I’m persuaded that the Reformation was a crucial transition point. Discarding tradition, personal interpretation, questioning authority.
Of course the Reformation was a crucial event in the history of Christianity and the Church. However, the Reformation was only one manifestation of a paradigm shift that occurred for many reasons during the course of history. In philosophy, there was Descartes and in religion Martin Luther. Is Martin Luther the father of modern philosophy? It is modern philosophy and Descartes that are relevant to an understanding of the cultural paradigm as it is described in
Laudato Si.
Now we are talking about three aspects: philosophy of leading thinkers, popular opinion, and standard of living. Clearly there were many important thinkers who led this change including, but not limited to, Descartes. My claim is that you could not have had an industrial revolution without at leat a partial change in the popular culture. And, further, that the most important changes in popular culture are those that preceeded the industrial revolution.
There were Renaissance philosophers who preceded Descartes. The much later industrial revolution was not an isolated phenomenon, and it occurred in relationship to development that preceded it. This is also true in the history of philosophy. The most important change in the history of philosophy, of significance here, occurred well before the industrial revolution, at the end of the Scholastic period and the beginning of modern philosophy. What is significant relative to the cultural paradigm described in
Laudato Si did not occur prior to the industrial revolution. This may be confusing, but nevertheless it is necessary to understand it if one seeks an intellectual understanding of the encyclical separate from that of Catholic teaching.
Your timeline is very odd. The Reformation began with Martin Luther’s 95 Theses are 1517. Who were the prior philosophers of Reason?
Here is a timeline:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Western_philosophers#1500-1550_CE
Perhaps you should first realize, with respect to
Laudato Si, the significance of your acknowledgment of a “fertile cultural paradigm” that, as you say, “laid the ground for” the consequent cultural paradigm. You may disagree as to its time of occurrance or about the consequences of it, but there it is, and it is clear you realize it. What is relevant to the encyclical is what occurred with respect to a cultural paradigm beginning with the industrial era of the late 1800’s. Again, the cultural paradigm is neither philosophy, science nor technology but a mindset that incorporates the objective perspective of science and technology and a subjective ethics. It is the cultural paradigm that developed beginning in this period, the late 1800’s, that is relevant to
Laudato Si. This did not and could not have existed in 1507 any more than industrial capitalism could have existed in 1507.
As I have said, a paradigm shift is a process that does not occur at a precise moment of history and has its roots in the preceeding historical period. Rene Descartes (b. 1596) and the beginning of modern philosophy occurred only after a three-hundred year gap in major philosophy following the Scholastic period, and it was a long transitional period that saw philosophers such as Nicholas of Cusa and others who anticipated the Enlightenment. Petarch, Montaigne, Bruno, and Copernicus all lived prior to 1517. What is important here is that the modern period of philosophy began with Descartes and not Martin Luther. This is what is relevant to the encyclical. In that way, it addresses all Christians and everyone else as well.
So, we arrive back to the question of the OP: Did Pope Francis really say that the refugee crisis in Europe is caused by a “bad, unjust” socio-economic system that worships the “God of money”? According to the article you cited, he said exactly that. And it surely seems he believes it, not that it existed in 1507. I believe this can only be understood by a perspective of adequate generality.
