Part II covered the spiritual belief shared by St. Francis and Pope Francis of the unity of everything in our universe, an undeniable truth because God created it all, from galaxies, to humans, to bugs and dirt under our feet. A summary of the five-chapter, 115-page guts of Laudato Si’ was the auspicious goal of Part III. In Chapter 6, “Ecological Education and Spirituality,” the gloves come off.
Pope Francis calls upon us to change ourselves and our lifestyle. “The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own, and consume.” “Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle … can only lead to violence and mutual destruction.” In Chapter 2, Pope Francis quoted the bishops of New Zealand, who put this pointedly in 2006 by asking “What does ‘Thou shall not kill’ mean when ‘twenty percent of the world’s population consumes resources at a rate that robs poor nations and future nations of what they need to survive.’” My friends, few of us are not are in the 20%. “In the end,” Pope Francis says, “a world of exacerbated consumption is … a world which mistreats life in all its forms.” He then consoles, “all is not lost” because, with thought and caring and inspired by meditative prayer, we can act in a way that treats all of God’s creation fairly. Continue reading “Walking Before We Fly, Part IV – Joe Genova”
