“Each Creature,Resplendently Transfigured”: Development of Teaching in Laudato Si’

Abstract

Three stages can be traced in the Catholic Church’s magisterial teaching on the status of nonhuman creatures in the eschatological New Creation. In this article I ask three questions: which, why, and how: Which creatures are in the new creation, why are they part of the New Creation, and how will they be there? I argue that Laudato Si’ gives a new magisterial answer to these three questions and constitutes an important new development in the teaching on New Creation.