Francis distinguishes various levels of the family in relation to important aspects of ecology. He places the family at the center of the common good to be defended from within and without. And he proposes as model the family of Nazareth.

1. The family," he writes in his encyclical Laudato Si' on ecology, referring to the family formed by parents and children, "is an important part of the book of nature, one and indivisible (cf. n. 6). Consequently, the family - like the social environment and culture - is affected by the degradation of nature due to the wounds caused by our irresponsible behavior.

In our common home which is nature, wounded and abused, lives the human family or family of humanity, a broader level of family that also experiences within itself wounds that tear it apart and disunite it. Therefore, "the urgent challenge to protect our common home includes the concern to unite the whole human family in the search for a sustainable and integral development " (n. 13).

This concern is a priority: "We need to strengthen our awareness that we are one human family. There are no borders or political or social barriers that allow us to isolate ourselves, and for this very reason there is no room for the globalization of indifference" (n. 52).

The task of caring for the human family and the common home belongs to everyone. And it entails the evaluation and care of all creatures: "Because all creatures are connected, each must be valued with affection and admiration, and all beings need one another. Each territory has a responsibility to care for this family" (n. 42).

A third level of family, even broader, is that which embraces not only human beings but all created beings, which are interconnected (cf. n. 42). Hence the invitation to affection, to evaluation and to the protection of all species. This family of all creatures forms a kind of universal family of God the Father (n. 89).

2. Between these different levels of the family - the family as the basic cell of society, the human family, the universal family of all creatures - there is a profound relationship, so that each level leads to care for the other. Thus, the farmer should possess some land to feed his own family (cf. n. 94).

Thus an "integral ecology" - an important concept in the encyclical - calls for attention to environmental, human and family contexts (cf. n. 141), and also to institutional contexts, since "social ecology" is necessarily institutional (cf. n. 142).

Other interesting concepts are those of "human ecology" and "everyday ecology," which Francis connects closely with the poor. This is so, in fact, because the poor are affected daily by the quality of human contexts: community, neighborhood, housing. Concretely, the possession of housing has to do with the dignity of the person and therefore with the development of families (cf. n. 152).

3. In any case, the family -group - must be at the center of the search for the common good (cf. n. 157) and defend itself from threats that come not only from outside. Great threats are individualism - especially in the relationship between men and women (cf. n. 162) - and consumerism.

It also highlights the fundamental role of the family as a school of spirituality -which leads to openness to God and to others-, of the culture of life and of training integral. The model family that cares for people and the world as God's creatures is the family of Nazareth. Besides Jesus - who occupies the center of the family - there is Mary, who takes care of Jesus and at the same time discovers the meaning of all things. Joseph cares for and supports his family with the work, and "can motivate us to work with generosity and tenderness to protect this world that God has entrusted to us" (n. 242).