Here’s A Look At How Catholic Churches Are Taking Pope Francis’ Climate Encyclical To Heart

BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
JULY 11, 2016 9:40 AM

It’s been over a year since Pope Francis released his climate encyclical, Laudato Si, which recognized the dangers of human-caused climate change and the moral imperative to address it. Since then, Catholic leaders have been adapting their churches to speak out and take action on climate change. The Catholic Church has a history of recognizing environmental problems, but the encyclical last year has sparked more efforts to make changes.

In January 2015, before the Pope’s climate encyclical, Catholics were already mobilizing for action on climate change when the Global Catholic Climate Movement was founded. The Movement announced the certainty that “anthropogenic [human-made] climate change endangers God’s creation and us all, particularly the poor, whose voices have already spoken of the impacts of an altered climate.”

Late last year, researchers from Yale University and George Mason University found that 19 percent of American Catholics were “much more concerned about global warming” because of the Pope’s position on the subject. Another 34 percent were moderately more concerned. Researchers called this “The Francis Effect.”

Here are some of the actions Catholics are taking against climate change in their churches around the world.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/11/3792282/pope-francis-climate-change-encyclical/