Holy see's environmental discourse

Holy See's Environmental Discourse Pope Francis‘s encyclical “Laudato Si” published in last summer attracted much public attention, as the first document of Church Social Doctrine, sending comparatively explicit and detailed message about ecological sphere. Appearance of an authoritative publication, partly prepared for United Nation Climate Change Conference in Paris, was followed by representative conferences and pontifical journeys, where Pope, addressing his message to influential governmental bodies and society, paid special attention to environmental problems. Bearing in mind, Holy See’s recent attention to the ecological world and Pope’s personal popularity, an environmental discourse formed by Roman Catholic Church becomes relevant and at the same time appealing topic for research. Applying theoretical premise, with the claim that environmental problems are social constructs, two mutually oppositional discourses are distinguished – neoliberal (the dominant discourse) and climate justice (the marginal one). Taking into account the division of dominant and it opposing discourse, conception of environmental politics as an area of competing discourses and discoursive tendency of environmental problems, the critical discourse analysis as methodological approach was chosen. Methodological framing of the research allowed answering the main question of the thesis: what kind of environmental discourse The Holy See forms. This aim was brought into more detail by fallowing goals set in the introduction and indicating the features of Church’s discourse in the context of two previously mentioned perspectives – climate justice and neoliberalism. To be more precise, while applying three-dimentional analysis of Fairclough, the arguments, presented in the introductional part of the thesis (first, that Holy See’s rhetoric concerning environmental issues assimilates with climate justice discourse and, second, that in this rhetoric the signs of opposition to neoliberal discourse could be seen) are proven. In addition to this, the thesis aims to answer the question what is a practical influences of this alternative discourse and how it is reflected in the process of United Nation Climate Change Conference, which was held in Paris. Finally, in the last section of thesis, combining the observations in both, theoretical and research parts of the paper, the summary of key findings are represented, justifying the presumption that Church’s rhetoric linked to environmental problems could not only be perceived as theological teaching consistently fallowing the directions set by Genesis, but, vice versa, is reflective and illustrates not only the dominance of neoliberal discourse, but also the emerging and recognition of climate justice discourse. The guidelines for future research are offered