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Available for over a year

When a new year begins, it’s usual to take stock, make some new personal resolutions and think about how we can improve our lives. But after the life-changing experiences of 2020’s pandemic, people are thinking big: about not just going on a diet or resolving to take more exercise but about how we perceive the world. For example, earlier this week, on this programme, Prince Charles gave people plenty of food for thought about changing how we think when he was interviewed by guest editor Margaret Atwood. He urged that we pay more heed to the wisdom of indigenous people about the planet. Talking to Canadian First Nation leaders, he said, had made him realize how much can be learnt from them about the dangers of not caring for the planet. The importance of learning wisdom from indigenous peoples about the relationship between humanity and creation was also expressed early last year by Pope Francis in his writings on the Amazon. They followed a gathering of people from the region, invited to Rome by the Pope, to discuss the ecological crisis there. They vividly described how people from elsewhere had moved in to the region and as part of their colonisation exploited both the land and the native people. In response Pope Francis called for the preservation of the region’s beauty and the abundant life of its rivers and forests. As a Latin American himself, Francis understood how the native culture of the Amazon’s indigenous people is rooted in creation. As he put it, having that connectedness is a way of hearing God’s call to humanity. That connectedness between humanity and creation, and between peoples across the world, is a theme that has been developed in Pope Francis’ writings and interviews throughout the pandemic. It is a foundation of the Covid Commission he set up in the spring to examine how the Church, and also global organisations and governments, can reimagine the world and build a better future. For those who have endured terrible illness and bereavements during the pandemic, it may seem hard to look forward. But the world turned upside down may also be an opportunity. Francis advocates going forward by, first, contemplating the world’s situation, then discerning what undermines God and his goodness, and afterwards developing bold plans for the future. And for him, that future is not about people in splendid isolation from the rest of creation but rooted in connectedness with what the Pope calls our common home: this planet. He has called his latest book, Let Us Dream. What better moment to dream than the start of the new year.