The Earth Is Becoming a ‘Garbage Dump,’ and Other Unofficial Quotes from Pope's Encyclical

Pope Francis is throwing the full weight of Catholic teaching, and his considerable moral standing, behind the fight against climate change in an unprecedented papal document on the environment that immediately makes the Catholic Church a major player in one of the most important and contentious debates of the next generation.

A draft version of the 192-page encyclical, which will be officially published on June 18, indicated that Francis wastes little time with climate-change deniers or his critics on the right — many of them within the church.

He states clearly that global warming is a fact and mankind has contributed to it. Above all, he stresses that everyone has a moral duty to work to mitigate the effects of climate change to avert a worldwide disaster.

Here are key excerpts of the draft drawn from a variety of news sources:

• “The Earth, our home, increasingly seems to be transforming itself into an immense garbage dump.” (Reuters)
• “Never have we mistreated and offended our common home as we have in the last two centuries.” (ThinkProgress)
• “Unfortunately, if we scan the regions of our planet, we immediately see that humanity has disappointed God’s expectations.” (ThinkProgress)
• “If the current trend continues, this century could see unheard-of climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with grave consequences for all of us.” (Reuters)
• “Humanity is called to consciousness of the need for changes in styles of life, of production and consumption, to combat this warming, or, at least, the human causes that produce and exacerbate it.” (Crux)
• “We grew up thinking we were the earth’s owners and dominators, authorized to pillage it. Violence in the human heart wounded by sin shows itself also in the symptoms of disease that we see in the soil, the water, the air, and living creatures.” (Crux)
• “With regard to climate change, progress has been deplorably scarce. … The reduction of greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility, especially by the most powerful and the most polluting countries.” (The New York Times)
• “There is in fact a true ‘ecological debt,’ overall between the North and the South, connected to commercial imbalances with consequences in the ecological sphere, surely like the disproportionate use of natural resources historically done by some countries.” (National Catholic Reporter)
• “We know that it is impossible to sustain the current level of consumption in the more developed countries and the wealthiest parts of society, where the habit of waste and of throwing things away is reaching unprecedented levels.” (ThinkProgress)
• “An economic and technological development that does not leave the world a better place and with an integral superior quality of life cannot be considered progress.” (The New York Times)
• “Because of us, thousands of species can no longer give glory to God with their existence, nor can they communicate to us their message.” (National Catholic Reporter)
• “I am aware that some people strongly refute the idea of a Creator on political or intellectual grounds, or consider it irrelevant. … However, science and religion, which offer different approaches to reality, can enter into an intense and productive dialogue with each other.” (ThinkProgress)

David Gibson and Rosie Scammell write for Religion News Service. Via RNS.