Resumo

Environmental degradation and one of its effects, global warming, have worsened the inequalities between the rich and the poor among people and nations. The Catholic Church has demonstrated its deep commitment to social justice visibly since the Vatican II, while the most recent Encyclical, Laudato Si1, offered by Pope Francis moves the Church in an unprecedented manner toward the coupling of sustainability and religion to address global inequalities.
This paper features a few important dimensions of inequalities to heighten the urgency of global social justice work. It then reviews documents connected to sustainability in Catholic social teaching, with an emphasis on Laudato Si by Pope Francis.
Finally, through a brief analysis of a contemporary documentary film, “Virunga” (2014),2 which focuses on a crisis that recently occurred in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this paper illustrates an impactful and effective way to articulate global inequality and mobilize coalitions to protect people, creatures and land against violence and environmental degradation.
Social documentaries, in general, represent voices for justice and the common good shared by all major religions, and the documents of the Catholic Church highlighted in the paper offer a concrete trajectory for global justice that we see in cinematic form.