Climate Change, Environmental Justice, and Latino Priorities: Hearing the Cry of Earth and the Poor

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Pope Francis declared nine years ago in his powerful encyclical Laudato Si’ that “a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS 49). It is an idea informed by Francis’ Latin American background, taken from the experience of people living with the tension between reverence for God’s creation and the attraction of economic and technological progress. In the United States, Latino Catholics are among those most concerned with the human and ecological costs of climate change. Climate change is driving current and future waves of migration from Latin America as drought, hurricanes, pollution, and other environmental crises make agriculture unpredictable and land uninhabitable, undermining the lives and dignity of many, especially small farmers and farmworkers.

This Latino Leader Gathering addressed the moral imperative of environmental justice and the urgency of climate issues among U.S. Latinos, considering ways Latin American spirituality and Catholic social thought can inspire us to hear and act on the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” in our own lives, our communities, and our common home.