Laudato si’: Pope Francis to issue updated encyclical on October 4

Ten days ago already, the walls of the Vatican had rustled with the beginning of a scoop. On the occasion of the reception of a delegation of lawyers from member countries of the Council of Europe, Pope Francis told them that he was “in the process of writing a second part of his encyclical Laudato si’ ( released in 2015) to update current issues”.

A welcome revelation as these lawyers work on the question of the rule of law and human dignity, important themes of the social doctrine of the Church. The director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, later clarified that the format of this supplement would be that of a letter that will seek to respond in particular to the recent climate crises.

“An erroneous conception of nature and of the human person is spreading more and more, a conception which weakens its very protection and which opens little by little to serious abuses under the guise of good”. Pope Francis then specified again to justify his approach.

On August 25, it was the turn of Hungarian President Kataly Novak to enter into the confidence during the meeting with the Argentine pope. “He told me that he was working on writing a new encyclical,” she confided to the Roman daily. Il Messaggero, even if the qualification of encyclical is undoubtedly exaggerated for the document to come. It will be more of an update and thematic development because, as the pope reportedly told him, “a lot has changed a bit” since 2015.