The International Theological Commission’s “Caring for Our Common Home” goes beyond Laudato Si’ by naming environmental destruction a direct offense against the Creator

Aletia ^ | September 15, 2026 | Aletia

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The International Theological Commission’s “Caring for Our Common Home” goes beyond Laudato Si’ by naming environmental destruction a direct offense against the Creator

On September 2, the International Theological Commission published a major new text (so far only in Italian) on the theology of creation, ecology, and human responsibility. Titled Caring for Our Common Home: A Responsible and Fraternal Response to the Triune God, the more than 29,000-word document was approved by a majority vote of the Commission in July, presented to Pope Leo XIV, and authorized for release by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was published on the day after the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, during the Church’s Season of Creation, which runs from September 1 to October 4, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The document is the fruit of a sub-commission that worked between 2022 and 2025 — overlapping with the final years of Pope Francis’ pontificate and the opening of Leo XIV’s — and it builds directly on the foundation laid by Laudato Si' in 2015. Its central theological move proposes replacing the phrase “ecological sin” — used by Pope Francis — with a more theologically exact formulation. Here are five keys to understanding what the document actually says.

1. The ecological question is, first of all, a theological question

The document’s starting point is a claim that its authors consider under-appreciated even within the Church: that how we treat creation is not primarily a scientific, political, or even ethical question — it is a theological one. “The ecological question is a theological question,” as Vatican News summarized: “the way we care for Creation reveals and shapes our relationship with God.” The deterioration of the environment is alarming and urgent action is needed to ensure the sustainability of the planet. The Commission describes the current situation as “a short-sighted and suicidal” ecological and social crisis that demands a response — but insists the response must begin with a change of cultural values and an interior ecological conversion, not only with technical and policy solutions.

2. “Sin against creation and the Creator” — a new and more precise formulation

The document proposes more precise theological language. More than a decade after Laudato Si’ introduced the term “ecological sin,” the Commission argues that this language, while useful, does not fully capture the theological gravity of what is at stake.

“We propose understanding this sin against our Common Home as a ‘sin against creation and against the Creator,’ insofar as it violates the meaning of creation intended by God the Creator,” the document states. The reason for the more precise language, it explains, is that the problem involves two realities simultaneously: the harm done to nature and the failure to recognize — or even the active rejection of — the Creator’s plan for creation. As the document puts it, quoting Leo XIV’s own emphasis on the formulation: “we believe it is appropriate to favor a formulation that simultaneously implies both the harm inflicted on nature and the failure to recognize, or even the rejection, of the Creator’s plan, which entrusts to human beings the stewardship and care of our common home.”

Destroying natural habitats, polluting, and exploiting resources are not merely civic failures or policy shortcomings. They are offenses against God -- against his plan for creation and against his identity as Creator.

3. Three relationships are distorted — not one

A key analytical move in the document is its insistence that ecological sin is not a single offense but a distortion of three fundamental relationships simultaneously. “Sin against creation,” it says, “therefore, concerns our relationship with God the Creator, with our neighbors, and with creation itself, distorting the three relationships that define us.”

This triple distortion connects the ecological crisis directly to the Church’s social teaching: “By failing to care for ‘our Common Home’ with sufficient wisdom and long-term vision, ‘we not only fail to respect God’s plan and mistreat creation, but we also harm our neighbors, especially the poorest and future generations.’” The poor — who bear the heaviest costs of environmental destruction while contributing least to its causes — are at the center of the document’s ethical argument. The document catalogs what it calls alarming levels of biodiversity loss, air and water pollution, and the environmental toll of armed conflict, noting that the poorest nations suffer disproportionately.

4. The crisis has a history—and it started in the 16th century

The document situates the current ecological emergency within a long historical arc, describing what it calls a “threefold transformation” in culture’s relationship to nature since the 16th century: first, the loss of the spontaneous perception of nature as God’s creation; second, the emergence of an increasingly anthropocentric and predatory vision in the relationship between humanity and creation; and third, the spread of an ecological crisis on a planetary scale. This historical diagnosis connects to the Church's broader critique of the technocratic paradigm — the tendency to treat the natural world as raw material to be exploited rather than a gift to be tended.

5. Ecological conversion is personal, not just political

The document insists that responding to the crisis requires more than policy changes — it requires what it calls “a genuine ecological conversion in the way people live.” This conversion is grounded in the Trinitarian vision of God: all creation carries an imprint of the Trinity, and caring for it is therefore a “responsible and fraternal response to the Triune God.” Technical solutions — changes in systems of production, consumption, transport, and energy use — are necessary but not sufficient.

What is ultimately needed is a change of heart, as Pope Francis maintained -- a renewed perception of creation as gift, and a recovery of the human vocation of stewardship that Genesis describes with the two Hebrew verbs abad and shamar — to cultivate and to guard.

The document is published currently only in Italian. An English translation is expected in the coming weeks and will be available through the Vatican's website.

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TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: gaiworship; idolatry; pachamamapopes; paganism

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The document insists that responding to the crisis requires more than policy changes — it requires what it calls “a genuine ecological conversion in the way people live.”

In other words, Neo-marxism.