Caring for our common home: integral ecology, human mobility, and climate justice from the Encyclical Laudato si

Abstract

In 2024 alone, according to the latest report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), disasters caused more than 9.8 million new internal displacements across 94 countries and territories; meanwhile, that same year saw 45.8 million instances of forced displacement within national borders due to disasters across 163 countries and territories (IDMC, 2025)—mostly in areas where communities already face profound social and economic vulnerabilities. This year, 2025, marks the tenth anniversary of “Laudato si”, an encyclical by Pope Francis that invites us to examine the climate and ecological crisis as inseparable from social inequalities and human mobility processes. In this context, caring for our “common home” is not merely an environmentalist slogan; rather, it is an acknowledgment that what is at stake is the very life and dignity of millions of people currently forced to leave their homes. Some urgent questions arise in the midst of chaos: how do we translate the holistic vision of ecology proposed in “Laudato si” into concrete policies, actions, and partnerships that genuinely care for the Earth and for those already being driven to leave? How do we construct responses where care, justice, and collective action serve as the common thread, rather than responses that are fragmented and, in many cases, reactive?