Pope Francis has been misunderstood by liberals and conservatives alike, confusing an emphasized pastoral tone and approach for theological departure. This confusion is exacerbated in the United States where the faithful are tempted to understand and evaluate pastoral figures in terms of secular political ideologies. This study extends Blaney’s (2017) media framing study of news coverage of cardinalate appointments by examining commentary about the papal encyclical Laudato Si’ found among readers of the National Catholic Register, the National Catholic Reporter, and The New York Times. Thematic analyses affirm that the faithful of the U.S. church succumb to the same secular parsing as the press.

Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home represents a sweeping call for action on climate change. In this essay, I use hermeneutical rhetoric to explore the rhetorical strategies Pope Francis employed. In particular, I critically analyze each of the six chapters in the encyclical, focusing on the use of the phrase “our common home.” I argue that Pope Francis’s reinterpretation of the relationship among humans, God, and the environment positions efforts to address climate change as a moral imperative.

In his 2015 encyclical, Pope Francis advanced five edicts on global climate change. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler and Kathryn Yusoff, I seek to contribute to our understanding of contemporary religious and environmental communication by examining the complex racial dynamics of the Anthropocene and the use of universals for political claims to action and justice. Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, I argue, advances a Catholic rhetoric of the Anthropocene. While his intimate letter incites change and action, Pope Francis’s failure to address the specificity of racism in the global climate crisis reinforces criticisms that scholars such as Yusoff and Butler have advanced against universalism and the Anthropocene.

In 2015, while many Americans acknowledged climate change as a threat, a majority did not view climate change as a religious or moral issue and were unaware of the impacts on the world’s poor. Pope Francis delivered his encyclical in this context and, by using familial metaphors, altered climate change perceptions. Evoking Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis used the metaphors of sister, brother, and mother to shift the audience’s perception of threat: Climate change is not an impersonal, distant risk but one that threatens family. Yet the familial metaphor’s limitation has been an inability to encourage sustained climate change action.

Recently, Pope Francis dedicated a Vatican property—the Palazzo Migliori—as a homeless shelter. Pope Francis’s decision marks the culmination of many papal pronouncements, especially his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, which provides a set of principles focused on taking care of both the environment and “the least of our brethren.” In this article, I engage in a rhetorical analysis of the pope’s theological and political framework based on what Endres and Senda-Cook (2011) call the “rhetoric of place” to explore how Pope Francis alters the symbolic meaning of Vatican property to advance social justice.

Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home has struck a deep chord with a broad audience. We explore the synergy between the ethical vision of sustainability in the Earth Charter and the encyclical. We position the document within the ecology and media landscapes. Laudato Si’ is remarkable among international statements in its explicit attention to education. We draw out the pivotal importance of education in order for its critical message not to be lost. We argue that education for Laudato Si’ can be advanced in traditional education—formal and non-formal, secular and religious—and in education through the media.