Pope Francis: Prophet and Priest in the Anthropocene

Abstract

One of the most significant aspects of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical, Laudato si,’ is that it is a deep cry of the heart:Laudato si’,Praise be!My central argument in this paper is that this cry stems from Pope Francis’s charism as a prophet and priest in the epoch of the Anthropocene. The rhetoric of “irreversible changes” to the earth that is implied by the idea of the Anthropocene has struck a cultural chord way beyond its original geological scientific home by generating ongoing and heated debates in the environmental humanities. There are negative aspects in using such a term that Pope Francis manages to avoid by eschewing its use. In particular, narratives about the Anthropocene offer ambiguous portrayals of the place of humanity on the earth that has important ethical and religious consequences. These narratives edge towards a philosophical scientism beyond the confines of the geological sciencewhere the term originated. In this sense, on the one hand, they are ‘naturalistic’ in being derived from the natural sciences. On the other hand, Anthropocene narratives are also about the dominance of human beings on planet earth, hence eclipsing the category of the natural world as ‘other’