The Catholic Church teaches that we need to care for the environment in a serious and effective manner, and recycling is one important means to this end. Since our actions have lasting consequences on the earth and its ability to sustain life, we should care for the earth, but also repair the harm which has been done to it. In his encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis warns us that our “sister [Earth] now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.” While environmental issues affect everyone’s wellbeing, the poor are disproportionately affected by them. Francis quotes a Bolivian conference of bishops, saying, “Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.”
Not only has Pope Francis stressed the importance of caring for our common home, the earth, but he also explains that he is part of a tradition of papal environmentalism going back even to Pope St. John XXIII. Pope St. John Paul II warns against the sinful human tendency “to see no other meaning in their natural environment than what serves for immediate use and consumption,” a mentality which helps to cause these environmental injustices. Such abuse caused JPII to call for a “global ecological conversion” over 40 years ago. To view the full article visit the University of Dallas News.