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Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs
us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs 1. (1st par.)
which basically gives the readers the main point of the lengthy document, that is, the
Mother Earth is now crying out because of what we, humans, have done to her. It also
implicitly sends a message to the humanity about the destruction that man is rendering
First of all, I find it interesting that Pope Francis, a highly educated and holy man,
focuses not only on the issues facing Catholics today but also the environmental and
societal issues. I think he came up with this well-researched encyclical because he sees
the Earth as Gods gift of creation for us to care, not to destroy. Growing up in an eco-
friendly family, I also had the same mentality towards environment. My parents have the
habit of planting trees and taking good care of animals. We have always been educated
by them about plants and animals and as result, we have become more conscious
about what we eat, how much trash we gather, and what items could be reused and
recycled. My parents, specifically my father who has always been a nature-friendly ever
1 Encyclical Letter Laudato Si of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home, par.
1, retrieved from http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-
francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
since, opened our hearts to the message that all of creation must be valued and
protected. He would always tell us that we should protect the Earth by respecting the
environment as we respect human life for there could be no good life without good
environment and I think this is what the integral ecology is trying to emphasize.
Since everything is closely interrelated, and todays problems call for a vision capable of taking
into account every aspect of the global crisis, I suggest that we now consider some elements of
an integral ecology, one which clearly respects its human and social dimensions.2
Integral ecology, according to Pope Francis, points out that everything is closely related
with which I strongly agree. Basically, human beings are part of the environment and the
beauty of nature depends on what we do. What we do in our daily lives has always
connection with or impact on the environment. A simple litter, cutting of trees, pollution,
and not conserving water and electricity are notably the activities that damage the
environment. These are the things we always tend to overlook and should take action
occur.
The climate is a common good that belongs to all of us. It is one of the main
challenges that humans are facing nowadays. The Earth is warming and it is primarily
because of the greenhouse gases and deforestations both caused by humans. Thus,
there should be public policy that would promote renewable sources of energy.
2 Ibid, Chapter 4.
Moreover, Pope Francis explains how unbalance the world is due to lack of
natural resources which affects the poor people of the world. It is always taken for
granted that there are those people who waste food and water while others are starving
to death and do not have access to clean water. If we continue to do this, we continue to
To make things simpler, Pope Francis basically brings light to the world with
regard environmental degradation and how it relates to human life. He makes people
realize that there is a connection between the environment and society, that is, there
could be no good ecology if there is no good society that would take good care of
Mother Earth. By understanding such, we would be able to have a unity and solidarity
with the poor and thereby successfully fulfilling our obligations as humans to be more