Our Mother Earth. Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

Gathered from the writings and discourses of Pope Francis on the environment, Our Mother Earth sets forth a Christian vision of ecology. Responding to our global ecological crisis, Pope Francis says, will require a global approach in which «the whole human family in the search for a sustainable and integral development» unites to protect our common home. Pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity, and exploitation of resources will grow exponentially if we do not change our direction in the short term. We need an «environmental conversion,» Pope Francis says. For this to be possible, we need a truly ecological education to create a renewed awareness and a renewed conscience. In an exclusive new essay that concludes Our Mother Earth , Pope Francis develops a «theology of ecology» in a profoundly spiritual discourse. This final chapter offers thoughts on how a Christian vision of care for the earth goes well beyond a secular vision of ecology. "This means that it is for humanity's capacity for communion to condition the state of creation. … It is therefore humanity's destiny to determine the destiny of the universe."