Robert Barron on Laudato Si' and Catholic Social Teaching

Robert Barron seems to be a bit more optimistic than I am about the reception of Pope Francis' Laudato Si'. For one thing, Barron sees the encyclical leaving a 'wake' behind, and I have been sadly compelled to see it as a flash in the pan, mainly because its teachings are 'hard.'


It is a wonderful coincidence, though, that Fr. Barron, a single day after my own post  on Catholic social teaching, would ponder Laudato in terms of the prophetic (read: fiery and colorful) language of the document and the pope's speeches in Latin America. Though Barron's comments seem very accurate to me, he does not couch them in the terms of my previous post: subsidiarity, socialization and solidarity. Nonetheless, his contextualization is a good one, and he touches appropriately on the dignity of the individual and the common good.


I recommend Fr. Barron's article for those who seek a context for what this pope is about.

Laudato si': Onto-Ecology and Responsibility in the Folds

The most recent encyclical letter of Pope Francis, Laudato si', is an exhortation of integration, of enfolding, unfolding and folding again. Had Keller's Cloud of the Impossible appeared after the pope's letter, the Cloud would have enfolded it in a tight embrace. The apophatic entanglements in each paragraph of Laudato si' expose the interrelatedness of the natures of the human and the non-human, of the living and non-living, and they link them within an inextricable matrix of an onto-ecology comprised of any number of sub-ecologies. Francis also seems to admit an uncanny object oriented ontology, wherein all objects are made of other objects and interact in a relationality of surfaces; for example, humans interact with their environments through their very embodiment (155).

Francis returns to a favorite theme of the 'common good,' which the encyclical defines as the totality of conditions leading to individual's and community's fulfillment (IV). The securing of the common good means securing it at all levels of the onto-ecological system, from non-human ecological systems to the human, societal and global. Hence, Francis, as his namesake before him, embraces all of creation, in all its chiasmic splendor and entangled intricacies declared 'good' by its creator. The integrity of the whole of creation must go all the way down and all the way through, and none of it, says Laudato si', can maintain its integrity without a commitment to each moment down and through (13 ff).

Laudato si' must be read by all concerned Catholics and other people of good will. The encyclical presents a moment, embarassing to some but a boon to others, that identifies a world and its people at the crossroads and a time for action. Some readers will misinterpret the simplicity of its presentation as quaintness or provincialism, but the encyclical's plainness should be understood as its desire to communicate its themes to a very broad audience. Laudato si' is nothing less than a call to interconnectedness, a call that haunts us all.

Perhaps comments to this blog, which has addressed the ecology of the home and stewardship of the earth before, pertaining to the encyclical will foster a fruitful dialogue about this most crucial opportunity presented by the pope.