A Center for Sustainability Response to Laudate Deum
Dear Campus Community:
On October 4, Pope Francis released a new integral ecology exhortation Laudate Deum which built upon the groundbreaking environmental encyclical Laudato Si’ published in 2015. Pope Francis highlights the absolute urgency of our climate crisis in this document, noting “our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point” (Laudate Deum, paragraph 58). We at the Center for Sustainability wholeheartedly agree with the Pope’s assessment.
It is time to recognize that we cannot be successful as a university in a collapsing world. Through these powerful words of Pope Francis, “what is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind” (Laudate Deum, paragraph 18), each member of the campus community needs to understand that they have a moral obligation to respond to this crisis. Let us use the words of Pope Francis as a catalyst to ignite a greater urgency in our efforts.
While we have done much as a university to address the climate crisis, we need to act more boldly on our mission to build a more sustainable world. This “Sustainable SCU: Leading Through Laudato Si’” plan is inspired by the Pope’s goals outlined in Laudato Si’ and, now, Laudate Deum. SCU’s new, high-impact efforts in the areas of Academics, Engagement, and Operations would greatly advance the ways in which we prepare for and mitigate the worsening of the climate crisis. These strategies heed the Pope’s warning in this newest exhortation, “We risk remaining trapped in the mindset of pasting and papering over cracks, while beneath the surface there is a continuing deterioration to which we continue to contribute” (Laudate Deum, paragraph 57). This plan has been a community effort as the Center for Sustainability and the Division of Mission and Ministry have been working with more than sixty students, faculty, staff, alumni, administrators, and community members over the past year.
As Pope Francis has emphasized:
It is not enough to think only of balances of power but also of the need to provide a response to new problems and to react with global mechanisms to the environmental, public health, cultural and social challenges, especially in order to consolidate respect for the most elementary human rights, social rights and the protection of our common home. (Laudate Deum, paragraph 42).
We are still hopeful as we care for our common good and our common home – but it is imperative that our efforts accelerate beginning today. SCU must prepare students to act now and in their careers and personal lives to be leaders who integrate sustainability and justice into all they do. We look forward to collaborating with each of you on these specific efforts and others still to come.
Alison Benders, Vice President for Mission and Ministry
Lindsey Kalkbrenner, Director of the Center for Sustainability
The Center for Sustainability staff