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WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of Epic. And joining me is Anna Johnson, North American Director of the Laudato Si' movement. Welcome to the show.

JOHNSON:

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

WHEELER:

So, this week we're talking about Pope Francis's environmental legacy, which includes the Laudato Si' movement, which promotes environmentalism or environmental action within the Catholic Church. Just yesterday, we had the election of Pope Leo XIV. We are all excited about this, still trying to figure out what Pope Leo means for the Catholic faith and for environmental action within the Catholic faith. And so, maybe we'll touch on that, but it's probably too early to really get deeply into this. So, we have a great history, though, to talk about with Pope Francis.

So, let's start with that. 2013, then Cardinal Bergoglio was named Pope. He chose the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi. Why or how is that an indicator of his direction for his papacy?

JOHNSON:

Absolutely. And it was bold, you know, we hear people saying, like, it's so bold to pick this name that has never been chosen by a Pope before to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis. Such a beloved figure throughout our faith. And it was such an indicator. There's the story that perhaps you've heard that after he got elected, one of his friends leaned over to him and whispered in his ear, don't forget the poor. And we can see throughout his papacy, he did not do that. St. Francis was a man who walked alongside the poor, he chose poverty and in so doing also was just aware of what so many people who are living close to the margins understand is that we are just reliant upon our earth, but also that earth is a gift from God and it is part of God's creation. And so we are called to be in right relationship with creation and called to also understand how creation is glorifying God too.

And so throughout his papacy, you really just saw that for Pope Francis, these were not divisive issues, that caring for the poor and caring for the earth were one and the same. And how closely it all was connected to just living an authentic, authentically praising God was to live in this way. And it was just amazing to see this carried out throughout all of his actions throughout all of his papacy.

WHEELER:

And after the Pope's death, I came across a photo of him riding the bus in Buenos Aires where he served as Cardinal. And it was, I think as you touched upon this kind of connection to the poor that also informed his environmentalism. There's some kind of intersectionality, I think is a word that we might use today in critical theory studies about this connection and this relationship. And so I hope that you could talk a little bit more about how this riding the bus and being a Jesuit and this deep connection to the people that he served as a pastor also then came through in his papacy and informed that environmentalism and how these subjects are related.

JOHNSON:

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of my favorite stories about him is how early on in his papacy, he got caught like sneaking out of the Vatican to go hang out with people who were experiencing homelessness in the streets of Rome. And just that everywhere that he went, he like met with Catholic charities groups and just knew that in order for his faith to be authentic, he had to draw close to the people and the people who are living closest to the margins. And this is just clearly in line with the Gospels, I think, in so many ways, right? You see Jesus doing this throughout all of our Gospels. Who was he hanging out with, right? It's like, not the rich people necessarily, but like walking with the fishermen and the tax collectors and the people who were on the margins as well. And so this idea that the Gospel becomes more clear to people who are walking along side those who are poorest just continued to be throughout his papacy, right?

And so one of the things we see is that when ... I'll tell a story. I lived in Uganda for a few years. And when I was there, I was working with an internally displaced persons camp. So it was made up of people who had to flee the war in the North and they're like refugees, but they weren't afforded the same international rights as refugees because they hadn't crossed international border. As part of our work there, we did some community surveying to see what was needed. And these grandmothers who had houses full of 12 kids that were from their neighborhood and all of her grandchildren that she fled with were just saying, we just need a safe place for our kids to go, right? So these are kind of the poorest of the poor. They've had to flee from violence. They don't have a lot. They don't even have the structure of a refugee camp. And they just said, we just need a place for our kids to go during the day so we can try and earn some money and so that we can make a sustainable living and help ourselves.

So we worked with the local church, donated a plot of land and a building to create what's called a child-friendly space. A place these kids could go, be safe, sing songs, process, learn. And the way we were going to make it economically sustainable is we were going to farm the land that the church also donated. So we got seeds. We like got a grant, got the seeds, planted the seeds. And in an equatorial country where rain should come consistently and have come the same time every year for decades and generations, the rain didn't come when it always had. And the seeds dried up and died in the heat of the sun. And so we moved the grant money around and we planted again. And this time the rains fell so torrentially that it wiped away the topsoil and took the seeds with it. So this again is we were trying to walk with the people who are poorest of the poor and trying to walk with helping them just have the life that God would want for them, right? And the ecological disaster is just moving faster than we can in other ways.

And Pope Francis continued to see, I think he saw this from his accompaniment with people throughout all of his ministry work, as well as he continued to draw so close to so many migrants and refugees and just saw how the ecological crisis is driving, is making people have to move. Nobody wants to be leaving their homelands, right? Like people want to be able to stay, but decreasing water sources or changing rainfall patterns is making it so that people have to move. And so Pope Francis was able to tie this together and he understood this, that the way that the weather systems are changing because of the ecological crisis, because of the ways that we are harmfully consuming fossil fuels is driving greater suffering throughout the world. And so this is an example of how this works. I was recently speaking on a panel with Bishop Flores, who's in Brownsville, Texas. And he said, when you're poor, you understand that the earth can help you live or can kill you. For me, living inside this house, right? Like if it's hot, I can turn on a fan. If it's cold, I can turn on the heater. I'm a little bit separated from what's happening outside, but if I'm living that close to it, I know that I'm just deeply dependent upon the earth for both its thriving and its destruction.

So I think that we see this throughout the document Laudato Si', throughout Pope Francis's update of Laudate Deum, just saying, you know, if we are truly called to be building God's kingdom on earth, like this is how we're, how we're called to build this all up and work together.

WHEELER:

So, 2013 he's named Pope, 2015 we have the Laudato Si' encyclical. Just briefly, what is an encyclical for folks who might not be familiar with this kind of document?

JOHNSON:

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a letter, sort of a, he calls it a letter and he addressed it to Catholics and all people of goodwill. So it's a letter that he basically wrote to the whole world. And, but within the Catholic magisterium and all the big words, right, is it becomes an official part of what's called Catholic social teaching. So it becomes an official part of our church teaching. And so not something that you can say that you can disregard, but rather that it is something that is essential to who we are.

WHEELER:

And this encyclical was sweeping. So the full title, Laudato Si', what was it? A Care for Our Common Home covered many topics. It covered urbanism and the importance of having transit that works for people so that they can get to the places that they need to be and also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. It talked about climate change and the global climate crisis and what that is doing to the planet and doing to individuals. Talked about biodiversity. It was broad in scope, I think, 45,000-ish words. It was basically a book that the pope wrote. It was an important statement at the near beginning of his papacy about the direction that he wanted to take the church and the importance of global action, that the church needed to be engaged in the world, which struck me and was powerful. I said to you via email, EPIC, my organization, we quoted from it in legal filings. We would talk about timber sales. And so we'd go and find the section about timber sales because there was a section about timber sales. It was a comprehensive document. And as you said, it was addressed to the Catholic church, but it was also addressed to the broader world.

And I think it was incredibly powerful because it was well-received both in Catholic and non-Catholic circles among believers and non-believers. Why do you think it had the impact that it did? This could have just been another letter, another document. It could have been buried under the weight of a 2,000-year-old church's history. Why did this really stand out to you?

JOHNSON:

Yeah, that's a great question. It was his first encyclical. So it also was like a clear directive of where he was going, kind of an indicator, I guess. So I think that's part of it why it captured the Catholic imagination as seeing where is he's laying his pathway forward. But I think for the larger world, 2015, it was very intentional that he published it in 2015. 2015, if you remember, the fifth IPCC report had just come out in an intergovernmental panel on climate change. It was a devastating report to read. I'm not sure if you read it. But I know that when I read it, it just like stopped me in my tracks for a little while. Because it was just, the science is so scary, for lack of a better word of what we're what we're walking towards.

And there was a lot of mobilization that happened around it, right? People were hitting the streets in a new way, people were becoming aware of this crisis in so many new ways. And particularly the global north where maybe we hadn't been feeling the impacts as much as the global south. We were starting to see it more, more wildfires, right? More heat, more drought, more changing growing seasons. And so that was happening. Then also then was working on creating their COP agreements, like the Paris Accords, right? So the government's coming together once a year to talk about what are they committing to around climate change. And this was a big deal one. Everyone knew that we were trying to really mobilize around the Paris Accords, get some real commitments from these governmental leaders. And it is in this context that he released this, right?

So people on an individual scale, we're feeling the impacts of the climate crisis much more. On a communal scale, we're trying to like help our governments take the bold action we need to be taking. The science is coming out with this like anxiety around where we're going. And I just think there's something so powerful around saying everyone like there is, we're called to love. We're called to be in a space of caring for each other and all of creation. And all of this is tied together. And like just the rooting of a religious document talking about the science, but also talking about the solutions forward. And that it isn't new to be taking solutions forward, right? He rooted it back in 2000 years of history of different leaders who have walked in close relationship with the earth. And then also looking forward to say like, how are we drawing closer with each other with different religions and with people who are of no religion? And how are we creating solutions together? It was like this infusion of hope into this space. And also, dare I say, an infusion of like morality in a different way.

We recently on our, we held a prayer service in remembrance of him after he passed. And one of the main negotiators from the Paris Accords by Laurence Tubiana was present on it, who said, since La Rache aux Cis, the moral argument has been a part of these international governmental conversations, right? That it wasn't consistently an ethic and a part of it, but that it had an important role of bringing it into. And so, I think just the holistic way that La Rache aux Cis speaks to responding to the crisis of the world. And like you said, like the realities of what we're seeing really appealed to people. And people felt met and seen and heard where they are. And at least for me, and that it was like this invitation forward into it, that wasn't rooted in shame, but was rooted in like, here's a way to be better. And here's a way we can work together around it.

WHEELER:

You are listening to the Econews Report, and we're talking with Anna Johnson of the Laudato Si' movement about Catholic environmentalism. So while this was a fantastic statement by Francis, and it was obviously deep and core within him and in his heart, I also want to make clear that environmentalism as a Catholic is not an invention of Pope Francis, that this is consistent with the history of the church, with the Bible, within Christianity, generally, can you talk about some of the theological roots of Christian environmentalism? Why do we have an obligation to care for our planet? Where is this found within Catholic faith?

JOHNSON:

Absolutely. Thank you for lifting that up because I think that is a misunderstood thing that like, this isn't Francis' invention that Catholics care about our earth. It goes back to even our gospels, right? So, Jesus used, he understood the earth in so many ways and he used so many images of planting and fishing and the winds and the waves and like, knew that we're called to be in relationship with it. There's the reality going even further back in our Catholic tradition that talks about the earth is God's creation. And so, it is this gift and that we are also part of God's creation. We are not separate from it, but that we are tied together in this amazing gift that God has given us. And so, there has been some interpretations of the Bible that have talked about dominion over creation.

Pope Francis and other popes before him even have continued to push back against that interpretation to say, no, more of a stewardship role. We're in relationship with creation and that that is more of the directive of we're called to help take care of the animals and to be in relationship with it. And so, it goes all the way back to then and then from the papal teachings, from the popes, started in the 1970s when some of the documents started to talk about humanity is at risk of destroying ourselves because of the way that we're interacting with nature and we're interacting with the earth. And so, this has been part of the teaching for over 50 years as in this more formalized format through these big word encyclicals and things like that, but it's very rooted, very rooted in Catholic.

WHEELER:

Well, this is the care for life, right? Which I think from outside the Catholic church, people often will get perhaps overly focused on abortion or euthanasia, but I think it's a larger consistency within Catholicism that you care for life, both of the individual and life more broadly, and the interrelation of lives, that it's all connected and one whole. So, the Diocese, obviously important, and spawned the creation of your movement, the Laudato Si' movement. So, the encyclical came out, tell us about the creation of this movement and what your group is about and what you're working on.

JOHNSON:

Absolutely. Yeah. So our executive director, our founders had heard that this was, this document was coming forward. Meanwhile, our founder was from Argentina as well, but he had gone to the Philippines and seen the destruction from Typhoon Haiyan and just was becoming more aware of so much of the intertie, right? The connection between this ecological crisis that we can sort of move too much into our head with all the scientific data and numbers, but that it has real impacts upon the earth and upon people. And so started to be interested in what is the Catholic role here? How are we called to be responding in light of our faith? And, and what do we have to offer to this, this moment?

And then, you know, this encyclical is in the creation. And so started with this, this Catholic climate petition that was signed by almost a million people. And that was delivered to Pope Francis at the Vatican saying, we are Catholics, we stand behind you and caring for our common home. And let's, let's do this. Since then, just an incredible explosion of engagement, right? So now we have over 20,000 people who are considered certified Laudato Si' animators. So these are people who have taken a course and started their projects and are certified within the, within the movement to be living out the message of Laudato Si' and caring for our common home. We have chapters, we're active in over 110 countries worldwide. And we have chapters that people come together around to build community and figure out what is our, our action called to be.

In Laudato Si', Pope Francis speaks about differentiated responsibility, which is like a fancy way of saying we have different access to different things. And we have different responsibilities to different actions. And so a parish in Kenya might have different access to resources than a parish in California, right? And the difference of what our communities can access. And so that's part of our localized work is that we invite people in a, in a community based level to say, what can we do to respond to this crisis? Because we know we're, we're called not to just have angst and anxiety around it, but rather be stepping forward in a space of prayer and action to be responsive.

WHEELER:

So tell us about some of the projects. I know that you are pushing for fossil fuel non-proliferation. What does that mean? And can you talk about some of the actions that the movement is taking to make this come true?

JOHNSON:

Absolutely. Yes. So we know that our use and abuse of fossil fuels is driving this crisis as greater emissions are causing a greater warming effect on our atmosphere, which is throwing off all of the seasons and the normal ecological processes. And so in order to have a livable future for you and for me and for all the listeners and for all of our kids, we have to break up with fossil fuels. We have to be moving away from our dependence upon them. And this can't be like a quick adjustment, right? Because all of us engage with fossil fuels in many ways throughout our life, right? Where we're quite dependent upon them, but that we have a just transition, a transition that walks with people who are working in the industry and people who don't have access to like pay for electric cars really like or otherwise, but a just transition to move us into a sustainable lifestyle.

So the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty is based on the data that says that we don't need to drill any more oil in order to facilitate a just transition, that we have all of the technology we need to move into a sustainable future. We just have to start shifting our attention and our resources towards that. And that it won't harm people who are poorest of the poor. There's data, there's tons of, you know, I could give you all sorts of data and research on this of how this process could happen so that we can move ourselves into a future that is livable as we continue forward. So that's what the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty is, is it just asks people and institutions and governments to sign on to say, we're committing to this just transition, to breaking up our reliance upon fossil fuels and moving towards a sustainable and livable future. So that's one of our big global campaigns around the world and we're accessing these sorts of things in different ways.

WHEELER:

What are some of the other things that you might want to talk about? So you have a campaign for divestment. I'm also curious and I want to talk about ecological conversion and what that means to the movement.

JOHNSON:

Yeah, yeah, I'll just say too that the divestment, the call to divestment is called to divest from fossil fuels to no longer continue investing in that which is driving our own destruction, but rather that the act of purchasing is a moral choice, which I think so many of us understand whether we're Catholic or not, right? What I'm choosing to buy is a vote with my dollars. So divestment is choosing to look at our investment portfolio as institutions or my retirement fund personally, and look at where those dollars are going and what they're supporting or not supporting. So if you're interested in divesting, head to our website. We've got some phenomenal resources around shifting your bank or shifting your investment profile in order to divest from that.

WHEELER:

You know, one of Pope Francis's legacies is trying to promote a more bottom-up church, a less top-heavy, a less thou shalt coming down from the pope, but fostering conversation among the faithful to develop the church's positions. Ecological conversion, I think, might be related to that sort of idea of Catholicism, that we are building Catholic faith together. So can you talk about ecological conversion within the Laudato Si' movement and within the Catholic faith more broadly, what you're hoping to achieve?

JOHNSON:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this, so we use sort of three pillars as we look at what we're we're called into action for. And a core one is around this ecological conversion. And it kind of comes down to this in our Catholic language, right? That the world is charged with the grandeur of God. That's Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote about how when we walk outside we can be, we can choose to like engage in that and just be struck by the flower that's blooming through the ground that wasn't there yesterday, or the immensity of the trees in the Redwood National Forest, or like the just the incredible awareness of the grandeur of God that is manifest through through nature. And that idea that we belong to and in God's creation, we are not separate from it. But rather, we are a part of creation. And that part of this is that when we enter into a relationship, which is kind of a funny way to say this, right?

But like when we when we get ourselves back in touch with nature, and we understand that we are a part of it, then we start to understand the ways in which we're not acting in a way that helps uphold its health and wellness. We start to see the ways that our actions and also our society's actions are at odds with with its flourishing. In Catholic language, we say we are out of right relationship or in sin with God through the ways that we're interacting with creation. This process of moving through this is an important part of our ecological conversion, because only out of love will we try to conserve things, right? So we have to fall in love with nature, with all of God's creation that is around us and that we are a part of, and then start to understand how we need to shift our own habits and actions and systems in order to make it help, help it, help it live and thrive. And so that is then the work of repairing and restoring this relationship, right? So if we're out of right relationship, our work then is to work towards repairing and restoring it. And so that can drive us towards individual actions, like maybe I'm thinking about bringing bags to the grocery store. So we're not using plastic bags and thinking about reducing my travel. And then we also start to see that those small actions will not get us to a sustainable future at the level that we need to, right? Like, those small actions are about me feeling like I'm in right relationship or that I'm living well with nature.

But then we start to also see the way the systems and structures are set up, like our reliance upon fossil fuels. And so that drives us into this broader, bolder advocacy. We call it a prophetic advocacy, how we're called to advocate for caring for our common home, not from a partisan perspective, but from a perspective of saying we're caring about everyone and we just want us all to be able to thrive and live together. And so that calls us into this bolder advocacy of looking at where our funding is going, looking at whether we're continuing to drill for fossil fuels or not.

WHEELER:

So if folks are interested in getting connected with the Laudato Si' movement, how, how can they get in contact? How can they join? How can they participate?

JOHNSON:

Absolutely. And I'm really excited to share that this year our California chapter just launched. And so we've got Catholics across the state of California who are mobilizing around this, caring for our common home and building a Laudato Si' movement chapter. And so if you go to laudatosimovement.org, you can find the contact information for your local chapter there. So how to get tied into a local community to know what actions they're taking and continue to sign up for their emails and get connected to somebody locally so that we can do this together. Because it's really hard to do it alone. So we're called to be in community as we do it.

WHEELER:

So briefly, we have a new Pope, very exciting time, and I understand that he has some connection to the Laudato Si' movement. Can you tell us a little bit about what you know about Pope Leo XIV?

JOHNSON:

Yeah, it's, as you said at the beginning, it's a little early to tell how he will shape his papacy and moving forward, but he's been involved with our Laudato Si' movement chapter in Peru when he was based down there as an archbishop, and that he was very close and trusted of Pope Francis. They met almost weekly. So we know that this is a part of his core concern as well. He has an explicit call to honor the peace. That's how he started his speech yesterday is that, you know, he said, peace be with you. And so to honor the peace that comes from God and that we're all called into, and to build these bridges of encounter and love, it's inspiring to us and we're excited to hear those messages. His praying the Hail Mary from the balcony of St. Peter's Square is a sign, we really believe, of his unity with all of humanity and creation as well. We see him, he's clearly indicating from the early stages that he's looking for a unifying aspect for saying, you know, we're together in this and that he does have a history also of speaking about caring for our common home.

And in one of the quotes that he has from when he spoke with the Dicastery for Bishops, another fancy word of grouping, he said that it's time to move, quote, from words to action around the ecological crisis. And so we see that he's, his actions previously as well as a lot of his words continue to point towards caring for our common home, rooted in this Catholic faith, right? I think there's a temptation in our US culture to politicize or partisanize things, but I think that this is just, he seems to be really truly rooted in the Gospels and rooted in the call of our Catholic faith. So I'm really excited to see where he leads the papacy with the Holy Spirit.

WHEELER:

Well, Anna, thank you so much for joining us. If you want to find out more about the Laudato Si' movement, give us that URL one more time. Laudato Si' movement.org.

JOHNSON:

That's L-A-U-D, L-A-U-D-A-T-O-S-I, movement.org.

WHEELER:

problem with with the Catholic Church in Latin. I don't know Latin. Right? You know, I looked up the YouTube videos of people saying it, so I could be like, okay, yeah, no, I

JOHNSON:

Nailed it!

WHEELER:

And there you go. There you go. All right.

JOHNSON:

Thank you so much. Cool.

WHEELER:

Well, that was awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining the show and listeners join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.