Creation Care offers Christian answers to ecological crisis

(Vatican Radio) In an impromptu press conference on the flight back from South Korea on Monday, Pope Francis confirmed that his encyclical on the environment has been written and is currently under revision.

The pontiff said he wrote the encyclical with the collaboration of Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and others. 

While he did not give a date for its release, the Pope said the encyclical is one-third longer than his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and that it presented many difficult questions.

It is possible to discuss the stewardship of creation and ecology with clarity “only to a certain point,” he told journalists. “But then scientific hypotheses come into play, some feasible, and others perhaps not.”

Norman Levesque, director of the Green Church Project, a pan-Canadian ecumenical initiative, based at the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism in Montreal, said he expects Pope Francis’ encyclical to follow the progression of thought on the environment, developed and articulated by previous pontiffs.

“Paul VI was very focused on (sustainable) development. John Paul II was more involved in social justice. Benedict XVI (focused on) respect for the order of creation,” he said. “So we’re going from careful development, to eco-justice, to the order of creation and respecting it.”

John Paul II, always put a human face on the environmental crisis, Levesque added, underlining that it is the poor and vulnerable who suffer most the effects of environmental degradation.

Levesque said he expects Pope Francis to draw from Franciscan spirituality and to speak “in the encyclical about loving creation as the Creator loves it”.

Levesque expounds on the approach of the Green Church Project and the work he calls “Creation Care Ministry” in his new book, Greening Your Church. It is a ministry, he said, which is taking on a more important role in parishes and dioceses in North America.

Creation Care Ministry, he said, “is a Christian answer to the environmental crisis. So, we look in the Bible, the stories of the saints, our Eucharistic prayers, virtues, and all of these references.”

Listen to the interview with Norman Levesque:

Report and interview by Laura Ieraci