Laudate Deum

a new way of teaching in times of global crisis

Abstract

The reflection aims to welcome the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum and interrogate its historical and methodological meanings. The unexpected social document is justified as a specification and update of the Encyclical Laudato si”, still recent, in terms of social magisterium. The reflection wants to affirm the methodological originality of the Exhortation, as a ready and agile application of the sign of the times methodology launched by the Vatican II, in tune with the rapid changes of current times with their ecological, social and political urgencies and appeals. The document applies in an exemplary way what defines the Social Doctrines of the Church as criteria for discernment and guidelines for action. The unusual arrival of the Exhortation is linked to the ecological urgency of the planetary reality and the political failure of solutions, as well as the Franciscan way of positioning ourselves in the face of reality: always superior to the idea.