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Environmental Ethics from the Perspectives of NEPA and Catholic Social Teaching: Ecological Guidance for the 21St Century

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Environmental Ethics from the Perspectives of NEPA and Catholic Social Teaching: Ecological Guidance for the 21St Century William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review Volume 28 (2003-2004) Issue 3 Article 3 April 2004 Environmental Ethics from the Perspectives of NEPA and Catholic Social Teaching: Ecological Guidance for the 21st Century Lucia A. Silecchia Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmelpr Part of the Environmental Law Commons Repository Citation Lucia A. Silecchia, Environmental Ethics from the Perspectives of NEPA and Catholic Social Teaching: Ecological Guidance for the 21st Century, 28 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 659 (2004), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmelpr/vol28/iss3/3 Copyright c 2004 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmelpr ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS FROM THE PERSPECrIVES OF NE PA AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING: ECOLOGICAL GUIDANCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY LUCIA A. SILECCHIA* Respect for creation is an act of worship towards the Creator and an act of love toward ourselves and ourfellows. - Pope John Paul II, May 5, 1996' [Ifn shaping their environments men shape their own societies. Environments manage men even as men manage environments. - Lynton K. Caldwell, 19632 I. Introduction .......................................... 660 II. The Sources Of Catholic Social Thought on Environmental Policy 670 A. Biblical and Ancient Foundations ..................... 670 B. Modem Encyclical Teachings: Rerum Novarum to Pope John Paul 1 ........................................... 680 C. Modem Papal Teachings: The Papacy of Pope John Paul H 690 D. Environmental Teachings from the American Catholic Church .......................................... 723 III. Environmental Principles Gleaned from Catholic Social Thought 731 A. Human Life and Dignity Must Remain at the Forefront of Any Consideration of Environmental Questions ......... 733 B. Stewardship is the Appropriate Model for Human Care for Associate Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America. I am deeply indebted to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Vatican City, for the research assistance I received from Sr. Marjorie Keenan and the library staff of the Council's library. I am also grateful to the theology librarians at The Pontifical Gregorian University and The Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and to the law librarians at The Catholic University of America and Yale University for their help. Finally, I thank Anthony Capobianco, Columbus School of Law 2004 for his diligent research assistance. ' Pope John Paul II, Papal Address, Perfecting the Universe (May 5, 1996) in L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO, May 15, 1996, at 6 [hereinafter Perfecting the Universe]. 2 Lynton K. Caldwell, Environment:A New Focusfor PublicPolicy?, 23 PUB. ADMIN. REv. 132, 133 (1963) (citation omitted). 659 660 WM. & MARY ENVTL. L. & POL'Y REV. [Vol. 28:659 the Environm ent .................................. 743 C. Obligations to Future Generations Must Influence Environ- mental Decision-Making ........................... 750 D. In the Spirit of Subsidiarity, Environmental Decision-Making Must be Made at the Appropriate Level ................ 752 E. The Right to Private Property and the Mandate to Use Property for the Common Good Must Both be Respected in Environmental Policies ................. 756 F. Environmental Concerns are also Moral Concerns Which Require a Radical Rethinking of Consumer Culture 759 IV. The Origins of NEPA's Environmental Policy Goals ......... 761 V. NEPA Principles Evaluated in Light of Catholic Social Thought 779 A. NEPA § 101(a) ................................... 781 B. NEPA § 101(b) ................................... 785 C. NEPA § 101(c) ................................... 794 V I. Conclusion ........................................... 798 I. INTRODUCTION For over three decades, the United States has been developing its modem environmental law. The passage of the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA")3 in 1970 heralded the beginning of the decades in which American environmental law has come of age. NEPA set forth the broad policies that were, ideally, intended to be the guiding force behind American environmentalism. One of NEPA's greatest contributions is that it contains a "Congressional declaration of national environmental policy" in its very first section, outlining the broad principles that Congress believed should guide American environmental protection efforts.4 Whether the implementation of those lofty ideals has been successful is highly debatable.5 What NEPA did contribute, however, are broad principles intended to set the stage for both evaluating activities that have an impact on the environment and for planning long-term environmental initiatives. Clearly 3 National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4370f (2000) [hereinafter NEPA]. 4 See id. § 4331. 'See infra discussion accompanying notes 345-76. 2004] ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS NEPA was not the first time that Congress or the American people had thought about environmental issues and the complex balances required to set a just and wise environmental policy.6 Yet, NEPA forced a focus on broad policies, clearly articulated, against which specific future activity could be judged. It is not only lawmakers who have seen the utility in articulating broad environmental principles, however. Others have attempted to develop statements of such principles to guide those who are charged with the tedious, technical, and controversial task of translating broad policy into concrete action. One such set of environmental principles comes from an extensive body of Catholic social teaching on this subject. Over the centuries, the Catholic Church has studied the "signs of the tim[e]"'7 and adopted teachings on a wide variety of social issues, including the environment.' Like the Congressional policy articulated in NEPA, Catholic social teaching on the environment did not spring up in a vacuum in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prior to that, concern for the natural environment and the role of humanity in it can be gleaned from numerous documents and, indeed, even from ancient biblical texts. It was not a primary focus of theological attention,9 however, until the past several decades when these teachings 6For discussion of the antecedents to NEPA, see infra discussion accompanying notes 314- 44. " Pope John Paul II, Populorum Progressio (Mar. 26, 1967), available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paulvi/encyclicals/documents/("[S]ince the Church does dwell among men, she has the duty 'of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the gospel.'. [S]he offers man her distinctive contribution: a global perspective on man and human realities."). " Drew Christiansen, Nature's God and the God of Love, in PRESERVING THE CREATION: ENVIRONMENTAL THEOLOGY AND ETHICS 148, 148 (Kevin W. Irwin & Edmund D. Pellegrino eds., 1994) ("Christianity, and Catholicism inparticular, have a significant contribution to make to ecological theology and ethics.") [hereinafter PRESERVING THE CREATION]; Kevin W. Irwin, Introduction, in PRESERVING THE CREATION, supra, at vii, vii (noting, in introduction to an April 1992 symposium at Georgetown University, that "Roman Catholic theological tradition has a particular and substantive contribution to make to a theology of creation and an ethical response to environmental concerns"); Elizabeth A. Johnson, Powerful Icons andMissing Pieces, in PRESERVING THE CREATION, supraat 60, 60 ("[C]lassical Catholic doctrine has the potential to contribute richly to a new, sorely needed development of religious thinking in an age of environmental crisis."). 9See JOHN CARMODY, ECOLOGY AND RELIGION: TOWARD A NEW CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF NATURE 58 (1983) ("[t]he coupling of religious studies and ecology is a relatively new entry on the methodological scene"); CHRISTOPHER DERRICK, THE DELICATE CREATION: TOWARDS 662 WM. & MARY ENVTL. L. & POL'Y REV. [Vol. 28:659 A THEOLOGY OF THE ENVIRONMENT 77 (1972) ("[I]f it had been suggested that the Christian profession might also impose upon the faithful a duty towards the world as such, the visible environment, most people would have been sceptical [sic] until recently."); JOHN F. HAUGHT, THE PROMISE OF NATURE: ECOLOGY AND COSMIC PURPOSE 2 (1993) ("The churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques have not made much of a response to the ecological crisis until very recently. Nor have academic theologians .... [E]cological theology still remains very much on the periphery of serious religious thought.") [hereinafter PROMISE OF NATURE]; JOHN F. HAUGHT, SCIENCE AND RELIGION: FROM CONFLICT TO CONVERSATION 183 (1995) ("The churches, synagogues, and mosques have traditionally paid little if any attention to the main ecological issues, and until recently theologians have ignored them as well.") [hereinafter SCIENCE AND RELIGION]; Chuck D. Barlow, Why the Christian Right Must Protectthe Environment: Theocentricity in the PoliticalWorkplace, 23 B.C. ENVTL. AFF. L. REV. 781, 786 (1996) ("To date, conservative Christian groups such as the Christian Coalition have remained silent on environmental matters."). Russell Train, moderator of a Woodstock Forum, observed: The churches ... have been quite ready, even eager, to embrace a whole range of social issues of our time. Yet here on this issue, one that seems to go to the very heart of the human condition on this earth, the church has had very little to say. I think it is a curious matter. The EnvironmentalCrisis: A Challengeto the Churches,WOODSTOCKREP.,
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