Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio released the "Encyclical Laudato Si': on the care of common home" on June 18, 2015, the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shown that the temperature of Earth continues increasing and that May of 2015 was Earth's warmest month, since 1880. By endorsing the scientific knowledge in relation to anthropogenic factors on global warming and by defending actions to confront the causes of climate change and ecosystem degradation, the Holy See has taken (...) a key step to put Catholics at the forefront of global ecological struggle and to encourage the signing of the global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol at the 21st Conference of the Parties, that will take place in December in Paris. But the encyclical of Pope Francis proposes a larger task that is to protect the poorest of the poor countries, addressing jointly the human environment and the natural environment from the perspective of an integral ecology. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the advances and limitations of the propositions of the encyclical Laudato Si ' and to expand the dialogue on gender relations and deep ecology. (shrink)

Catholicism has been the hegemonic religion in Brazil. However, in recent decades the country is undergoing a major religious transformation, with a drop of Catholic affiliations and rapid growth of evangelicals, and a increase to a lesser pace, of other religions and no-religion. Hence, there is a growing religious plurality, although Christianity remains widely majority in the country. But within the Christian religion there is a change of hegemony between Catholics and evangelicals. An innovation of the dogma and the evangelical (...) practice occurred in the twentieth century, in the United States, allowed the spread of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal messages. Brazil, as the largest Catholic country in the world, is highlighted in this process. The state of Rio de Janeiro features as having the smaller proportion of Catholics and the most religiously diverse in the country. Its metropolitan area is the most advanced urban agglomeration in this changing process of hegemony. This paper shows, additionally, that the process of evangelical diffusion follows a spatial pattern that goes along the main roads of the Rio de Janeiro territory having as the focus of diffusion the periphery of the metropolitan area of ​​the State. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é apresentar e debater alguns pontos de interseção da esfera dos direitos humanos com o campo da religião, abordando, em especial, os encontros e desencontros referentes às doutrinas da Igreja Católica sobre os direitos reprodutivos e os direitos ambientais. Para tanto, reconstituímos uma narrativa histórica e relacional do debate sobre as origens e a evolução da transição demográfica e dos direitos humanos, desde a época da Revolução Francesa. Por meio de uma análise comparativa e contextualizada, apresentamos (...) o debate sobre população e desenvolvimento sustentável e as visões sobre os direitos reprodutivos e ambientais expostos em Conferências da Organização das Nações Unidas e nas encíclicas Humanae Vitae e Laudato Si’. Argumentamos que desde o final do século XVIII até os dias atuais, o progresso humano se deu às custas do regresso ambiental e, nessa rota divergente, aumenta a tensão entre a dinâmica do crescimento populacional e a efetivação dos direitos reprodutivos e dos direitos ambientais. Desta forma, assinalamos que no Estado democrático de direito, com respeito aos princípios da laicidade, a tolerância religiosa é essencial para o adequado equacionamento da questão dos direitos reprodutivos e para o aprofundamento do debate sobre os direitos ambientais. (shrink)