At the opening of the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum Pope Francis acknowledges that, eight years after the fervent warning issued in the encyclical letter Laudato si’ , that alarm cry seems to be lost in the din of a world that, at an alarming pace, is sliding toward a breaking point. The planet that welcomes us is crumbling, and the impact of climate change increasingly threatens the lives of countless sisters and brothers.
Against this backdrop of growing concern, the celebration of Earth Day, the planet’s largest environmental event, resonates powerfully. It is a day when, like a single global heartbeat, billions of people come together to honor the Earth and call for its protection.
Praise God for all his creatures
Born on April 22, 1970, to emphasize the need to preserve the Earth’s natural resources, this annual event has become a crucial moment for reflection and action. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day every year on April 22.
As Pope Francis reminds us in Laudate Deum, Saint Francis of Assisi invited us through his life to “praise God for all his creatures.” This invitation reflects Jesus’ own sensitivity toward creation: he admires the beauty of the lilies of the field and reminds us that not even one sparrow is forgotten before God. How could we not make this loving gaze toward those who share this journey with us our own?
However, today the global climate crisis is an undeniable reality, with increasingly evident signs: “No one can ignore that in recent years we have witnessed extreme phenomena, frequent periods of unusually hot weather, droughts, and other cries of the earth,” the Pope denounces. And although not all disasters can be directly attributed to climate change, it is verifiable that human activities significantly increase their likelihood and intensity. Indeed, “some human-induced climate changes significantly increase the likelihood of more frequent and more intense extreme events.”
The Pope does not hesitate to denounce the resistance and confusion that still obscure the gravity of the situation. Some minimize it, others blame the poor, forgetting that “the richer lower percentage of the world's population pollutes more than the poorest 50%” and that “per capita emissions in the richest countries are far higher than those in the poorest.”
The risk of the technocratic paradigm
The root of the problem lies in the growing technocratic paradigm, a way of thinking that deludes human beings into believing they can dominate reality, forgetting that “we are included in it, we are part of it, and we are permeated by it.” This paradigm pushes us toward an obsession with unlimited growth, turning nature into a mere resource at our service. As the Pope warns, “everything that exists ceases to be a gift to be appreciated, valued, and cared for, and becomes a slave, a victim of every whim of the human mind and its abilities.”
Our power has grown at a dizzying pace, but it has not been accompanied by adequate ethical growth: “It is terribly risky that [so much power] resides in a small part of humanity.” We must rethink how we use our power, recognizing that the world is not an object to be exploited.
A policy for the common good
The weakness of international politics on this issue is another crucial sticking point. As Pope Francis emphasizes, “multilateral agreements between states should be encouraged.” For decades, the Climate Conferences (COP) have represented an attempt to address the crisis, with both progress and failures. The 2015 Paris Agreement was a significant moment, but its implementation is hampered by the lack of effective monitoring mechanisms and by national interests that often prevail over the common good. Hopes for COP28 in Dubai are high, but it is essential that they translate into binding forms of energy transition. “We hope that those who take part will be strategists capable of thinking about the common good and the future of their children, rather than the circumstantial interests of some country or company,” the Pope hopes.
The earth belongs to God
For us believers, spiritual motivations are a beacon in the night. The Bible reminds us that the Earth belongs to God and that we are merely guests: “This responsibility toward a land that belongs to God implies that human beings, endowed with intelligence, respect the laws of nature and the delicate balances among the beings of this world,” Pope Francis warns. Jesus himself invited us to pay attention to the beauty of the world, contemplating the Father’s creation with wonder: “When he traveled through every corner of his land, he would stop to contemplate the beauty sown by his Father, and he invited the disciples to perceive a divine message in things.”
We are united with all creatures, bound by invisible threads in a kind of universal family: “God has bound us so closely to the world around us that the desertification of the soil is like an illness for each of us, and we can lament the extinction of a species as though it were a mutilation.”
We are called to profound change
On this World Earth Day, we feel the urgency of profound change. Technical remedies are not enough; a cultural transformation, a new way of living and thinking, is necessary. Small daily actions, attention to consumption, and reducing waste are seeds of hope that fuel change from within: “There are no lasting changes without cultural changes, without a maturing of our way of living and our social convictions, and there are no cultural changes without changes in people.”
“Praise God”—this is the heart of Pope Francis’s message: it means recognizing the beauty and sacredness of creation, feeling that we are part of it, and acting responsibly to protect it for future generations. World Earth Day reminds us that we are one human family, closely interconnected with every form of life on Earth. Let us listen to the cry of the Earth, make it our own, and respond with a whisper of hope that turns into concrete action. The future of our common home is in our hands.
If you wish to read the encyclical Laudate Deum in full, we recommend the Shalom edition, with an introduction by Monsignor Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto.
