Fifty years hearing the cries of the earth and the poor in Appalachia

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October 31, 2025

Roughly 150 people took part in a dialogue on labor and the environment in Appalachia Oct. 25 at the pastoral center of the Pittsburgh Diocese, marking the 50th anniversary of the Appalachian bishops' pastoral letter "This Land is Home to Me" and the 10-year anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." (Pinnacle Productions)

As evident from a good chunk of the coverage at EarthBeat this year, 2025 marks the 10-year anniversary of Pope Francis' landmark social encyclical on the environment, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."

But it is not the only church document relating to environmental concerns that is reaching a milestone.

Fifty years ago, the 25 bishops of Appalachia — a mountainous region across 13 states in the eastern U.S. — issued their own assessment of how social, economic and environmental issues intertwine and impact the lives of people, most especially the poor. The document was titled "This Land is Home to Me."

Roughly 150 Catholics, including three bishops, gathered last weekend in Pittsburgh to celebrate the 50th anniversary of "This Land," as well as a decade of Laudato Si', as I reported in a story today at EarthBeat.

In an interview after the event, Bishop Mark Brennan of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, commented to me about how "This Land" remains relevant a half-century later, particularly what the bishops in the mid-1970s said about the idolization of the "maximization of profit" and how removing the wealth from the ground often has not benefited those who live in the region.

"'Maximization of profit' in today's world," the bishops wrote at the time, "has become a crazy death wish, every day using up more and more of the earth's riches and our own dignity."

They criticized how the U.S., consisting of 6% of the world population in 1975, consumed one-third of global energy and produced 40% of industrial pollution.

The Appalachian bishops spoke directly at how mining and other extractive industries impact the environment.

Too often, many corporations guided by the philosophy of "technological rationalization," they wrote, "become perverted, hostile to the dignity of the earth and of its people. Its destructive growth patterns pollute the air, foul the water, rape the land."

The bishops expanded further on the interconnections between ecological crises and the plight of the poor 20 years later in a second pastoral titled "At Home in the Web of Life." They wrote in part:

"We too do not see the crisis of nature as separate from the crisis of the poor, but see both as a single crisis of community. For the land and the poor people are victims together of the same materialistic consumer society, which promotes the culture of death. It does this by undermining all community, by frequently treating people and the rest of nature as if they were useless waste from the throw-away consumer society."

Those lines closely echo what Francis wrote 20 years later in Laudato Si', where he called the global community "to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor" and as he regularly critiqued a "throwaway culture" and "culture of waste."

In reflecting on the pastorals from the Appalachian bishops and Francis' socio-ecological encyclical, retired Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said to the gathering, "The question that faces you and I today, in a very particular way, is this: How do we lift up and care for creation and care for the workers in Appalachia?"

What else is new on EarthBeat:

Faith-based disaster relief groups mobilize to respond to Hurricane Melissa

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On Mount of Olives where Jesus prayed, monks and nuns keep harvesting olives

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This orange flower cloaks Mexico during Day of the Dead. Climate change is putting it at risk

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What's happening in other climate news:

Annual climate change report finds 'planet on the brink' —Brian Bienkowski for The New Lede

Trump fossil fuel approvals keep coming despite government shutdown —Rachel Frazin for The Hill

AI is pushing climate goals out of reach, new reports say —Jake Bolster for Inside Climate News

Trump officials say Alaska is 'open for business.' So far, no one's buying —Lois Parshley for Grist

Brazil's Amazon deforestation falls 11% even as fires surge to record levels —Steven Grattan for the Associated Press

A river restoration in Oregon gets fast results: The salmon swam right back —Rebecca Dzombak for The New York Times

Why billions of gallons of raw sewage keep ending up in Philadelphia waterways —Kyle Bagenstose for Inside Climate News

Final Beat:

Today is All Hallow's Eve, or Halloween. In the Catholic Church, that means this weekend will mark All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.

Both liturgical days offer times to remember those who have passed, whether saintly examples of Christian lives or the people close in our lives. Some may choose to do so by visiting a cemetery.

While cemeteries offer a final resting place for those who have died, they also can support life, as detailed in a report by Karen Mockler for The Revelator, an environmental news site.

She explains:

The ever-increasing demands of human development sometimes behave like doom-laden dominoes: Urban sprawl leads to habitat destruction leads to species extinction. So where in the world can humans coexist with biodiversity?

In cemeteries. In some urban environments, graveyards represent the last green space for miles. Increasingly ecologists are seeing how traditional cemeteries contribute to biodiversity, including some rare plant and animal species. These places illustrate the key ecological concept of habitat islands, a haven for both plants and animals being squeezed by our modern world.

You can read the full article here: Cemeteries: How the dead protect the wild.

Until next week, thanks for reading EarthBeat.

Brian Roewe
Environment Correspondent
National Catholic Reporter
broewe@ncronline.org