via NCR:

In Laudate Deum, a new apostolic exhortation released last week, Pope Francis continued the conversation from his 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.” Climate scientists said the science is sound, and theologians applauded Francis’ “laser focus” on the climate crisis in Laudate Deum….

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami celebrated the inclusion of the U.S. bishops’ quote as recognition of the conference’s long-standing work on climate. “Care for the environment is not something that the pope is dragging us American bishops to. We’ve been there,” he said.

Daniel DiLeo, associate professor and director of the justice and peace studies program at Creighton University, said he saw the citation as “a strategic move to hold them to their own standard.”

In 2021, DiLeo co-published a study finding that the majority of U.S. bishops never mentioned climate change in their columns published in the year before or the four years after Laudato Si’ was released.

DiLeo, who is also a consultant to the Catholic Climate Covenant, said he wasn’t optimistic about a new posture from U.S. bishops post-Laudate Deum. “Nothing thus far has inspired them to act in a way commensurate with the science,” he said.

DiLeo encouraged bishops to commit to reducing emissions from diocesan operations by 50% by 2030 and to net-zero by 2040 as a way of enacting Laudate Deum‘s call and energizing young Catholics….

DiLeo said “the most important thing that individual Catholics can do is to stop thinking as individuals,” urging them to “leverage their collective power” in their dioceses and with their elected officials….

Still, Wenski acknowledged, “There is certainly a lot of conspicuous consumption as part of our culture here in the United States.” He said he hoped the call-out would be an “occasion for some introspection on our part.”

The archbishop said that the Miami Archdiocese would continue to implement “greener” and “energy-efficient” practices in parishes and schools. At the bishops’ conference, Wenski said Laudate Deum would “help us to set our legislative priorities” when advocating for government policies.