Following the Vatican’s release of Pope Francis’s first encyclical on Thursday, Fordham University Assistant Professor of Theology, Science and Ethics Christiana Z. Peppard, Ph.D., has been providing analysis and commentary on the much-awaited papal message on climate change.

Speaking to The New York Times, Peppard commented: “A huge indictment I see in this encyclical is that people have lost their sense of ultimate and proper goals of technology and economics. We are focused on short-term, consumerist patterns, and have allowed technological and economic paradigms to tell us what our values ought to be.”

In an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post, Peppard discusses “What you need to know about Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical.”

She writes: “Anyone who has glimpsed Laudato Si’: On the Care of our Common Home, released today by Pope Francis, can see that the genre is unique. It’s dramatically different from our habitual scans of texts and tweets and the sorts of messages sent with thumbs. Yet even while it requires different dexterities, reading the encyclical — the whole thing, yes — is within our grasp. Francis himself says, bluntly: ‘I wish to address every person living on this planet … I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home.’”

In addition, she was the scholar-expert at the official press conference of U.S. Catholic Bishops about the Pope’s encyclical this morning.

Peppard, a former Center for Ethics Education visiting fellow, is the author of Just Water, examining issues related to water, ethics, and theology.