The greatest attack on the environment is the denial we are causing the poor of their rights, their land, and their future.
October 1, 2025, Francisco Javier Caballero, CSsR.
We are celebrating the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter, Laudato si’. It seems unbelievable, but a decade has passed since its proclamation and 800 years since the original text by Francis of Assisi that inspired it. This anniversary raises some questions that I want to share in this month of October, the real start of our pastoral course.
The first is that we are in times of anniversary. Times of remembrance. And it is good to have memory to discover that we are not improvising and that many of our intuitions are supported by time and the faithfulness of the times. To realize that novelty is not so much the change in things, but rather the intensity of life itself. That is why following Jesus is always new and original when, with fidelity, it recreates sincere discipleship and the adherence of the heart.
The second, especially for those more skeptical of Laudato si’, who exist and continue to exist, is that care for our common home, the ecology of care, and the harmony of creation are not claims or occurrences of our contemporary era. They are principles of our believer’s experience, as the Saint of Assisi clearly attests. The best care for integral ecology is the recognition of the person and their possibilities for development in communion and fraternity. These aspects, as we well know, are gravely threatened by our sustained inconsistency in apparent progress. The greatest attack on ecology is the denial we are causing the poor of their rights, their land, and their future. Pollution, of course, attacks the sacred gift of creation, but also gunpowder, hunger, thirst, the denial of our common home, and, evidently, death.
The third is that the Encyclical we are recalling is a beautiful hymn of gratitude for the gifts received, which are not our merit, but an undeserved gift. The grace of creation is the recognition of a space of life and for life for the Father’s most beloved creature, the human being. It therefore gives us back the experience of knowing that we are cared for and looked upon with love. And, furthermore, with the unequivocal message that for this to happen, we must be capable of enjoying it together, with solidarity and fraternity, with a shared and caring life.
An anniversary, indeed, can be a date to let go. To be mentioned in a celebration and never returned to… But it can also be an opportunity to awaken our awareness and take responsibility for not walking alone, selfishly, caring only for our own history. The best sign of ecological conversion is to make one’s own life a space for communion, for sharing, for the possibilities celebrated in common, for embrace, mercy, and forgiveness. The best ecological song is not to paint the horizon “green,” but to look into each other’s eyes with the awareness of brothers and sisters.
(revistaicono.org)
