“The most astonishing and perhaps the most ambitious papal document of the past 100 years.”—The Guardian
The complete text of the landmark encyclical letter from Pope Francis that, as Time magazine reported, “rocked the international community”
In the Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality, the beloved Pope exhorts the world to combat environmental degradation and its impact on the poor. In a stirring, clarion call that is not merely aimed at Catholic readers but rather at a wide, lay audience, the Pope cites the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change, and does not hesitate to detail how it is the result of a historic level of unequal distribution of wealth.
It is, in short, as the New York Times labeled it, “An urgent call to action . . . intended to persuade followers around the world to change their behavior, in hopes of protecting a fragile planet.”
With an insightful and informative introduction by Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes, famed for her bestselling Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
“An urgent call to action.”
—The New York Times
“This breathtaking amalgam of urgency and poetry mines the spirit and appeals to the moral core… That a secular publisher, Melville House, chose to print in its entirety the papal document…bespeaks its relevance beyond the walls of the Roman Catholic Church.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A powerful, prophetic, and personal plea for governments, religions, businesses and individuals to work together to address climate change.”
—Time
“The pope’s clarion call adds an ethical dimension to a debate too often bogged down in warring statistics and economic arguments… His powerful message on climate change should have the skeptics and deniers, who’ve stood in the way of meaningful action, squirming in their seats and feeling the heat.”
—USA Today
“The letter isn’t just a manifesto for clergy and bishops, but doubles as a call to action with scientific rational, written in plain language and addressed to ‘every person living on this planet.’”
—Chicago Tribune
“In his masterful grasp of the science behind climate change, the pontiff unmasks himself as a policy wonk.”
—The Washington Post
“A bold act by the pope, the encyclical in many ways reflects a movement that has been growing for decades.”
—Los Angeles Times