This six part series of conversations about Protecting Our Common Home - the encyclical Laudato Si, written by Pope Francis. The podcasts are moderated by Greg Wathen, a member of St. Stephen Catholic Community in Old Hickory, Tennessee. Participants are members of our community in the greater Nashville area.
In this chapter the Pope emphasizes that the environment we live in is a gift from God and we are called to take care of it - it is for the common good. Then the Pope reviews some of the damage that the earth suffers today, such as pollution, the issue of water, the loss of biodiversity, the decline in the quality of life and the breakdown in society. Read the chapter and then listen to this conversation. You will find it enlightening!
Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.
Once we start to think about the kind of world we are leaving to future generations, we look at things differently; we realize that the world is a gift which we have freely received and must share with others.
What is to be done? Francis calls for dialogue on environmental policy in international, national and local communities.
"Purchasing is always a moral - and not simply economic - act." Today "the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our lifestyle."
We need to change and develop new convictions, attitudes and forms of life, including a new lifestyle. This requires not only individual conversion, but also community networks to solve the complex situation facing our world today.
Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.