Oldal 38 [38]
OCR
1. INTRODUCTION of flora and fauna, and any action capable of producing an ecological disaster or destroying an ecosystem. We must introduce — we are thinking about it — in the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home, because it is a duty. In this sense, recently, the Synod Fathers for the Pan-Amazon Region proposed to define ecological sin as action or omission against God, against one’s neighbour, the community and the environment. It is a sin against future generations and is manifested in acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment, in transgressions against the principles of interdependence and in the breaking of networks of solidarity between creatures (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 340344)[2]. (...) ‘ecocide’ is to be understood as the loss, damage or destruction of the ecosystems of a given territory, so that its utilization by inhabitants has been or can be seen as severely compromised. This is a fifth category of crimes against peace, which should be recognised as such by the international community.” Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum,” a follow-up to his encyclical Laudato Si(2015), was published on October 4, 2023, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, symbolically timed before the UN COP28 climate conference in Dubai (November 30-December 12, 2023). In this document, Pope Francis urgently called on global leaders to address the climate crisis with unwavering honesty and decisive action to protect the environment. He emphasized, “It is no longer possible to doubt the human — ‘anthropogenic’ — origin of climate change” (Laudate Deum, para. 11), urging a renewed commitment to live in harmony with creation. He highlighted the moral imperative for humanity in the third millennium to recognize the obligations that earlier societies upheld: to live in balance with the Earth, our common home. Pope Francis noted that a growing number of individuals and organizations worldwide are dedicated to protecting and preserving God’s creation. While numerous ecclesiastical documents, such as Laudato Si (2015) and the Final Document of the Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region (2019), address environmental stewardship from various perspectives, Laudate Deum does not aim to reiterate these comprehensively. Instead, it underscores the gravity of ecological harm. In the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum,* Pope Francis calls for a journey of ecological conversion, urging each person to take responsibility for their actions and their impact on the environment. 78 Ibid. 7 Francis, Laudate Deum. 8 Thid. 36
