Stuart W. Swetland and Moti Rieber: Pope challenges all of us to treat the Earth well

In his stirring and demanding new encyclical letter Laudato Si (“Blessed Be”), Pope Francis challenges all of us, believers and nonbelievers, with one simple question: “What kind of world do you want to leave those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?”

Francis, following in the footsteps of his namesake St. Francis of Assisi, refers to Mother Earth as “our sister.” If this is so, we have not treated our sister very well.

The pope writes: “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”

Specifically, the pontiff cites the problems of climate change, access to safe drinking water, the loss of biodiversity, and the breakdown of the value and quality of human life, the family, and society. Much of this is caused by a culture of materialism, consumerism and waste, in which people and resources are treated as disposable. Francis refers to this as an ethos of a “throwaway culture.” In all of this it is always the poor who are most harmed and threatened.

Francis is challenging those of us who live in affluent parts of the world to examine our consciences and make a radical change in our lifestyles. Our overreliance on fossil fuels needs to be urgently addressed. We have often embraced convenience over healthy stewardship, and our dietary choices are both unhealthy for us and for our fragile environment.

The consequences of our thoughtless actions are already being felt by other people and creatures all over the world: in drought and flood, in heat wave and rising sea level, in loss of water resources and arable land.

Francis is following the lead of his immediate predecessors Blessed Paul VI, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They have all called for a “profound change in lifestyles, models of production, and consumption.” He echoes St. John Paul II’s call for a global ecological conversion.

And the pope is not the only moral or religious leader calling for such a conversion. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew says, “To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against us and a sin against God.” The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, recently said: “Climate change is a moral imperative akin to that of the civil rights movement. It is already a threat to the livelihoods and survival of people in the developing world. “ And more than 300 rabbis have signed a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis. So this is truly a multifaith effort.

As religious believers of different faiths, we share a common belief that the Earth has been entrusted to humankind as a gift, to be cherished and protected. As good stewards, we should hand on to future generations a world more ecologically and morally sound than the one we received.

Francis has presented us with the challenge; it is up to us to meet it.

This story was originally published June 22, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Stuart W. Swetland and Moti Rieber: Pope challenges all of us to treat the Earth well."