Chrulew, Matthew. “Francis’s Planetary Practice.” Environmental Humanities 8, no. 2 (2016): 245-50. doi:10.1215/22011919-3664351.
So when for the first time in the history of the Church the new pope took the evergreen saint [Francis] as his namesake, “guide and inspiration,” reactivating a precious and fertile inheritance, the ripples were also felt widely outside the Church. And the publication in 2015 of his encyclical Laudato si’ confirmed the vigor and intention with which Francis took up this flag. This letter did not merely address doctrinal issues for the upper echelons of Catholic hierarchy but spoke strongly to contemporary ecological and social issues, directed to “every person living on this planet”—Catholics and atheists, postsecularists and critical theorists, Deleuzians and Bonaventurans, practicing and nonpracticing (or practicing otherwise).
At the core of his message is the need to listen not only to the cry of the poor, as Catholicism has long claimed to do, but also to the groans of the earth, to which it has often been deaf. (Excerpt)
© Matthew Chrulew 2016. Environmental Humanities is available online only and is published under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- Francis. Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home. Rome: Vatican Press, 2015.
- Latour, Bruno. "The Immense Cry Channeled by Pope Francis." Translated by Stephen Muecke. Environmental Humanities 8, no. 2 (2016): 251-255. doi:10.1215/22011919-3664360.