Listen to the Cry of the Earth
and the Cry of the Poor
In Laudato Si', the Holy Father "Challenges us to examine our lifestyle." He urges us to work together and educate each other on the issues he raises in his encyclical.
Environmental education, he says, “seeks also to restore the various levels of ecological equilibrium, establishing harmony within ourselves, with others, with nature and other living creatures, and with God. Environmental education should facilitate making the leap towards the transcendent which gives ecological ethics its deepest meaning.”
Pope Francis says: "Ecological education can take place in a variety of settings: at school, in families, in the media, in catechesis and elsewhere. Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life. Here, though, I would stress the great importance of the family, which is “the place in which life – the gift of God – can be properly welcomed and protected against the many attacks to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes authentic human growth. In the face of the so-called culture of death, the family is the heart of the culture of life”.
We as individuals and as families are call to educate ourselves using the many resources available to us and appropriate for examining our lifestyles and taking action.