Pope Francis in his encyclical “Laudato Si” makes it clear where he stands in relation to creation. We are to treat the earth as a gift to be appreciated and cared for not as a commodity to be used and used up.
The theologian Norman Wirzba says, “Why do Christians affirm God as Creator, and yet consent to the destruction of what God creates and daily sustains?”
Pope Francis calls us to an ecological conversion, as Austen Ivereigh states in his book, “First Belong to God,” where he says, “The lessons are clear. Once we turn our backs on what is gift and come to believe that we are self-entitled masters of creation, the resulting disorder is felt in humanity and in nature.”
“The effects of this violence present in our hearts are everywhere now evident in the earth itself, says Francis in Laudato Si. At the heart of ecological conversion is our capacity to hear the cry of the earth and of the poor and to learn again to belong to creation, caring for its creatures.”
“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
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