Environment Church Teaching

Church Teaching

As people of faith, we are convinced that “the earth is the Lord’s and all it holds” (Ps 24:1). Our Creator has given us the gift of creation: the air we breathe, the water that sustains life, the fruits of the land that nourish us, and the entire web of life without which human life cannot flourish. All of this God created and found “very good.” We believe our response to global climate change should be a sign of our respect for God’s creation.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops


The following are effects of climate change: increased temperatures, rising sea levels, changes in rainfall that contribute to more frequent and severe floods and droughts.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops


Increased temperatures, rising sea levels and changes in rainfall are impacts of climate change, and they affect people living in poverty the worst – even though these people contribute the least to climate change. In many poor countries, these impacts of climate change have led to increasingly limited access to water, reduced crop yields, more widespread disease, increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters and conflict over declining resources – making the lives of the world’s poorest people even more precarious.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops


We are the guardians of creation.

Pope Francis


When nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society.

Pope Francis


Wisdom is precisely this: to see the world, to see situations, circumstances, problems, everything through God’s eyes.

Pope Francis


We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.

Pope Francis


Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.

Pope Francis


When we can see God reflected in all that exists, our hearts are moved to praise the Lord for all his creatures and to worship him in union with them.

Pope Francis


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Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis