In His Easter homily in 2012, Pope Benedict said: “Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify.”At Notre Dame University this past month, Katharine Mahon, a doctoral student in theology, reminded me of this passage from the Pope Emeritus. One of the striking hallmarks of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment was how it was rooted in the theology and writings of his predecessors, like the passage above.Just as our badly overlit cities blind us to the stars