The Planet and the People Francis McDonagh discusses Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ on the environmental crisis and poverty.
This must be the first papal document to mention algae. That it does is a testimony to the seriousness with which Pope Francis discusses the climate crisis facing the world, and to the fascination and delight in its detail and texture that comes across in many passages. This joy in nature is the reason for its title, Laudato Si’, taken from the words of St Francis of Assisi’s ‘Canticle of the Creatures’: Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day and through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour; and bears a likeness of you, Most High. (See page 27 for the whole poem). A second point in the encyclical is that this is an issue that is common to all: the subtitle is On Care for our Common Home. ‘I wish to address every person living on this planet,’ he says in his introduction. Francis calls for ‘a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all’ (14). The third key point is that environmental degradation hits the poor first and hardest: ‘The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together… Today, however, we have to realise that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor’ (48-50). The common concern was imaged by the presence at the official launch at the Vatican of an atheist scientist, Professor John Schellnhuber, founder and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who contributed to the document. Another significant speaker was John Zizioulas, Orthodox patriarch of Pergamon, speaking about the environmental concerns of the Orthodox churches, which can be dated back to an encyclical by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios in 1989. Francis also invited the climate activist Naomi Klein, who describes herself as a ‘secular Jewish feminist’, to attend a Vatican conference, People and Planet First: the Imperative to Change Course, two weeks after the launch of the encyclical.
So the tone of the conversation is likely to be wide; and, given Francis’ famous ability to have conversations, its reach likely to be wide too. But how new is the topic? John Paul II spoke a lot about the environment, and Benedict XVI put solar panels on the roofs of the Vatican, but what is new about Laudato Si’ is that it attempts to offer a coherent response to the climate crisis. This is easily seen from the chapter headings: 1. What is happening to our common home? 2. The Gospel of creation 3. The human roots of the ecological crisis 4. Integral ecology 5. Lines of approach and action 6. Ecological education and spirituality Much of the media attention has been taken up by the idea that Pope Francis believes in climate change, to the horror, notably, of US Catholic conservatives. This is certainly true. ‘Pollution and Climate Change’ is the heading of the introductory section of Chapter 1, though the end of the chapter talks about ‘divergent views’. But the end of the ecological analysis makes clear what the Pope’s view is: ‘There are regions now at high risk and, aside from all doomsday predictions, the present world system is certainly unsustainable from a number of points of view (61). Within this chapter on threats to the planet’s sustainable development, the Pope addresses the question of population: Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of ‘reproductive health’. Yet ‘while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognised that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development’. To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues. It is an attempt to legitimise the present model of distribution… (50)
This is a familiar argument from official Catholicism – and the quote in the centre is from the Catholic Church’s Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching, so not in any way corroborative. The claim is also totally unreal, as though there could be a wealth transfer from rich countries to poor countries that would enable poor women to keep on having large families. It ignores the facts that as incomes rise, family sizes tend to fall. One wonders if the Pope believes it himself. No doubt he feels he has to say it. But the scandalous aspect of pronouncements like this is that they only affect Catholic women in poor countries, since in Europe and North and South America Catholics have ignored this teaching since it was officially restated in 1968. This is certainly a ‘model of distribution’ that lacks legitimation. There is also a peculiar attack on the concept of sexual orientation theory later in the encyclical (155), which feels as if it has been dragged it for ideological reasons. But while these passages are a reminder that Pope Francis has a very conservative theology in these areas, they are blemishes in an impressive document. After the discussion of climate change, there is a further component of analysis (Chapter 3) that focuses on technology, or rather the control and use of technology, what Pope Francis calls the ‘technocratic paradigm’. This argument is summarised in Section 109: The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy. There are lots of examples of how businesses destroy the environment, but there is no real political analysis. Apart from a rhetorical question after a reference to Hiroshima, the Nazis and communism – ‘In whose hands does all this power lie, or will it eventually end up? It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have it’ (104). – the conclusion of the analysis is: ‘All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution’ (114). What this ‘cultural revolution’ might be is spelt out to some extent in Chapter 5 and 6. The encyclical’s most original and interesting contribution to the debate is Chapter 2, ‘The Gospel of Creation’. This is Francis relating his argument to the biblical tradition, in a distinctly non-fundamentalist
Polar bear on mel ng Arc c icecap way. His starting point is the first creation account, in Genesis 1: ‘After the creation of man and woman, ‘God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good’’ (65). He also deals in great detail in section 67 about the question of human ‘dominion’ over the earth: We are not God. The Earth was here before us and it has been given to us. This allows us to respond to the charge that Judaeo-Christian thinking, on the basis of the Genesis account which grants man ‘dominion’ over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), has encouraged the unbridled exploitation of nature by painting him as domineering and destructive by nature. This is not a correct interpretation of the Bible as understood by the Church. Although it is true that we Christians have at times incorrectly interpreted the Scriptures, nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures. The biblical texts are to be read in their context, with an appropriate hermeneutic, recognising that they tell us to ‘till and keep’ the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15). ‘Tilling’ refers to cultivating, ploughing or working, while ‘keeping’ means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature. The encyclical also notes that the Old Testament contains injunctions not to exploit animals: You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and withhold your help… If you chance to come upon a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young
Pelicans in St James’s Park. Photo: Jamie Cedar ones or eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs; you shall not take the mother with the young’ (Dt 22:4, 6). Along these same lines, rest on the seventh day is meant not only for human beings, but also so ‘that your ox and your donkey may have rest’ (Ex 23:12). The Pope comments: ‘Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures’ (68). Unusually for a papal document, there is no mention of ‘natural law’. Instead, Francis focuses on the love of God as both the motive force behind nature, and the stimulus of the human response: Creation is of the order of love. God’s love is the fundamental moving force in all created things: ‘For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it’ (Wis 11:24). Every creature is thus the object of the Father’s tenderness, who gives it its place in the world. Even the fleeting life of the least of beings is the object of his love, and in its few seconds of existence, God enfolds it with his affection. Saint Basil the Great described the Creator as ‘goodness without measure’, while Dante Alighieri spoke of ‘the
love which moves the sun and the other stars’. Consequently, we can ascend from created things ‘to the greatness of God and to his loving mercy’. While this is essentially a Christian argument, for which Francis, oddly, apologises as he introduces it (62), it may well be attractive to atheists, as George Monbiot remarked in the Guardian: ‘A capacity to love the natural world, rather than merely to exist within it, might be a uniquely human trait. When we are close to nature, we sometimes find ourselves, as Christians put it, surprised by joy.’ The section ends (96-100) with a slightly perfunctory section on Jesus (‘The Gaze of Jesus’). We are invited to imitate Jesus’ view of nature as the gift of a loving Father: ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God’ (Lk 12:6). ‘Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them’ (Mt 6:26). Perhaps Pope Francis’ popular piety finds Francis of Assisi a more compelling model of love of creation than Jesus; he tells us (10) that he took his name ‘as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome’. As Pope Francis turns to responses to the crisis, he calls for ‘integral ecology’, by which he means trying to be aware of all the aspects of a complex system, town planning, culture and the need for effective institutions. Chapter 5 goes through the various aspects of national and international policy-making required to reduce the threat of climate change – the encyclical was published with an eye to the UN Climate Conference in Paris in December. In his closing chapter the Pope calls for an ‘ecological conversion’. This has various dimensions, from personal austerity, to finding moments for reflection – including grace before meals – and the interestingly named section ‘Civic and Political Love’, by which the Pope means both cleaning up politics and banks and cleaning up a local square. Action is possible at every level, is his message. The encyclical is available on the Va can website: h p://w2.va can.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/ documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudatosi.html and from the Catholic Truth Society: their paper edi on has an index. Now re red from his job at CAFOD as Andes Programme Manager, Francis McDonagh is a translator and freelance journalist for The Tablet and other media.