Abstract
The October 2023 document Laudate Deum (“Praise God”) presented Pope Francis’s effort to underscore and update the call to care for the environment that he had issued in 2015 with the much longer and more comprehensive Laudato Si’ (“May You Be Praised, Lord”). That momentous social encyclical had brilliantly outlined the spiritual and theological elements of an integral ecology that would address the disastrous degradation of the natural environment.
Over eight years later, Francis perceived the pressing need to issue an urgent call to step up global efforts to fight climate change and pollution. The newer document laments the weakness and inadequacy of the global efforts so far undertaken—naming names and calling out parties (the United States and those complicit with the fossil-fuel economy among them) guilty of dragging their feet in addressing the ecological crisis. Judging, as he clearly does, that the available time for the needed reversal of direction is rapidly running out, Francis dips into the papal playbook to employ the strong prophetic denunciation that just might change the equation and make a crucial difference on the global scene.
All four components of this volume are valuable and well executed. The preface by Tomás Insua and the much longer introduction by Erin Lothes Biviano (both highly respected figures in the field of climate change advocacy) are truly insightful and prepare the reader well for what is to follow. The volume reprints the entirety of the text of Laudate Deum (consisting of 73 paragraphs, most of them quite brief) and then well-selected excerpts from the 246 paragraphs of Laudato Si’.
College instructors will be especially delighted by the availability of this affordable and attractive package. Although both these papal texts may be accessed free of charge on the Vatican website, students will find this format especially approachable and convenient.