Introduction Erin Lothes Biviano "Praise God" is the title of this letter. For when human beings claim to take God''s place, they become their own worst enemies. --Laudate Deum, 73 In dark times the prophet cries out: There is danger on the horizon; the priest preaches: there is only one God, the Almighty Creator; and the poet looks ahead to a future that is new and bright. Pope Francis, in the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum (LD) promulgated October 4, 2023, writes from all these roles. Most of all, he writes as a pastor, deeply concerned for people throughout the world, and above all for those who are poor. In the simplest terms, Laudate Deum is a prophetic text that denounces the powerful for their failures to "respond adequately" to the climate crisis, calling them to conversion. But who are these powerful agents, what have they done or failed to do, and how must they make amends? Pope Francis names some and hints at other agents. Still, the reader must grapple with the pope''s assessment of social and personal complicity in the looming crisis, and choose how to respond.

Laudate Deum confronts the complexity of personal responsibility within a global energy system into which every person is born, without consent--as with original sin. Pope Francis previously diagnosed a "technocratic paradigm" driving a global energy system in his magisterial encyclical Laudato Si'': On Care for Our Common Home (LS), in which he identified "one complex crisis which is both social and environmental" (LS 139). The deeper dynamics of that technocratic paradigm are now recognized theologically as sin and idolatry. Though there may appear at first to be less spiritual or doctrinal content in this new document, the title offers the essential interpretive key. Laudate Deum, a song of praise taken from the liturgy, is a reminder that Catholic faith is fundamentally theocentric, centered on praise of the Almighty God, Who is Creator of Heaven and Earth, as stated in the first article of the creed. When humankind is seduced by a technocratic paradigm to exploit the Earth for self-interest, an "economy that kills" is further exposed as an idolatry that kills. Against this darkness, the Pope calls us to inaugurate "the globalization of hope"1 guided by true worship of the one true God. Before unpacking the powerful punch of Laudate Deum, a brief review of magisterial teaching on the environment sets the stage for the unique focus of this terse document.

Explicit Catholic teaching on care for creation has existed at least since 1972, when Pope Paul VI sent a Vatican delegation to the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.2 Subsequent magisterial texts include Pope St. John Paul II''s 1990 World Day of Peace Message, in which he stated that "Today the ecological crisis has reached such proportions as to be the responsibility of everyone" (15). Pope Benedict XVI''s Caritas in Veritate (CV) (2009), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops'' "Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence and the Common Good," (2001), statements from Bishops and theologians around the world, and, most definitively, Laudato Si'' amplify the crescendo of Catholic teaching on the imperative to care for Creation. These teachings affirm that Catholic faith is lived out within the world''s social, economic, and political spheres. As Laudato Si'' emphasizes, "everything is interconnected" (LS 70).

It is increasingly clear that a degraded environment threatens human dignity on every level. Pope Francis writes, "The destruction of the human environment is extremely serious, not only because God has entrusted the world to us men and women, but because human life is itself a gift which must be defended from various forms of debasement" (LS 5). Human dignity depends on a healthy environment, and the gifts of the earth are meant for all: "God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone."3 As the first encyclical to focus entirely on the environmental crisis, Laudato Si'' was a tremendous high-water mark of this established tradition. There is a special spiritual quality to Laudato Si'' in its very title and opening invocation of St. Francis of Assisi''s Canticle of the Creatures, invoking familial communion with all creatures. All creatures give praise to God through their intrinsic worth as beloved by their Creator (LS 11, 12, 140). By reverently honoring God as Creator, human persons affirm that we are ordained to tend the Garden.

The newest document in this tradition, Laudate Deum, consistently links commitment to the poor with care for creation. The Gospel commitment to the poor is very clear in Matthew 25:35: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink." Whenever one cares for the needs of another, practicing corporal works of mercy, these caring acts are offered to Jesus Himself. Significantly, this reference to Matthew 25 is highlighted in the pope''s first footnote citing a document from the United States bishops, pastors of a superdeveloped nation. The catastrophe of the climate crisis impacts the poor first and worst, while consumers in superdeveloped nations must acknowledge their special responsibility for action. Beyond its Catholic audience, Laudato Si'' was widely and enthusiastically received by interfaith groups, many of which published their own manifestos, by environmental advocacy groups, by scientists celebrating a moral communicator of their own message, and by policy-oriented bodies such as the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the United Nations itself. That broad audience was intentional. The Pope strategically published Laudato Si'' in advance of the Climate Change Conference of 2015 in Paris, before his address to the United States Congress, and a visit to the United Nations that same fall.

Now, eight years later, the lack of action has created a crisis point, and the stage shifts from Paris to Dubai. The haste that characterizes a prophet''s timebound warning is palpable. The pope has put aside a patient introduction to "what is happening to our beautiful home," which he provided in Laudato Si''. In Laudate Deum there is no time to review in depth what is no longer called "climate change," but is starkly stated to be the "climate crisis." The signs "are here and increasingly evident" (LD 5). Scientists can increasingly link specific extreme events to the influence of climate change, and even calculate their economic impact.4 Research from the Harvard T.H.

Chan School of Public Health shows that "[w]orldwide, air pollution from burning fossil fuels is responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths."5 In terse language, Francis simply details the alarming statistics confirmed by science. Nor does the pope pause to reassure those who question the authority of the Church to "proclaim upon science." Laudato Si'' already addressed that question (LS 61). The realities of the crisis threaten his flock, the evidence is plain to all with eyes, and scientific authority stands in consensus. If any justification is needed, Francis links the crisis to the fundamental mission of the Church to protect life: "This is a global social issue and one intimately related to the dignity of human life" (LD 3). Yet despite scientific consensus, strong action is not evident. Rather than speak of "increasing sensitivity to the environment" (LS 19), Francis emphasizes just how much clear recognition of the crisis is derailed by resistance, confusion, derision, ridicule, simplification, key omissions, and outright obfuscation.

This denunciation of deception is central to his message. And it targets everyone. Each of us must be mindful of our complicity in "small ecological damage" (LS 8). But now it is increasingly clear that powerful elites are deceiving society, as they attempt "to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue" (LD 5). They issue illusory promises that progress is being made. This new form of denialism--a pretense of action that stymies real change--is ultimately a lie perpetuated to protect the idols of power and to protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry. Claims that the poor need energy of any kind, that the costs of transition are too much to bear, or will cost jobs, ignore the already massive suffering of the poor, the greater costs of inaction, and the potential for new jobs in a clean economy. By perpetuating fossil fuel structures, these powerful groups are degrading the global common good and depriving others of a safe, stable climate.

In effect, they are exploiting and enslaving others within a system that must change now. In Evangelii Gaudium (2013) Pope Francis wrote trenchantly of "an economy that kills," buttressed by the "globalization of indifference." Now, Laudate Deum shows that the deadly, but passive, globalization of indifference has festered into the active sin of aggressive, deliberate deceit. Who is causing "resistance and confusion"? Various actors are suggested: * "great economic powers" who seek "the greatest profit possible at minimal cost" (LD 13); * economists, financiers, and experts in technology, attracted to the idea of unlimited growth because they correlate technological and economic power with goodness and truth (LD 20); * those with knowledge and economic resources to wield technology''s capacities for dominance over humanity (LD 23); * those who employ marketing and false information to shape public opinion, and mislead those affected by development projects, thus showing the "ethical decadence of real power" (LD 29); * "false prophets'' issuing "illusory promises," which seek maximum gain yet do not aid the poor (LD 31); * negotiators who focus on the "short-term interests of certain countries or businesses" at th.