To the Editor:
In his recent encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis urgently calls us to take action to care for our common home. “Everything is related,” he writes, “and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth.”
The Catholic Sisters for a Healthy Earth is made up of representatives from several Midwestern communities of women religious. We stand with Pope Francis in urging us all to move beyond the apathy, excessive faith in technology, political shortsightedness and reckless pursuit of profits which have caused us to exploit our Earth over the last 200 years.
As world leaders gather in Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference this week, we are hopeful that they will be guided by the spirit of Laudato Si in negotiating a shared commitment to address climate change. We pray that our interconnectedness with all life will be a unifying force that brings about the efforts of all nations that are needed to solve the challenge at hand.
Let us all, as individuals, also renew our own pledge to heed the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor and care for the earth and each other by our own actions, by engaging in dialogue with others, and pressing our lawmakers to prioritize bold action and turn the tide for climate justice.
Laura Anderson on behalf
of Catholic Sisters for a Healthy Earth: Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton; Congregation of the Humility of Mary, Davenport; Catholic Benedictine Sisters of St. Mary Monastery, Rock Island, Illinois; School Sisters of Notre Dame, Central Pacific Province, St. Louis, Missouri; Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin; and Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sisters of St. Francis and Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, all of Dubuque, Iowa.
