The encyclical letter Laudato Si is available here on the Vatican website.
197. What is needed is a politics which is far-sighted and capable of a new, integral and interdisciplinary approach to handling the different aspects of the crisis.
How can we possibly cvultivate systems that nudge us our of our myopia, and encourage a vision to the horizon and beyond?
Often, politics itself is responsible for the disrepute in which it is held, on account of corruption and the failure to enact sound public policies.
In the United States, on the national level, don’t discount the intentional sabotage from withing political structures. Corrupting representative national government only clears the playing field for big business to run lawless.
If in a given region the state does not carry out its responsibilities, some business groups can come forward in the guise of benefactors, wield real power, and consider themselves exempt from certain rules, to the point of tolerating different forms of organized crime, human trafficking, the drug trade and violence, all of which become very difficult to eradicate.
I wouldn’t discount the notion that some First World business groups are already operating as organized crime. 2008 should have shown us that.
If politics shows itself incapable of breaking such a perverse logic, and remains caught up in inconsequential discussions, we will continue to avoid facing the major problems of humanity. A strategy for real change calls for rethinking processes in their entirety, for it is not enough to include a few superficial ecological considerations while failing to question the logic which underlies present-day culture. A healthy politics needs to be able to take up this challenge.
Catholic Sensibility 