Paris Climate Change Conference — House of Commons, 2015-11-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to accept that the Pope talks about more international action, but he is careful not to be too specific. In one paragraph, he is quite critical of carbon credits. He gives a general thesis and acknowledges the problem, then he leaves it to us—the Secretary of State, the Minister and the Opposition parties—to come up with solutions The most important theme of the encyclical comes out in the very first paragraph. It relates to our common home. This is where I hope I can take Opposition Members with me. The Pope states: "‘Laudato si’, mi’ Signore’—‘Praise be to you, my Lord’. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. ‘Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs’." When one reads through this long encyclical, that sort of language is repeated again and again The Pope is repeating the philosophy of the 20th century philosopher, Professor Charles De Koninck, who understood that the person, the individual, could not be neglected. He differed from the personalists because he knew that the person had to be integrated within a vision of the common good. In the encyclical, the Pope constantly concentrates on our common good and our common nature: the good of the individual, the good of the family, the good of the village, town, province and country, and the good of the whole world. People—you and I—have to be understood, De Koninck argued and the Pope now argues, in the context of our place in the universe as a whole. That is one thing that the Pope is trying to do with the encyclical. Like De Koninck, the Pope understands the truth expressed by St Thomas Aquinas that the greatest perfection of the created person is the good of the universe The Anglican academic, Professor Jacobs, wrote a moving reflection on the encyclical, in which he pointed out that Francis does not use the word "planet" or even "environment", but uses the word "home". He constantly concentrates on our common home. Professor Jacobs writes: "All the economic questions he explores later in the encyclical are therefore grounded in the etymology of ‘economy’: the governance of the oikos, the household. Such domestic language is a powerful means of fighting the abstracting effects of any attempt to ‘think globally.’ Francis seems to be saying that if you want to act globally, you should think locally: think of the earth as your home, one you share with others to whom you are accountable." "Laudato Si’" is distinctly not merely an encyclical about climate change. While the papacy has always been a patron and promoter of modern science and learning, specific scientific matters are outside its teaching authority. Rather, this is an encyclical about the fundamental crisis of humanity that is at the foundations of our modern world. Ecological aspects are a symptom of that crisis, not the root of it, and there are no simple solutions Professor Thomas Hibbs, who was formerly of Boston college, an institution of the Pope’s own Jesuit order, has written: "The most audacious claim in the encyclical is not the affirmation of the reality of climate change, but the insistence that to have a coherent and effective environmental philosophy requires both an anthropology and a cosmology." He writes that "Laudato Si’" "seeks nothing less than the re-imagining of the place of human persons in the entirety of the created cosmos. Francis discerns beneath the contemporary ecological crisis a crisis of the human person, who is now lost in the cosmos, increasingly alienated from self, others, nature, and God." I apologise for trying to explain the encyclical, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have done it as best I could. It is a most beautiful document and I recommend that hon. Members read it in its entirety.