In this task you will reflect on how key themes of Laudato Si’ and principles of Catholic social thought relate to your course of study. Course of study: the degree program you are enrolled in at university. Why does thinking deeply and critically about both human dignity and the common good matter to the professional work you would like to do in communities? In this respect, how did your university prepare you for post-university life with your qualification, or not? Answer the question by writing the script for a short graduation speech that reflects critically on your course of study and its ideal connection with your future profession. Use one of the following two excerpts from Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ as a springboard for your speech and interweave it with your reflection on your course of study. Put another way, base your reflection on the key ideas in one of the excerpts, and incorporate these ideas throughout to show their significance. i) Francis, Laudato Si’, paragraph 142: “If everything is related, then the health of a society’s institutions has consequences for the environment and the quality of human life. “Every violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment”. In this sense, social ecology is necessarily institutional, and gradually extends to the whole of society, from the primary social group, the family, to the wider local, national and international communities. Within each social stratum, and between them, institutions develop to regulate human relationships. Anything which weakens those institutions has negative consequences, such as injustice, violence and loss of freedom. A number of countries have a relatively low level of institutional effectiveness, which results in greater problems for their people while benefiting those who profit from this situation.”; or, ii) Francis, Laudato Si’, paragraph 157: “Underlying the principle of the common good is respect for the human person as such, endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordered to his or her integral development. It has also to do with the overall welfare of society and the development of a variety of intermediate groups, applying the principle of subsidiarity. Outstanding among those groups is the family, as the basic cell of society. Finally, the common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues. Society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good.”
