HERE LIVES GOD – POPE FRANCIS’ ENCYCLICAL LETTER “LAUDATO SI’” AS KEY TO A SACRAMENTAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE ENTIRE CREATION AS GOD’S ORIGINAL GIFT

Resumo

At the heart of the paper is the Encyclical Letter «Laudato si’», published 2015 by Pope Francis. Aside the author’s conviction that Laudato si’ is the most significant contribution to the debate on ecological crisis in recent decades, it is shown that the remarks of Pope Francis go far beyond that of what is usually referred as “Encyclical on the Environment”. Rather the text is seen as a key to a sacramental understanding of the entire creation, as the one sacrament in which the encounter with God and the recognition of God and human nature is ultimately enabled. In this approach, there is no room at all for nationalism in all its forms and manifestations, literally unmasked as godless. With the focus on the sacramentality of creation, the understanding of the world as sacrament is a not entirely new concept, but anyway a new paradigm in sacramentology. An excursus offers a short glimpse into causes and concrete examples of violence and hatred, e.g. considering the phenomenology of the foreign. In a feeling of being torn between hope and resignation, among the final issues the conviction is kept alive that humankind is capable of making a restart towards a new lifestyle. Some recommendations with regard to the liturgy are made. And finally, breaking bread as both a universal sign of peace and specifically the fundamental gesture of every Eucharistic is recalled.