LAUDATO SI’: THE CRY OF THE EARTH AND THE CRY OF THE POOR IN NIGERIA

The core principle of Laudato Si was the call to listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. Following St Francis of Assisi, Laudato Si, speaks of the earth as our sister ‘who cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her’. He speaks of the poor calling out to us for justice and a share at the table. Today, in Nigeria, this principle is being violated in various ways. The earth is crying because of innocent blood that is being spilled everyday, farms are being destroyed, which has caused a lot of hunger to the poor and the vulnerable. This goes against another principle of this encyclical, which is the common good. Therefore, this paper is a call to Nigerians to care for our common home and improve our relationship with our natural and social environments.

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