We must all now care for God’s creation

Overlook of Kluane National Park and Reserve of Canada. Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" is lauded for its scope on the moral and ethical response to protecting the earth's environment for future generations. (Unsplash photo)

The earth, all creatures living upon it, and its future inhabitants have lost their preeminent defender. The Church has lost the shepherd who inspired millions of Catholics worldwide to protect the gift of creation. What are we called to do now?

In 1224, Saint Francis of Assisi, in his “Canticle of the Creatures,” praised God for the precious gifts of the sun, moon, stars, his mother earth and all her creatures. And for centuries after that, while humans relied on plants, animals and water for existence, the natural world stayed much the same.

But with the invention of steam engines, then electricity, coal, oil, mass production and global trade, it changed. Factory workers with wages could buy things that manufacturers eagerly supplied. Increased production sent smoke and gases into the air, creating an increasingly harmful blanket.

In 1970, Pope Paul VI warned of “the necessity for humans to replace the unchecked advance of material progress … with new-found respect for the biosphere of his global domain.” Twenty years later, John Paul II wrote in his May 1991 encyclical that from “the desire to have and enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way.”

Pope Benedict XVI, on the 2010 World Day of Peace, decried “such realities as climate change, desertification … the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes, the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions … the growing phenomenon of ‘environmental refugees.’ ” Technologically advanced societies, he declared, “must be prepared to encourage more sober lifestyles, while reducing their energy consumption.”

But it was Pope Francis who made it a primary focus and whose words called most urgently for change. In taking on the name Francis, he signaled his intention to follow that saint’s commitment to hearing “both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” He saw those two “cries” as the social and environmental aspects of the climate crisis — both of them directly related to excessive production and consumption. 

In his 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” besides reviewing the confirmed effects of global warming — ever higher temperatures, rising sea levels, and loss of species — he stressed the inevitable impacts on future generations: “Since the world has been given to us, we can no longer view reality in a purely utilitarian way, in which efficiency and productivity are entirely geared to our individual benefit.” Protecting the world for others, he declared, is a matter of “basic justice.”

When Francis spoke of “ecological sin,” he was not introducing some new theological concept disconnected from reality. He was naming the moral dimension of our collective failure to honor the covenant between humanity and the divine gift of creation. This is not peripheral to either faith or human well-being — it is central to both. (Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2010-14, printed in NCR’s “Earthbeat,” 4/21/25)

We who have been born into this time are called, I believe, to strive in our own lives, in our parishes, and in our communities to identify and reduce any harms being inflicted on God’s creation. I believe further that as citizens we are called to give attention to local, state or national measures that may either do harm or provide protection to the environment, and I am grateful for the guidance Pope Francis has provided.

Karen Frishkoff is a member of Diocesan Peace and Justice Commission and parishioner at Our Lady of Hope in Copake Falls.