ABSTRACT
Laudato Si’ offers much of value to all who share concerns about the multiple environmental crises threatening our world. Climate change is already leading to forced migration, separation of families and increased pressure on resources. In the words of the veteran Catholic environmental campaigner, Fr Sean McDonagh: “In this short document Pope Francis has moved the Catholic Church from the periphery of global engagement with ecology to the very heart of the debate”. Christian environmentalists naturally seek narratives underpinning their commitment to sustainable living in their own sacred texts. In terms of environmental education, the Church clearly has the real-world power, through its seminaries and schools to exercise enormous influence, but Pope Francis can only offer us his “hope” that it will do so. The Catholic Church has almost always—the defeated and flawed Liberation Theology movement being the big exception—sided with conservative forces in society, and against radical change in power structures
