By Father Eugene Hemrick Catholic News Service

I could feel the concern of the parishioner, my dear friend, who sparred with me on Pope Francis' "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," his recent encyclical on the environment.

"Coming from another economic culture, he doesn't understand ours," he said to me. "If we follow his advice, people will be losing jobs."

However, the last thing Pope Francis desires is to put people out of work. What he truly desires is that we reassess our economic and business models. As often happens with success, it can bind us to the present and blind us to the future by focusing on the here and now, and it can create shortsightedness.

During our lifetime, we have been blessed with popes who have been concerned with what our children will inherit. And Pope Francis is following in their footsteps. What he is saying is that if we continue to follow the model of exploiting valuable resources to fulfill immediate needs and allow pollution to continue at high levels, all in the name of economic gain, our children may have to inherit long-lasting catastrophes.

One of the major principles of spiritual life is to examine what we are doing and improve it. We are forever asked to answer the question, "Am I using a sound model that is helping me make true progress?"

The principle of evaluating what we are doing holds doubly true for daily life. For example, if married life is to succeed, it must constantly evaluate what is happening and improve it. When this is accomplished, marriage has a much better chance of succeeding. When this is neglected, marriage can become humdrum, routine and lifeless, and sometimes ends in divorce.

Examining what we are doing and improving it also holds true for parish life. If we neglect this question, the result can be potential being wasted, reduced services and lifelessness of parish life.

If we look closely at Pope Francis' encyclical, we will find that it challenges us to ask: "What if?"

What if we change the way we do things and improve on them? Would we be able to respond to the poor better? Would life in our city or town be safer, cleaner and provide a place of beauty? Would immediate needs be replaced by a set of more important needs: loveliness, peacefulness and godliness?

Although it has been highly lauded, Pope Francis' encyclical has met with some resistance. This is to be expected when cutting-edge ideas are presented. Hopefully the debate this causes will lead to taking a closer look at the spirit behind it that is filled with a desire for leaving behind something good for our children.