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Integrating Ecology and Justice: the New Papal Encyclical by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

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Integrating Ecology and Justice: the New Papal Encyclical by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim Feature Integrating Ecology and Justice: The New Papal Encyclical by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim Mat McDermott Una Terra Una Famiglia Humana, One Earth One Family climate march in Vatican City in June 2015. In Brief In June of 2015, Pope Francis released the first encyclical on ecology. The Pope’s message highlights “integral ecology,” intrinsically linking ecological integrity and social justice. While the encyclical notes the statements of prior Popes and Bishops on the environment, Pope Francis has departed from earlier biblical language describing the domination of nature. Instead, he expresses a broader understanding of the beauty and complexity of nature, on which humans fundamentally depend. With “integral ecology” he underscores this connection of humans to the natural environment. This perspective shifts the climate debate to one of a human change of consciousness and conscience. As such, the encyclical has the potential to bring about a tipping point in the global community regarding the climate debate, not merely among Christians, but to all those attending to this moral call to action. 38 | Solutions | July-August 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org n June 18, 2015 Pope Francis thinking. By drawing on and develop- We can compare Pope Francis’ released Laudato Si, the first ing the work of earlier theologians and thinking to the writing of Pope John encyclical in the history of ethicists, this encyclical makes explicit Paul II, who himself builds on Pope O Rerum the Catholic Church on ecology. An the links between social justice and Leo XIII’s progressive encyclical encyclical is the highest-level teaching eco-justice.1 Novarum on workers’ rights in 1891. A document in Catholicism. There have One of the key architects of the hundred years after Leo, John Paul II been earlier statements by popes and encyclical, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah writes: bishops on environmental issues, but Turkson, believes Pope Francis’ phrase never an encyclical. “integral ecology” is central to under- The original source of all that With 1.2 billion Catholics on the standing this interrelationship. Cardinal is good is the very act of God, planet, the potential for attention to Turkson has identified several principles who created both the earth and environmental and climate change behind the phrase: 1) the moral impera- man, and who gave the earth issues is unprecedented. Even if, as tive of all peoples to be protectors of the to man so that he might have some argue, encyclicals do not draw the environment; 2) care for creation as a dominion over it by his work response and obligation from Catholics virtue in its own right; and 3) the need and enjoy its fruits (Gen 1:28)…It as in the past, it is clear that this one is through work that man, using will be discussed in religious and his intelligence and exercising educational circles radiating out into Key Concepts his freedom, succeeds in domi- the larger Christian world and beyond. nating the earth and making it Indeed, the media coverage of this docu- • “Integral ecology” brings together a fitting home…Obviously, he ment has already been robust. Scientists nature and humans. also has the responsibility not and ecologists have been keen to draw to hinder others from having on its message for conservation as UN • Eco-justice encompasses the vulner- their own part of God’s gift; ability of people and the planet. climate change negotiations in Paris indeed, he must cooperate with approach in December 2015. What dis- • Inequities and environmental others so that together all can tinguishes the Pope’s intervention is his degradation being caused by market dominate the earth. (Centesimus linking of environmental concerns with capitalism need to be addressed. annus: 31) issues of social justice and economic inequality—themes often lacking from • These moral principles are part of Drawing heavily on biblical Catholic social justice teachings of the climate change discussions. This earlier Popes. language of domination, John Paul article suggests that the Pope’s message underscores the modern separation of has the potential to transform that • A cosmological perspective or humans from nature. However, he also debate by connecting environmental- interrelatedness is also part of the emphasizes the dignity of cooperative encyclical. ism with a century of Catholic social human labor as making something justice teachings. Ecology and social productive of God’s gift of nature. • The encyclical calls for” ecological justice are inextricably linked, says the conversion.” Thus, the more traditional perspective Pope. That’s a Christian message but of “dominion” in Genesis is balanced also a profoundly human one by a call for “stewardship” of nature. Pope Francis could not have chosen for a new global solidarity to direct our This stands in marked contrast to a more central topic than the human search for the common good.2 his successors’ more holistic view of role in ecological degradation and Integral ecology means that nature. climate change. He critiques our “tech- ecological integrity and social justice Pope Benedict expanded Catholic nocratic paradigm” and “throwaway are linked because humans and nature thinking regarding the environment. culture.” He calls for a transformation are part of nurturing, interdependent His 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, of our market-based economic system life systems. Given that the poor and is focused on charity and our duty that he feels is destroying the planet vulnerable are most adversely affected to the poor as well as to present and and creating immense social inequi- by an ailing planetary system, the two future generations. He wrote of this ties. Indeed, the encyclical is highly must be addressed together. While this responsibility arising from: critical of unfettered capitalism and draws on traditional Christian teach- rampant consumerism. ings regarding the poor, it also marks …our relationship to the natural This might seem like a radical an important shift in the church’s con- environment. The environ- message—but it’s also the culmination ception of the relationship of humans ment is God’s gift to everyone, of a century of Catholic social justice to nature and humans to work. and in our use of it we have a www.thesolutionsjournal.org | July-August 2015 | Solutions | 39 Jeffrey Bruno / Aleteia Pope Francis appears outside of the Vatican at an event in April 2014. responsibility towards the poor, dynamic perspectives of contemporary He goes on to write that global towards future generations ecological science. Pope Benedict also development: and towards humanity as a presents what he calls the “grammar of whole. When nature, including nature” saying: …cannot ignore coming genera- the human being, is viewed as tions, but needs to be marked by the result of mere chance or …the natural environment is solidarity and inter-generational evolutionary determinism, our more than raw material to be justice, while taking into sense of responsibility wanes. In manipulated at our pleasure; account a variety of contexts: nature, the believer recognizes it is a wondrous work of the ecological, juridical, economic, the wonderful result of God’s Creator containing a ‘gram- political and cultural. (Caritas in creative activity, which we may mar,’ which sets forth ends Veritate: 48) use responsibly to satisfy our and criteria for its wise use, legitimate needs, material or not its reckless exploitation. There is a clear shift here from Pope otherwise, while respecting the Today much harm is done to John Paul. Yet Pope Benedict still relies intrinsic balance of creation. development precisely as a on an anthropocentric ethic of “wise (Caritas in Veritate: 48) result of these distorted notions. use” of nature. Perhaps he was wary Reducing nature merely to a col- that talking about nature’s inherent Pope Benedict moves away from lection of contingent data ends goodness might open him to the language of domination of nature up doing violence to the envi- charge of neopaganism from conserva- toward the protection of nature. Yet, ronment and even encouraging tive factions within the church. he holds to a view of creation as in activity that fails to respect Pope Francis doesn’t seem to have balance, which differs from the more human nature itself. such reservations. Indeed, following 40 | Solutions | July-August 2015 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org thinkers of the 20th century, namely, the scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) and the cultural historian Thomas Berry (1914–2009). Both of these thinkers saw the “grammar of nature” as reflecting an evolutionary unfolding of Earth’s ecosystems. Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and paleontologist whose thinking about the place of humans in evolution led to his exile from Europe to China in the late 1920s. Of particu- lar import is Teilhard’s understanding of evolution that he saw being driven by life’s “zest.” Teilhard wrote: “A zest for living…would appear to be the fun- damental driving force which impels and directs the universe along its main axis of complexity-consciousness…”3 Pope Francis has drawn on the same notion to describe a dynamic eco- logical relationship of humans with Earth’s evolution. There are echoes also of cultural historian, Thomas Berry, who situated the human as aris- ing from, and dependent on, this long evolutionary journey. Berry writes: At such a moment, a new revo- lutionary experience is needed, an experience wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of Earth’s process. This awakening is our human participation in the dream of Earth...4 From this cosmological perspective Berry calls on humans to participate in the Great Work of transformation– Mat McDermott building new ecological economics, A participant in the climate change march at Vatican City in June 2015 holds a placard depicting the new educational and political systems, modern Pope Francis and the Canticle of the Creatures.
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