Some 35 years ago the Center for Concern published a book, “Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret.” It was updated a couple of times as St. John Paul II published some five social encyclicals and linked Eucharistic solidarity to our care for all of our neighbors.
The Holy Father was simply echoing in modern times what is said in the First Letter of James: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.” “So faith of itself, if it does not have works is dead.” (James 1:22 and 2:17). The pope was updating the tradition of social encyclicals that went back to Pope Leo XIII in 1891. As the world industrialized and commerce and movement became more and more internationalized, it became more and more important to recognize that the neighbor we are called to love may live 10,000 miles away.
One part of the secret of Catholic social teaching is the fact that for the past 50 years it has recognized the need to care for our environment. St. Paul VI in 1967 pointed out that ”God intended the earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. …All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle.” (“On the Development of Peoples,” 22). Four years later in his apostolic letter “Octogesima Adveniens,” the pope wrote: “Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in turn the victim of this degradation. Not only is the material environment becoming a permanent menace – pollution and refuse, new illness and absolute destructive capacity – but the human framework is no longer under man’s control, thus creating an environment for tomorrow that may well be intolerable. This is a wide-ranging social problem which concerns the entire human family” (21).
By the 1980s, it was clear to the Church that the problem was not just one of pollution, nuclear proliferation and the spread of diseases across continents, but a secular individualism and economic and technological systems that neglected the integral (fully human) development of present and future generations. As St. John Paul II said, “God is glorified when creation serves the integral development of the whole human family.”
In his 1990 World Day of Peace Message, the Holy Father stressed our need to be at peace with God, with one another and with all of creation. “We cannot interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying attention both to the consequences of such interference in other areas and to the well-being of future generations. The gradual depletion of the ozone layer and the related ‘greenhouse effect’ have now reached crisis proportions as a consequence of industrial growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased energy needs. Industrial waste, the burning of fossil fuels, unrestricted deforestation, the use of certain types of herbicides, coolants and propellants: all of these are known to harm the atmosphere and environment. The resulting meteorological and atmospheric changes range from damage to health to the possible future immersion of low-lying lands” (6).
The ecological crisis is “a moral problem” stemming from a lack of respect for life, he added. “Respect for life, and above all the dignity of the human person, is the ultimate guiding norm for any sound economic, industrial and scientific progress” (7).
He said there is an urgent need for a new solidarity – an internationally coordinated approach to manage the earth, our common home. Further, “It is manifestly unjust that a privileged few should continue to accumulate excess goods, squandering available resources, while masses of people are living in conditions of misery at the very lowest level of subsistence” (8).
St. John Paul II continued to speak of the need for an integral humanism which fosters an ecological morality in his later encyclicals and in his preparations for the Jubilee Year of 2000. In 2002, he joined with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to publish a common declaration on a spirit of peace for all of humanity and all of creation: “If we examine carefully the social and environmental crisis which the world community is facing, we must conclude that we are still betraying the mandate God has given us: to be stewards called to collaborate with God in watching over creation in holiness and wisdom.” The pope and the patriarch went on to say that Christians are called to proclaim moral values and educate people in ecological awareness. There is a need for “an inner change of heart, which can lead to a change in lifestyle and of unsustainable patterns of consumption and production.” Only a conversion in Christ, they emphasized, can bring us to an ethics of solidarity and responsibility that promotes “a true culture of life.”
Before going on to the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, it is good to recognize that the Church’s concern for humans and the environment is based not just in the Bible and in theology, but also in science. Not only did the university system arise from the Church in the Middle Ages, but Catholic universities and colleges are spread throughout the world and some are among the finest schools in their nations. There is also a Papal Academy of Sciences which advises the Holy Father on issues of science. In 2017, the academy issued a “Declaration: Our Planet, Our Health, Our Responsibility.” It was signed by nine Nobel laureates in science and medicine, and the primary authors hailed from the U.S., England, Argentina and Germany.
The Vatican has also worked closely with the United Nations on matters of sustainability, development and peace. It is also a participant in the ecumenical “Season of Creation,” which goes from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4 (the feast of St. Francis of Assisi). The Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is also sponsoring a seven-year program “to make communities around the world totally sustainable in the spirit of the integral ecology of Laudato Si’.”
In the next commentary to be published Sept. 25 , we will see why Pope Benedict XVI was often referred to as the “Green Pope,” and what Pope Francis has added to the call to care for our common home.
Jesuit Father John Michalowski is parochial vicar of St. Peter Church in Charlotte. This is the first of a two-part commentary about Catholic teaching on care for creation. For more information, go online to www.catholicclimatecovenant.org or check out the information provided on St. Peter Church’s website at www.stpetercatholic.org (click on Get Involved, then Justice and Outreach, then Care for Creation).