I recently came across the encyclical letter “Laudato Si” [1] of Pope Francis on care for our common home, ie our planet earth. I have been very much impressed by the understanding and compassion by Pope Francis with which he describes the current socio-ecological-economic crisis. In our age of “politically correct lies” were mass extinction may be labelled as “non acceptable” to avoid provoking potential enemies, it was painful and at the same time heart-warming to read the honest words of Pope Francis. I don’t want go into details of his work which covers many aspects of our current world (including recent developments like bioinformatics and nanotechnology) but one major idea which stuck with me.

In my opinion, the major idea in his writing is the basic spiritual crisis, which consists in the lack of compassion for weaker beings, may it be poorer or future human, animals, plants, or other forms of life which we have been exploiting so far. Considering that we need urgent (ie until 2020), massive (ie a reduction of consumption of a factor of 4 in industry countries), and global (ie involving all industrialized and developing countries) action, it is hard to imagine how humans will find the strength  to sacrifice satisfying their immediate need and greed for the greater good without a transcendent spiritual strength to go beyond individual interests and herd instincts. Therefore, I think it is extremely important to be excellent to each other and show a great deal of solidarity with all (human) life, to provide a basis of support for the direly needed changes in our minds, hearts, and behaviour since science and good intentions will not suffice to overcome the towering challenges ahead.

So in summary, if you don’t mind slightly clerical language and few remarks about Virgin Mary towards the end of the book, I can highly recommend it as a highly informative and inspirational reading.

References:

[1] http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.pdf