Pope Francis released his environmental encyclical Laudato Si' on 18 June 2015. We've had time to read it, to digest it. Now we have the opportunity to live something of its call, and the first action we're invited to take is dialogue. This encyclical, the way it's structured, is dialogical.
Chapter one is about seeing; a clear-eyed look at the facts. Chapters two, three and four are about judging: how are we called to reflect on theology? How can we look at the situation analytically? What is this paradigm of integral ecology; a new way of seeing ourselves in space and time with everything around us?
Chapters five and six are all about action. Human tendency is always that we want to leap to action. Francis asks us to suspend that tendency, so that we can first be far more formed and informed by one another through dialogue, and ready to take action together, rather than bouncing off in ad hoc fashion.
In chapter one, 'What is happening in our common home?' Francis discusses pollution and the mentality of a throwaway culture. He talks about climate change, and the fact it is affecting so many species, and especially those peoples who have least caused the problem, who are having to deal with it at a very real level.
He reminds us of the impact of climate change on water resources, and he highlights the preciousness of fresh water, the lack of access for the human family at this time, and the ongoing concern for other species around access to fresh water on land, which is critical for all our survival.
He also looks at the social inequalities in our world. He talks about the gap between the rich and the poor, and the ever-growing concentration of wealth at one end of the spectrum. And he talks about biodiversity, the constant loss of species that is happening as we walk and talk and live on this planet.
At the very end of this chapter, he reminds us that all of the responses made to these issues so far have been very weak in the scheme of what we could really be doing. It's a very sobering read. Thankfully, the teaching continues.
"We need to do these things together. We can no longer just work on the social, and think someone else will look after the ecological."
In chapter two Francis talks about the richness of Catholic tradition, of sacred scripture, and the wisdom in the gospels. In fact he calls this whole chapter 'The gospel of creation'. This whole encyclical is about lifting up creation so that we are together in a circle, not a hierarchy with humanity at the pinnacle.
There's some great contributions to theology here. One is the intrinsic value of every single thing, living and non-living, on the earth, in the earth, around the earth. Everything is a gift from God, held in existence by God, and will return to God. When we understand that, how differently we might live on the planet.
Another key point of theology: the revelation of God comes through every single thing — the trees, the wind, the rocks, human faces, in all the different forms, living and non-living. If only we can see it, if only we can hear it, if only we can tune into it. We are called to be in dialogue with it all the time.
The third key theological insight is the call to be in a state of sublime communion; a beautiful phrase. It tells us about how God wants us to be in every moment: in right relationship with our creator, in right relationship with each other, in right relationship with the earth.
In the next chapter, Francis gives us two root causes for everything he's named in chapter one. The first is that if we hold a techno-centric worldview, where technology is seen as something that will save us, then we have misplaced a theological perspective of having God at the centre of our worldview.
Technology has a key part to play in our story. It brings about an incredible sense of the ingenuity, the giftedness of humanity, in our opposable thumbs and our grey matter. It is bringing about good in communications, in medicine, in renewable energy. But we need to see it as part of the solution, not the whole.
The second root cause is a human-centred or anthropocentric world view. This is prevalent today. How often Christians pray for humanity's needs. How often we work for humanity. We must continue to do this, but we cannot afford to do it at the cost to our earth, which is supporting us and everything else.
We need to do these things together. And that brings us to the heart of this revolutionary message. We can no longer just work on the social, and think someone else will look after the ecological. We can no longer just work on the ecological, and think someone else will take care of the social.
This integration is going to take a while, but it's quite easy when we have an expanded view of the universe, and a consciousness of the ecosystems of which we are a part. When we have this sense of integration, we bring it into our language. It's part of how we work, what we do.
Chapter four provides us with a new paradigm of Catholic Social Teaching; a pillar from which we are to look at the common good, subsidiarity, the human dignity story. In this paradigm we're able to see a profile of how to live personally in a way that is truly caring for our common home and one another.
But Francis says personal ecological conversion is not enough. We need to convert our organisations ecologically. This is harder, because we need to be far more organised, to have dialogue, to change our policy and governance.
We need also to bring in the ethical resources dimension, so that we're using the right toilet paper for example. We need to look at our energy use as an organisation, reduce the waste and move to renewables. We need to look at our water footprint as well, and biodiversity.
Chapter five talks about dialogue at every level. It is an invitation to each of us to see how we can influence the people around us. It's a call for international dialogue: to look after the global commons, to put a price on water, to look after the trading of these things in a way that is far more equitable.
It's an invitation for dialogue at a national level: to influence the politics around ecology. It's an invitation to dialogue at a local level, on the decision making about development applications and trees and biodiversity in our neighbourhood.
It's an invitation to dialogue that brings science together with religion. And it's also an invitation to have dialogue between faiths, recognising that the inter-faith space is incredibly rich when you look at all the different faith traditions' and Indigenous peoples' beliefs and worldview about how to care for the planet.
In chapter six Francis says the direction he wants Catholics to go in is ecological education. This is needed for everyone — not just the kids growing up today, but all of us — to much more deeply understand and be able to see the eco-systems around us and how we're engaging with them.
Dialogue plays a role in how we create meaning. When we have true dialogue we create a flow of meaning: between us, and between us and everything around us. Laudato Si' invites us to be mindful of the dialogue that's happening at a human level, at a cosmic level, and with the creator God.
Jacqui Rèmond is former national director of Catholic Eathcare Australia and co-founder of the Global Catholic Climate Movement. This text is an edited transcript of her presentation during the Catholic Social Services national conference Healing, Hearing, Hope.