VATICAN CITY – People who think politics is sinking to new lows may find comfort in knowing Pope Francis also is concerned about the debasement of what church teaching has described as a “lofty vocation.”

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican announced that it will commemorate the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment with a yearlong series of initiatives dedicated to the safeguarding and care for the Earth.

In May of 2015, Pope Francis released his encyclical Laudato Si’, the Italian title taken from St. Francis of Assisi’s beautiful “Canticle of the Creatures”: “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.”

Not long after St. John XXIII’s social encyclical Mater et Magistra made its appearance in 1961, a wisecrack began making the rounds among Catholics who’d taken umbrage: “Mater, si; magistra, no” — mother, yes; teacher, no. In other words, the church has a maternal relationship with her members but is not their teacher on matters of an economic, political and social nature.