discussions that have already taken place in various interdisciplinary settings for the purpose of studying its rich scientific, economic, political, social and ethical implications, have been a clear sign of that interest.

Laudato Si’, as one of the social encyclicals of the Popes, addresses critical contemporary issues in continuity with the Church’s social doctrine, and offers principles for reflection, criteria for judgment and directives for action through a moral and pas-toral discernment of the complex events that characterize our times. As such, it is a guide meant to in-spire, at the individual and collective levels, decisions and actions that can help us look to the future with confidence and hope.11

The Church’s social doctrine offers an attentive reflection on various situations of human life in the light of divine revelation, natural law and Christian theological anthropology, grounded in the dignity of the person as an intelligent being endowed with free will, and as the subject of rights and obligations, called to self-mastery and the responsible exercise of our primacy over other creatures. This vision demands a profound analysis of human beings in their entirety, in relation with themselves, with others, with society, with the cosmos and with God, as well as a careful discernment of the signs of the times in our constant-ly changing world. In this regard, the social doctrine of the Church proves a valuable means of education and action in the service of building a better world. 

In light of the Church’s social doctrine and specifically that of Laudato Si’, the following pages will present various operational proposals, with the aim of inspiring action on the part of Church institutions, believers and all people of good will.

As the Holy Father has repeatedly pointed out, what is needed is more than a merely economic and technological approach: a key role is also played by the ethical-social approach involved in the concept of integral ecology: “We should not think that politi-cal efforts or the force of law will be sufficient to pre-vent actions which affect the environment because, when the culture itself is corrupt and objective truth and universally valid principles are no longer upheld, then laws can only be seen as arbitrary impositions or obstacles to be avoided” (LS 123).

It is a matter, then, of envisioning the evolution of society along two fundamental and interconnect-ed axes: technical, economic and financial on the one hand, and ethical, social and educational on the other. Both need to be strengthened in equal measure, since the weakness of one will adversely affect the other, and society as a whole.

Consequently, it was decided to divide these operational proposals into two parts. The first relates to spiritual conversion and education, while the sec-ond concerns the promotion of integral human devel-opment from the standpoint of integral ecology. Each part focuses on twelve areas of interest, all treated in the same way: first, a quote from Laudato Si’ rele-vant to the subject, then an introduction, contextu-alization and reference to the more pertinent papal documents. The text then proposes some good practices and, to conclude, some lines of action.

11 Cf. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 2004, 7-10.