Laudato Sí
Making the Connections
Keywords:
Laudato Si, Pope Francis, Theology, NatureAbstract
Laudato Sí is an important and timely teaching document with great
relevance for the peoples of Asia. Pastoral agents in the local churches
of Asia need to understand this teaching in order to play their part in
making it known, and interpreting its implications for local faith
communities. This paper provides hermeneutic keys to assist pastoral
workers to understand the encyclical and its place within the corpus of
Catholic Social Teaching. It examines the context in which the
encyclical was issued, its purpose and audience, the teaching authority
that it holds, its methodology and main concerns, and its contribution
to the body of CST. These reflections are intended to better equip
pastoral workers in Asia to engage more deeply with the meaning and
implications of the encyclical for the thinking and action of local
churches. Through such engagement, they may be able to make
contextualized contributions to the ongoing development of the local
and universal social teachings.
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John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (1981) was a notable exception. It set out a spirituality of work.
