In his encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis rejects the ethic of humanity’s dominion over the Earth and replaces it with reverence and a profound appreciation of its beauty. In doing so he strikes a chord that will resonate beyond the Christian world Of all the revolutionary aspects of last week’s papal encyclical on the environment, and there are many, from the intervention in the climate-change debate to the ferocious critique of consumerist values (almost amounting to an attack on capitalism itself), one stands out above all: the passionate assertion by Pope Francis of reverence for the Earth.At a stroke, at an astounding, radical stroke, the Argentinian pontiff rewrote basic theology and in so doing filled the gaping hole that has always existed in the formidable J