St Mary's University's Vice Chancellor welcomes Laudate Deum

Photo by Pascal Debrunner on Unsplash

The Vice-Chancellor of St Mary's University, Twickenham Anthony McClaran has welcomed Pope Francis's new document on the environment, Laudato Deum.

The document encourages more rapid action to address environmental problems and lays out our obligations as Christians. Pope Francis shows how ecological challenges should not be seen simply as technical challenges and that there are many dangers in developments in technology not being restrained by a corresponding development of responsibility, conscience, and values. Action by civil society to promote change is encouraged.

Commenting on the Apostolic Exhortation, Anthony McClaran said: "As a Catholic university, we are inspired by the lead of Pope Francis in this area because, as he writes in Laudato Deum: 'authentic faith not only gives strength to the human heart, but also transforms life, transfigures our goals and sheds light on our relationship to others and with creation as a whole.'

"Ethics, sustainability and the relationships between ecology, theology and other disciplines are part of a large number of our teaching programmes. Our students are encouraged to take part in many different types of civil society activities. We also nurture our beautiful campus to make it an attractive home for wildlife. In addition, through our Guardians of Creation project, we have worked with other organisations to point a way forward for those in the church in England and Wales who wish to decarbonise their parish. We will continue to review our activities to ensure that we make our contribution to caring for our common home."

The University's Catholic social thought website has a summary of the Apostolic Exhortation: https://catholicsocialthought.org.uk/laudato-deum-a-summary/

Laudato Deum: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20231004-laudate-deum.html