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“Laudato Si’” has changed my perception of the world by helping me be more attentive to how my actions and presence affect all of creation. It has inspired me to pay attention to my consumption, my communal involvement, and my own career hopes and aspirations.
I learned how to utilize electric cars and contracted to have solar panels built onto my roof. Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for our Common Home” is a very challenging document, and as a young adult, I find it resonates with a lot of my experiences as well as my hopes and fears for the future.
As the first cohort for the Laudato Si’ Action Platform started on Earth Day, April 22, we are at a time as a Catholic Church where we have to embrace the hopes and fears of our young people with honesty and bravery, or risk losing them forever.
The Laudato Si’ Action Platform is an initiative from the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development inviting Catholics to examine their relationship with the environment as individuals and a community. The first cohort of the Laudato Si’ Action Platform are committing as either individuals or with their communities to take steps to improve their relationship with the environment. New cohorts will start every Earth Day.
I encounter many people who are very afraid of what the future looks like, particularly as weather patterns get more destructive over time. Last summer’s fires and our own drought followed by periods of torrential rain were frightening to behold. Young adults talk about climate change frequently, and there is deep frustration that many levels of bureaucracy are not responding. Because young adults see the early signs present, they read the data on future trends, and they want an effective response. However, I have felt many times in the Church that reflecting on and being afraid about our climate is unwelcome or antithetical to being a person of faith. I have even been told as much by people who deny climate change is a real issue in the midst of doing my job serving the archdiocese. It is disheartening to me to know that even in writing this commentary, there will be a bunch of unwelcome responses from people who think they are right but do not want to love but rather want their narrative to be the only narrative and oppose any reflection that might challenge them.
What strikes me in ministry is always the opening line of “Gaudium et Spes,” where the Church seeks to be in solidarity with the joys, hopes, fears and sufferings of the people of God. In our age, climate change is a great source of suffering, particularly for our marginalized populations, and a great source of fear for our young people. Even if we do not agree that climate change is real, our responsibility is to be present for the experience people bring forth and journey with them in their own discernment on societal issues. My hope for readers is that we can do better as a Church to listen and critically engage with our own formative narratives so that we can have room to understand the hearts of our young people.
Fitzpatrick is the social mission outreach coordinator at the Center for Mission in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Learn more about the Laudato Si’ Action Platform at laudatosiactionplatform.org.
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