Pope Francis's Encyclical Laudato Si': An Analysis of the Catholic Church's Call to Combat the Environmental Crisis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32991/2237-2717.2026v16i2.p126-155Keywords:
environmental crisis, climate change, Catholic Church, encyclical, Pope FrancisAbstract
Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ is a key document on the socio-environmental crisis, whose transformative core lies in "integral ecology"—the inseparable connection between social and environmental problems—and the call for an "ecological conversion." This article aims to identify how these two concepts are articulated as the encyclical's central proposal to address this crisis, moving beyond a simple ecological denunciation. A qualitative methodology was employed, involving an exhaustive documentary analysis and a discourse analysis of Laudato Si’, focusing on the chapters concerning "integral ecology" and "ecological conversion." The results indicate that the encyclical proposes "integral ecology" as a new paradigm of justice linking environmental, social, and human crises, and promotes a personal, community, and structural "ecological conversion." It is concluded that Laudato Si’ is a call to rethink humanity's place and act with generosity, urging changes in lifestyles, production, consumption, and effective global governance in the face of weak political responses and faith in purely technological solutions.
References
Albareda Tiana, Sílvia. "Aportaciones de la Laudato sí en el contexto de la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible." Scripta Theologica 48, no. 2 (2016): 443–62. https://revistas.unav.edu/index.php/scripta-theologica/issue/view/207
Aseneta, Anatoly Angelo R. "Laudato Si’ on Non-Human Animals." Journal of Moral Theology 6, no. 2 (2017): 230–45. https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/11366-laudato-si-on-non-human-animals
Brazal, Agnes M. "Ethics of Care in Laudato Si’: A Postcolonial Ecofeminist Critique." Feminist Theology 29, no. 3 (2021): 220–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/09667350211000614
Butkus, Russell. "Solidarity: Does the Modern Catholic Rights Tradition Have Anything to Offer Environmental Virtue Ethics?" Environmental Ethics 37, no. 2 (2015): 169–86. https://dc2.philarchive.org/rec/FITTCC-2
Chuvieco Salinero, Emilio. "La 'conversión ecológica' en la 'Laudato Si' y en la tradición cristiana." La Albolafia: Revista de Humanidades y Cultura 10 (2017): 27–42. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/extaut?codigo=2142011
Deane-Drummond, Celia. "Laudato Si’ and the Natural Sciences: An Assessment of Possibilities and Limits." Theological Studies 77, no. 2 (2016): 392–415. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563916635118
Downs, Andrew, and Andrew Weigert. "Scientific and Religious Convergence toward an Environmental Typology? A Search for Scientific Constructs in Papal and Episcopal Documents." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38 (1999): 45–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/1387583
Edwards, Denis. "'Everything Is Interconnected': The Trinity and the Natural World in Laudato Si'." The Australasian Catholic Record 94, no. 1 (2017): 81–92. https://revistas.comillas.edu/index.php/estudioseclesiasticos/article/view/8722
Flores, Nichole M. "Our Sister, Mother Earth”: Solidarity and Familial Ecology in Laudato Si'." Journal of Religious Ethics 46, no. 3 (2018): 463–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jore.12227
Heimbach-Steins, Marianne, and Sabine Schlacke. Die Enzyklika Laudato si'. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2019.
Jamieson, Dale. "Why Laudato Si' Matters." Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 57, no. 6 (2015): 19–20.
Jenkins, Willis. "The Mysterious Silence of Mother Earth in Laudato Si'." Journal of Religious Ethics 46, no. 3 (2018): 441–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10090511
Korsch, Dietrich. "Laudato si': Eine protestantische Lektüre." Antonianum 91, no. 4 (2016): 887–901. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=5799139
Krauss, Lawrence M. "Ideology Subsumes Empiricism in Pope's Climate Encyclical". Scientific American Blog Network, 2015. http://rss.sciam.com/~r/sciam/physics/~3/3NQkyWPnp38/
Kureethadam, Joshtrom. The Ten Green Commandments of Laudato Si'. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2019.
La Vergata, Antonello. "Considerazioni sull'enciclica di Papa Francesco 'Laudato si'." Atti della Società dei Naturalisti e Matematici di Modena 148 (2017): 353–68. https://www.socnatmatmo.unimore.it/download/Atti2017.pdf
Landrigan, Philip J., et al. "Laudato Si' and the Emerging Contribution of Catholic Research Universities to Planetary Health." The Lancet Planetary Health 8, no. 3 (2024): e140–41. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38453378
Lemna, Keith. "Human Ecology, Environmental Ecology, and a Ressourcement Theology: Caritas in veritate in the Light of Philip Sherrard's Theandric Anthropology." Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 14, no. 3 (2011): 133–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/log.2011.0025
Malavasi, Pierluigi, and Claudio Giuliodori. Ecologia Integrale: Laudato si', Ricerca, Formazione, Conversione. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2016.
Malavasi, Pierluigi. "Cosa significa imparare? 20 domande per la formazione umana e lo sviluppo sostenibile. Con l’enciclica Laudato si’." Formazione & Insegnamento 19, no. 1T1 (2021): 12–23. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/7617/761780115002.pdf
Massaro, Thomas. "What Precisely Did Pope Francis Contribute? Parsing Key Terms and Claims in Laudato Si’." Social Sciences 12, no. 10 (2023): 552-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci12100552
Máté-Tóth, András, and George Joseph Vellankal. "Social Sins, Structural Virtues, and the Educational Challenge: Reflections on Caritas in Veritate and Laudato Si’." Religions 16, no. 2 (2025): 136. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16020136
McCallum, Malcolm L. "Perspective: Global Country-by-Country Response of Public Interest in the Environment to the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si'." Biological Conservation 235 (2019): 209–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.04.010
McKim, Robert. Laudato Si' and the Environment. London: Routledge, 2019.
Mejía Correa, Iván. "'Laudato Si': Un nuevo paradigma ecológico." Revista Albertus Magnus 7, no. 1 (2016): 137–54. https://doi.org/10.15332/S2011-9771.2016.0001.08
Miller, Vincent J. The Theological and Ecological Vision of Laudato Si': Everything Is Connected. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.
Molina, M. Carmen, and Magui Pérez-Garrido. "Laudato Si' and Its Influence on Sustainable Development Five Years Later: A First Look at the Academic Productivity Associated to This Encyclical." Environmental Development 43 (2022): 100726. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2022.100726
Montgomery, W. David. "The Flawed Economics of Laudato Si'." The New Atlantis, no. 46 (Summer 2015): 31–44.
Moyano Estrada, Eduardo. "Un ensayo sobre la Laudato si’ y su contribución a la conciencia ambiental." Revista de Fomento Social 73, no. 292 (2018): 441–56. https://repositorio.unicamp.br/Busca/Download?codigoArquivo=556470
Nicholas, Jeffery. "Local Communities and Globalization in Caritas in veritate." Solidarity: The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and Secular Ethics 1, no. 1 (2011): art. 5. https://philarchive.org/archive/NICLCA-2
Papa Francisco. Laudato si'. Carta Encíclica del Santo Padre Francisco sobre el cuidado de la casa común. Primera Edición. Madrid: Ediciones Palabra, 2015.
Ranboki, Buce A. "Menemukan Teologi Leonardo Boff dalam Ensiklik Paus Fransiskus Laudato Si'." Indonesian Journal of Theology 5, no. 1 (2017): 42–67. https://doi.org/10.46567/ijt.v5i1.34
Reis, Émilien Vilas Boas, and Kiwonghi Bizawu. "A encíclica Laudato Si à luz do direito internacional do meio ambiente." Veredas do Direito 12, no. 23 (2015): 37-55. https://revista.domhelder.edu.br/index.php/veredas/issue/view/37
Riggio, Giuseppe di, S.J. "Laudato si’: Il valore rivoluzionario dei gesti quotidiani." Aggiornamenti Sociali 67, no. 6/7 (2016): 416–24. https://www.aggiornamentisociali.it/articoli/laudato-si-il-valore-rivoluzionario-dei-gesti-quotidiani/
Rubio, Miguel. "Laudato si': Una teología de la creación en perspectiva ecológica." Moralia 39, no. 149 (2016).
Schall, James V. "The Teaching of 'Centesimus Annus'." Gregorianum 74 (1993): 17–43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23579043
Semeraro, Marcello, and Guido Gili. "L'ecologia della comunicazione e dei media nell'Enciclica Laudato si'." Problemi dell'Informazione 41, no. 2 (2016): 253–78.
Sethi, S. Prakash, and Paul Steidlmeier. "Religion's Moral Compass and a Just Economic Order: Reflections on Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Centesimus Annus." Journal of Business Ethics 12 (1993): 901–17. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25072486.pdf
Silecchia, Lucia A. "Conflicts and Laudato Si’." Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law 33, no. 1 (2017): 61–86. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26895797
Tilche, Andrea, and Antonello Nociti. "Laudato Si': The Beauty of Pope Francis' Vision." SAPIENS. Surveys and Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society 8, no. 1 (2015). https://journals.openedition.org/sapiens/pdf/1704
Urick, Michael J., William J. Hisker, and Jeffrey L. Godwin. "Management Response to Laudato Si: An Operational Excellence Perspective." Journal of Biblical Integration in Business 20, no. 2 (2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.69492/jbib.v20i2.468
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Iván Vargas-Chaves
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This journal offers immediate free access to its content, following the principle that providing free scientific knowledge to the public provides greater global democratization of knowledge.
As of the publication in the magazine the authors have copyright and publication rights of their articles without restrictions.
The HALAC Magazine follows the legal precepts of the Creative Commons - Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International license. 
