John L. Kater
Laudato si’, Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on the environment, drew on the Roman Catholic magisterium and his own background as a Latin American Jesuit influenced by Franciscan spirituality. He described a planetary ecological crisis and spells out a response based on a theology and spirituality of creation and invites dialogue with voices from other traditions. The Anglican theological tradition offers resources for dialogue with the encyclical, including nineteenth- and twentieth-century theologians, as well as insights from the liturgical movement, and the dialogue with science that issued in the Episcopal Church’s “A Catechism of Creation.” Flexibility in liturgical experimentation, affirmation of the role of laypeople in decision making, and Anglican openness to examining faith and practice in the light of new understandings and insights are all resources that the Anglican tradition can bring to a conversation with the concerns of Laudato si’.