Transcript:

For many Catholics, the importance of fighting climate change was articulated a decade ago in the late Pope Francis’s groundbreaking letter “Laudato Si’.”

To mark the letter’s 10th anniversary, a group of Catholics from across the country made a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C.

In Laudato Si’, Francis emphasized that environmental destruction and poverty are part of the same crisis.

Dorchinecz: “Communities who are poor and marginalized are often the ones who bear the brunt of environmental degradation and those negative consequences. And it’s not two distinct calls to care for these poor people and the Earth, but it’s rather all one call to live in love and to follow Jesus’s message of love.”

This past summer Annaliese Dorchinecz interned with the nonprofit Catholic Climate Covenant.

In June, she and other advocates brought copies of Laudato Si’ to every Catholic member of Congress and talked with the officials or their staff.

Dorchinecz: “We told them about why Pope Francis’s message is important to us and why we think it’s vital that policymakers hear and respond to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor when they’re making these big decisions that affect the whole country.”

Reporting credit: Ethan Freedman / ChavoBart Digital Media