The Holy Father’s recent encyclical on the Christian care of the environment deserves to be read by all the faithful. He takes its name from his beloved Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle,” Laudato Si, “Let him be praised.” For too long, the Magisterium has been silent on issues of ecological care and our role as stewards of God’s gift of the earth. I remember once during theology studies, as I was walking down a beautiful Tyrolean street in Innsbruck wearing my Roman collar, a man came and asked, since I was so obviously religious, was God my “everything?” (Ist Gott alles?). In my halting German, I replied, “No, and God doesn’t want to be everything—in fact, the second God decided to create, he chose not to be everything.” Not only creation, of course, but the Incarnation requires that we Christians understand that this created order matters, our bodies and our health, the state of the air and of the water of this world matter!
In Laudato Si, Pope Francis takes care to navigate the Barque of Peter between two extremes. On one side, he approaches the created order resisting to sacralize creatures themselves. While it may be true that the best of the Christian tradition calls creatures “holy,” only God is absolutely and inherently sacred, his being a holiness in which creatures participate, but with which they can never be identified. Even though the goodness of creation is the litany throughout the opening pages of the Book of Genesis, the Jewish people refused to follow their Mesopotamian neighbors in apotheosizing the visible order as a sacred entity, apart from the author of its being. All things proclaim the greatness of God, but no one thing is God. To the other extreme lies the more modern tendency to dismiss natural phenomena as subhuman, and, therefore, able to be manipulated and discarded as human persons find convenient (and usually financially advantageous). This functional reduction of creation to mere utility has proven to be synchronic with an ever increasing dismissal of the transcendent nature of creation, especially of the human person, who should stand as the frontier being, representing all levels of the visible order, while still maintaining his or her supreme dignity over all that can be seen.
Capturing well the need to work between these two errors of excess, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church rightly teaches that:
A correct understanding of the environment prevents the utilitarian reduction of nature to a mere object to be manipulated and exploited. At the same time, it must not absolutize nature and place it above the dignity of the human person himself. In this latter case, one can go so far as to divinize nature or the earth, as can readily be seen in certain ecological movements … (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church §463).
As such, the Catholic approach to creation means honoring God by tending to his works with reverence and honest stewardship. In Laudato Si, integrity is no longer only of a human category: our Magisterium is now calling all persons of good will to see the wholeness of the human person involves, to some degree, the flourishing of nonhuman creation, as well. Even though the human person may be the only visible imago Dei, the vestigia Dei—the traces of God—that surround each of us, are to be tended to with God’s own solicitude and sympathy.
In the second century Letter to Diognetus, Christians heard that they were to be, to this world, what the human soul is to the body (Letter to Diognetus §6). Just as the soul collects and unifies otherwise disparate matter into a purposeful and powerful body, the Christian faithful are to immerse themselves into the created order so as to, not only give it purpose, but to consecrate it, and make it ever, and everywhere, easier for God’s glory to be known through his created works. This care and Christianization of creation is something the Church is only now beginning to recover from her ancient treasury. For, today, we are more aware than ever that we live in a very interdependent world in an even more fragile ecosystem. That is why Vatican II (1963-65) taught all people of good will that:
…the expectation of a new earth should not weaken, but rather stimulate, the resolve to cultivate this earth where the body of the new human family is increasing, and can even now constitute a foreshadowing of the new age. Although early progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ’s kingdom, nevertheless, its capacity to contribute to a better ordering of human society makes it highly relevant to the kingdom of God (Gaudium et Spes §39).
No longer can Christians dismiss this earth, and no longer can they talk exclusively of heavenly realities.
The Christian God is a Father who knows every sparrow that flies on earth, and who takes care of every lily of the field (Mt 6:28; Lk 12:26-27); a Son who assumes created matter to himself, and learned a life at a carpenter’s bench, and used seeds, wheat, and weeds to speak of the Kingdom of God (Mt 13:1-9, 18-30); a Spirit who labors to free all of creation from its “slavery to corruption” (Rom 8:21-23) into the same glorious freedom of the children of God. The manner in which the Incarnate Son chose to teach us is, primarily, a discourse on the theophoric nature of creation itself. Creation is, of course, not God, but Jesus sure thought it could tell us a lot about him! As such, the Christian creed is the most material, earth-friendly statement of belief of any religion possible: this world was divinely willed by God; this world is where God himself assumed the very elements of matter and humanity; and this created world is the place where his final consummation will occur—when all bodies will be resurrected forever. By creating, the God of Genesis has chosen not to be everything but to be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28), desirous to be known in lesser beings, refracting his own gladly shareable perfections.
Dominion, we have learned the hard way, does not mean domination. The true Dominus has come to serve, and not be served (cf. Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45). This is the context in which we must read all of Francis’s words, to let this Holy Father continue to shake all of us out of our complacencies, and comfort zones. Section 82, for example, teaches us that:
… it would also be mistaken to view other living beings as mere objects subjected to arbitrary human domination. When nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society. This vision of “might is right” has engendered immense inequality, injustice, and acts of violence against the majority of humanity, since resources end up in the hands of the first comer, or the most powerful: the winner takes all. Completely at odds with this model are the ideals of harmony, justice, fraternity, and peace, as proposed by Jesus. As he said of the powers of his own age: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” (Mt 20:25-26)
This is a story that has tremendous significance today. For who has not awoken to the various ecological crises of our world? Men and women today cannot help but look for solutions to the terrible ecological destruction they both experience, and hear reported daily. Likewise, many scholars are beginning to wake up to the world’s vulnerability, amidst so many ecological threats and concerns. I know the hard right is going to challenge Francis’s grasp of science and insinuate leftist leanings, but we should rather think carefully on the many challenges contained in Laudato Si, grateful that Pope Francis connects the central tenets of orthodox Christianity with the (currently) secular call to care for creation. It is the faithful Christian’s job to remind the modern mind that the earth deserves our care, paraphrasing G.K. Chesterton, not because she is our mother, but because she is our sister (even though St. Francis—with Pope Francis quoting him—does refer to earth as madre), because we enjoy the same Father. Some of the Church’s best theologians and philosophers today have, therefore, begun to bring timeless principles to a rather recent conversation. They know that this new consciousness of the environment’s needs is best addressed, not through more politicized pleas, but through the great Tradition of the great Church. In fact, we now see this being played out officially in a papal encyclical of the Catholic Church. She is now historically and theologically poised to comment on this kaleidoscopic relationship between God, creation, and the human person in a way not available even a generation ago. The world’s fragility has ushered in a new awareness, allowing us to draw from ancient tools that have, for too long, gone unsheathed. Let us praise God, the King of Heaven, and of earth.
About David Vincent Meconi
Thank you, Fr.Meconi, for this very good commentary. How refreshing to see such a balanced and sobering encyclical, Laudato Si. It seems that when you believe in a Creator, who designed and called everything into existence, it would only follow that you would try to be a good steward, appreciating and caring for the gift of life, as well as the home where you live out this life.
I like the quote from Joel Salatin, an organic farmer: “I am a caretaker of creation. I don’t own it. What I’m supposed to do is leave it in better shape for the next generation than I found it.”
Laudato Si.
Thank you, Father Meconi, for a well-expressed editorial on Laudato Si. So far, I’ve only skimmed the encyclical, but I’m thrilled by what I’ve seen. At the same time I’m reading Elisabetta Pique’s biography of Pope Francis, so I see in the encyclical the quintessential Francis!
The Church is trying to force secular worldly issues into moral ones, and they don’t fit. While we can all agree with Pope Francis that everyone should be in solidarity with the poor and should respect the planet, that does not mean it becomes a moral priority above all others for the Church. It doesn’t.
Jesus did not die on the cross to optimize the earth’s ecology or to eliminate poverty. He died to open up the gates of heaven and to show us the way to eternal salvation, if we followed His Word. The Catholic Church was commissioned by Jesus for this very purpose. To save souls from going to hell by converting the world to Catholicism which is the only certain pathway to salvation. What does global warming or climate change or human ecology have to do with this? The answer is none, even if it improves the overall lot of the poor. Raising the economic standard of living for the poor is a noble goal but it is not a strategic moral imperative because there is no correlation at all between material wealth or economic wellbeing and a person’s spiritual health. Raising the standard of living for a poor country does nothing for any of its citizen’s eternal salvation.
For the Catholic Church to be elevating a mostly non-religious and secular issue into a moral imperative is a moral tragedy. How can the Church justify moving climate change to the top of its agenda (which is how the whole world will see the Pope’s encyclical) when most of the world still needs to be evangelized, when untold numbers of souls are being lost to societal decadence and religious unbelief, when the Church is morally stagnating and loosing Catholics everywhere except in less developed and third world poorer countries, when untold millions of unborn babies are being slaughtered, when the sacrament of marriage and religious freedoms are being torn down and trashed, and as Catholic minorities are being persecuted, tortured and killed in great numbers and right before our eyes?
One has to also wonder why the Church would risk its institutional reputation by jumping into the man-made climate change fray while it is still being debated and has not been universally decided? Also knowing full well that the global warming (now climate change) lobby groups that the Church is aligning with (UN, government, corporate, and academia) are all reaping immense amounts of wealth, power, and prestige from this issue and where there is already evidence of corruption, collusion, and falsification of the data. Knowing that these groups look down on and despise the Church and its moral teachings, want to transform the world into a ecologically friendly utopian paradise through forced population control (using contraceptives and abortion as methods), favor forced wealth re-distribution, and will mandate conformance to prescribed utopian thought and behavioral requirements contrary to moral truth and free will.
It is one thing for the Pope to issue a statement or two and to share his personal thoughts on climate change. It’s another thing to issue a more formal and official encyclical that carries the full weight and reputation of the Church and that sanctions and supports a knowingly anti-religious, pro-abortion, pro-contraceptive lobby of environmental activists and ideologues. Is the Church considering the consequences to the Church if it turns out that climate change is not primarily man-made, or that there was dishonesty within the climate change lobby, and they were found to be fudging the numbers? What about the moral consequences of validating an ecological movement that will kill millions of people through abortion and contraception to control population? And who do you think these millions of dead people are going to be? Are they going to be the rich or the poor. Has the Church considered the irony and moral travesty of being the one who caused the genocide of the very people who it wanted to help? The poor, the needy, and the downtrodden.
Has the Church gone mad? I wonder what God is thinking?
I couldn’t agree more with your editorial. If the Pope had done and said the same , it would be universally praised and seen as a clarion call to a more Christian view of the world in which we live. and may in fact live (with the elimination of evil) when the Lord decides to close the curtain.
I also agree wholeheartedly with the post above of D.Guidotti. The only observation left out was the ‘One World Government’ and wealth transfers resulting in lowered standards of living or expectations for developed and developing countries.
As holy a man as he appears to be, unfortunately, the Pope also appears to embrace a ‘South American Socialist’ political and economic view with a disdain for North American Democratic Capitalism, even European style socialism, and is struggling with separating moral imperatives (on which he has The Holy Spirit on his side) and the political/economic means of achieving them (in which he has no particular expertise).
An SJPII or a Benedict XVI he is not. Until he learns to communicate clearly and effectively and gets his Ends and Means squared away, he has the potential to do great damage, unintentionally. Commentators such as yourselves can only restate and clarify so many times before He has lost credibility with the more traditional half of the church, the ones that go to mass regularly and attempt to follow all the teachings. Gaining the false praise of the others is not a lasting good.
There are three pictures above preceding your editorial. The left and right ones are the ends ordained by the secular elites the Pope has identified with (I do believe unintentionally). It is the center one that they have focused on eliminating to achieve the other two.
D.Guidotti did you read Laudato Si? My impression is that your critique is based on preconceived ideas about what the Encyclical contains. My reflection after reading the document; I have a long way to go before meeting the standard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What I take from the earth but do not need belongs to others. Mathew 25 leaves no doubt about who Jesus is on earth today. When I take to myself what belongs to the hungry and naked, I take from Jesus. My question is how do I come down from the high standard of living to which I have become so accustomed? D Guidotti, Ted Heywood, Dick Birmingham and I are privileged with education while the majority of people in the world do not have even enough to live. Francis, Bishop of Rome, is calling us all to reconsider what we thought was how Jesus wants us to live on this earth. It is not what Francis writes that is important, what is important, what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not expect us to take much with us as we go to the periphery and proclaim the Good News by the way we live, and do it with joy of the Gospel.
What Frances writes IS important…. and also the literary vehicle he chooses to use to publish it.
In structuring the Encyclical as he did he has taken what has clearly been a ‘teaching’ medium for ongoing development and understanding of Catholic Doctrine which must be given significant belief by the faithful and turned it into a Homily. A Homily is a medium to accomplish whatever the homilist wishes to make of it and/or include in it. The faithful need not accept all that is included in a Homily as it may well include the homilists opinion on matters in which he is not qualified or expert.
In picking and choosing the political and economic means to accomplish his ends and aligning himself and the Church with those that hold, support and finance means that are totally antithetical to Church teaching he hopelessly muddles his message. To avoid the muddle and confusion, commentators such as yourself must pick, choose and restate that which they will support and ignore the rest.
The ‘rest’ — One world government, one world plan, the cataclysmic position on Global Warming (now morphed into Climate Change since there is no meaningful observation of any of the effects of ‘warming’ on a global basis) is very damaging to the Church’s credibility amongst most all but the elites of the scientific, governmental and educational communities. None of whom give a hoot about the church and its teachings but will now use it to support their secular purposes.