After his visit to France, the sovereign pontiff must publish a new text evoking the defense of nature at the beginning of October. This new position comes after a summer marked by historic heat waves.
“Suddenly my personal commitments and my faith became consistent.” On June 18, 2015, Pope Francis’ call for “safeguarding the common home” “wake up” Marie-Hélène. For the first time in history, a sovereign pontiff advocates “ecological conversion” in an encyclical, a letter to all believers, entitled “Laudato Si” (“Praise be to you” in medieval Italian).
Six months before COP15 and the adoption of the Paris climate agreement, which plans to limit global warming below 2°C, the pope denounces in this letter “intensive use of fossil fuels”, “a vision of nature solely as an object of profit and interest” and calls into question “the great concentration of greenhouse gases (…) emitted mainly because of human activity.
In 2020, Pope Francis also urges the world to “hear the cries of the Amazonian people”, victims of deforestation of the South American tropical forest. This year, the religious leader will once again hammer home his ecological speech for a few days after his visit to Marseille. A sequel to this encyclical will in fact be published on October 4, when humanity experienced its hottest summer ever recorded on Earth.
A denunciation of “greenwashing”
Pope Francis is not the first pontiff to speak out in favor of ecology, but this has never been done before in such an important text. An awareness that is certainly late compared to the first warnings from scientists about global warming, at the end of the 1980s. Nevertheless: for the philosopher Dominique Bourg, the pope’s catching up is both “inspired and daring”.
In his encyclical, we even find the notion of “decrease”that of a “change of civilization”, the denunciation of the absence of climate refugee status and the refusal of purely technical solutions. The sovereign pontiff also criticizes the “sustainable growth discourse” : he affirms that “the social and environmental responsibility of companies is usually reduced to a series of marketing and image actions”.
Basically, “the encyclical makes the link between the preservation of the environment and the social doctrine of the Church”explains Dominique Bourg.
“This encyclical denounces the despotic posture of humans in relation to other creatures.”
Dominique Bourg, philosopherat franceinfo
The pope’s letter to the faithful also turns the page on an old debate on the responsibility of the Catholic Church in the climate crisis. In 1967, the American historian Lynn White accused “the most anthropocentric religion the world has known” for having promoted a utilitarian vision of nature, describing it as a gift from God to humans. HASith “Laudato Si”, “we move away from the theologian controversy to question the political and social responsibility of believers in the fight against the ecological crisis”underlines the philosopher Catherine Larrère.
A call that pleases some faithful
Is this environmentalist discourse appreciated by the faithful? Yes and no, it seems. According to an Ifop survey, published at the beginning of September, 52% dPracticing French Catholics believe that this is the role of the Church to talk about the environment and climate change. A proportion which rises to 68% among 25-34 year olds. Marie-Hélène is one of the believers who experienced this missive from the Pope like a “second conversion”. After reading the encyclical “in a row”she founded a support group in a Catholic association café in Lyon, La Simone, to “to train, to pray [et] make individual and collective commitments”.
In the process, this practicing Catholic created an association to maintain peasant agriculture (Amap). She is also an activist in an association of “resistance to advertising aggression”. A commitment which earned her the opportunity to be heard by several deputies in the context of proposed laws. She also took action against Tafta and Ceta, two free trade treaties of which she denounces. “lack of ecological and social coherence”. She even wrote a “short guide to ecological conversion” to encourage Catholics to get involved.
Marie-Hélène is far from being the only one with whom the text resonated. After the publication of the encyclical, a handful of believers founded the Laudato Si’ movement – named after this papal missive – to “inspire and mobilize the Catholic community” and work to “the advent of climate and ecological justice” through training in prayer, meditation and advocacy campaigns. Former member of the student manifesto for an ecological awakening and ex-president of the Christian community of Polytechnique, Benoît felt a “great joy” upon reading the encyclical, which allowed him “to reconcile two important poles in one’s life: ecology and religion”.
A letter at the origin of initiatives
It is also in the name of “Laudato Si” that Marc Stenger, bishop emeritus of Troyes, decides to take action with a delegation composed “of Catholics, Jews and Muslims”. During a general meeting of TotalEnergies, they chained themselves to the Léopold Senghor footbridge, in Paris, for around twenty minutes, in the hope of making the oil giant react, whose Eacop oil pipeline project in Uganda they denounced. and in Tanzania.
“God requires that we care for creation.”
Marc Stenger, bishop emeritus of Troyesat franceinfo
The encyclical is also at the origin of concrete initiatives to limit the carbon footprint of representatives of religion and the faithful. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences has thus written a guide to “faith-based measures for Catholic investors” titled “Mensarum Bonam”, which recalls that the Pope calls to stop using fossil fuels and to develop renewable energies. “Laudate Si” also inspired the “Green Church” label, which brings together the different Christian movements in France. If it does not have specifications, it offers an “eco-diagnosis” on buildings, lifestyles or even the celebrations offered at the church.
The text, however, sparked controversy over the“integral ecology” of which he defends. One passage in particular is debated: the one which states that, “since everything is linked, the defense of nature is not compatible with the justification of abortion either”. “Big rubbish”, judge Dominique Bourg. According to the philosopher, “the human species currently occupies a position that is essentially destructive. It is criminal to defend ‘life at all costs'” against the advice of women who intend to freely dispose of their bodies.
For his part, Marie-Hélène finds it a shame “to instrumentalize the encyclical by summarizing it with this passage”. This practitioner would also like the sovereign pontiff to be inspired by ecofeminist thought, which makes the link between the oppression of women and that of nature. “But on this subject, I am not waiting for the institutions to move forward”adds the one who participated in the creation of a speaking circle “on the Church and feminism”.
A speech that clashes with “realpolitik”
Eight years after “Laudato Si”, the commitments made within the framework of the Paris Agreement to stem the ecological crisis seem very distant. If current practices continue, the United Nations Environment Program warned in a report published in October 2022, the world is heading straight towards warming of 2.8°C. Beyond individual conversions, does the sovereign pontiff have the power to move the lines or is he doomed to preach in the desert?
In 2021, there were nearly 1.4 billion Catholics on the planet, a figure increasing despite a notable decline in Europe, according to the latest official data relayed by the VaticanNews.va site. Pope Francis therefore has an audience. But he basically “a power of influence, which depends on the receptivity of different social circles to its message, like a kind of super NGO”, analyzes François Mabille, researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris). Furthermore, the Vatican “sometimes bends to ‘realpolitik’ to protect local churches” and has traditionally “a discourse more ethical than political, with the desire to present itself as a messenger of peace throughout the world”concludes the researcher.
The sequel to “Laudato Si” is, however, impatiently awaited by these fervent Catholics and environmentalists. Benoît would appreciate a “more explicit criticism of the world of finance” And “a call to take action”. Marie-Hélène hopes that the pope’s new text will make it possible to “put ecology back at the center of the debate”.