Robert McKim - Laudato Si’ and the Environment: Pope Francis’ Green Encyclical

This volume is a response to Pope Francis environmental encyclical Laudato Si. Published in 2015, the encyclical urges us to face up to the crisis of climate change and to take better care of the Earth, our common home, while also attending to the plight of the poor.

In this book the Popes invitation to all people to begin a new dialogue about these matters is considered from a variety of perspectives by an international and multidisciplinary team of leading scholars. There is discussion of the implications of Laudato Si for immigration, population control, eating animals, and property ownership. Additionally, indigenous religious perspectives, development and environmental protection, and the implementation of the ideas of the encyclical within the Church are explored. Some chapters deal with scriptural and philosophical aspects of the encyclical. Others focus on central concepts, such as interconnectedness, the role of practice, and what Pope Francis calls the technocratic paradigm.

This book expertly illuminates the relationship between Laudato Si and environmental concerns. It will be of deep interest to anyone studying religion and the environment, environmental ethics, Catholic theology, and environmental thought.

Robert McKim is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He specializes in the philosophy of religion and applied ethics, and has published extensively in these areas. He has written the following books: Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity (2001), On Religious Diversity (2012), and Religious Diversity and Religious Progress (2019). In addition, he has edited or co-edited the following books: The Morality of Nationalism (1997), Religious Perspectives on Religious Diversity (2017), and Climate Change and Inequality (2018).

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. This open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society.

Vision, Mental Imagery and the Christian Life

Insights from Science and Scripture

Zoltn Drnyei

Christianity and the Triumph of Humor

From Dante to David Javerbaum

Bernard Schweizer

Religious Truth and Identity in an Age of Plurality

Peter Jonkers and Oliver J. Wiertz

Envisioning the Cosmic Body of Christ

Embodiment, Plurality and Incarnation

Aurica Jax and Saskia Wendel

Laudato Si and the Environment

Pope Francis Green Encyclical

Edited by Robert McKim

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/religion/series/RCRITREL

First published 2020

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2020 Robert McKim

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ISBN: 978-1-138-58881-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-49206-8 (ebk)

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Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir is Director of the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies at the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia and a founder and Board Member of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies, Yogyakarta. He has a degree in Islamic Philosophy from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Malaysia and a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University. His research interests include religion and science and religion and ecology. His publications include an edited book, Science and Religion In A Post-Colonial World: Interfaith Perspectives; a chapter on Islam in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology (2017); and papers on religious freedom in Indonesia.

David Clough is Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of Chester and past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics. He is the author of Ethics in Crisis: Interpreting Barths Ethics (Ashgate, 2005); co-author of Faith and Force: A Christian Debate about War (Georgetown, 2007); co-editor of Creaturely Theology: On God Humans and Animals (SCM, 2009) and Animals as Religious Subjects: Transdisciplinary Perspectives (T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2013); and author of On Animals: Volume I Systematic Theology (T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2012); Volume II Theological Ethics (T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2019).

Herman E. Daly is Emeritus Professor at the University of Maryland, School of Public Policy. From 1988 to 1994 he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank. He was co-founder and associate editor of the journal Ecological Economics. His research interests include economic development, population, resources, and environment. He has published over a hundred articles in professional journals and anthologies as well as numerous books, including Toward a Steady-State Economy (1973); Steady-State Economics (1977; 1991); Valuing the Earth (1993); Beyond Growth (1996); Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics (1999); Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development (2007); and From Uneconomic Growth to a Steady-State Economy (2014). He is co-author with theologian John B. Cobb, Jr. of For the Common Good (1989; 1994) which received the 1991 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order. He has received Sweden's Honorary Right Livelihood Award (1996), the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Sophie Prize (Norway) for contributions in the area of Environment and Development (1999); the Leontief Prize for contributions to economic thought (2001); the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic for his work in steady-state economics (2002); the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council for Science and the Environment (USA) (2010); and the Blue Planet Prize awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan (2014).