The Integral Ecology by Pope Francis for the Safeguarding of the Common Home Notre Dame Center Jerusalem 12 March 2018
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - Custodia TerrĂŚ SanctĂŚ
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Fr. Giorgio M. Vigna, ofm
Pax et Bonum - Peace and goodwill to one and all!
I would like to give a fraternal welcome first of all to His Eminence Cardinal Peter Turkson (from the Vatican), to Rabbi David Rosen (of Jerusalem), to Professors Mohammed Dajani Daoud (from Jerusalem) and Stefano Zamagni (from Bologna, Italy) and to Dr. Beatrice Guarrera (Italian, housing reporter here in Jerusalem). They will guide us in the reflections of the day May I also extend a warm fraternal welcome, to His Excellency Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, Apostolic Nuncio to Israel and Delegate to Palestine, to all religious authorities, to the Ambassadors and Consuls who have yet again to-day, wished to demonstrate their closeness to the Custody of the Holy Land. And a very warm welcome, too, to each one of you, brothers and sisters who have accepted the invitation to participate today, which I would define as rather special.
Permit me a few words on the short history of this Initiative. This Conference is part of the activities which the (JPIC)-The Justice, Peace and the Integrity of all Creation Commission of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land has been holding in the Custody. The significance of this event will be best illustrated by Father Francesco Patton ofm the Custos of the Holy Land.
Therefore, I would like to explain briefly the role and the functions covered by the JPIC Commission. Together with other similar Commissions, we contribute to the animation and activities of the Custody of the Holy land. The specific competence of this Commission is difficult work, with the challenges of issues of Justice, Peace and care for Creation, a work that caters primarily to the friars of our communities, to those who are in relationship and synergy with our institutions or facilities (for example schools) in the context in which we live, sharing problems and hopes. More concretely, our task is to raise awareness, to educate and to propose and support life and action projects regarding justice, that we consider an essential premise for peace; regarding
peace, the fruit of our good will and the gift of the Most High, source of all good; regarding ecology which, in keeping with the vision of Pope Francis, we consider to be “integral.”
Let us now take a look at the day ahead. The Custos of the Holy Land, Father Francis Patton, will present the reasons and purposes that have led us to offer this day of reflection on several topics. Since the centre around which the talks will take place is the Encyclical Letter Laudato si’ by Pope Francis, Dr Beatrice Guarrera will offer us an introduction to the text as a first acquaintance of its articulation and content. With his expertise and authority, Cardinal Peter Turkson will pave the way towards the meaning of the content of the Encyclical which Pope Francis wishes to address to every man and woman inhabiting Mother Earth, regardless of culture and religion.
After the first short interval, Professor Mohammed Dajani Daoudi will be indicating the connections between the message of Pope Francis and inspirations from the Islamic tradition. Finally we will take a longer interval for lunch in order to “recharge our batteries” at 14.30 we will resume our sessions. Rabbi David Rosen will open the afternoon session with interesting thoughts on “Integral Ecology” as it appears in the Torah and the Jewish tradition.
After the coffee break Professor Stefano Zamagni will close this series of talks with a provocative reflection on the role of mercy in integral human development. We have reserved an hour for each speaker. At the end of each talk you will be invited to interact with questions or comments.
We will end the day welcoming the suggestions that His Eminence Cardinal Peter Turkson will want to leave with us.
I hope your active listening will lead to equally active participation!
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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THE SPIRIT AND AIM OF THIS DAY
Fr. Francesco Patton, Custos of the Holy Land
1. Your Eminence Cardinal Peter Turkson, distinguished speakers and guests of this congress, religious and civil authorities gathered here, distinguished members of the diplomatic corps, male and female religious, and dear brothers of the Custody of the Holy Land, friends who are also present with us, permit me to greet you with a salutation that was dear to Saint Francis of Assisi: The Lord give you Peace!
2. As the Custody of the Holy Land we are living within a three-year period of particular importance regarding the commemoration of the beginnings of our presence here. The year 1217, in fact, marks the arrival of the first Friars Minor in the Holy Land, and 1219 was the year in which Saint Francis himself arrived in this land and met Sultan Malek El Kamel in Damietta. We are therefore in the midst of this prolonged celebration of the 800 years of our presence here. This celebration does not aim to attract attention upon us, but to help us commemorate all the good things that “the Most High, all-powerful and good Lord” has done, along these eight centuries, sometimes also through us. It is for us fundamental to commemorate this event, and it provides us with the premise to live our present moment with a sense of commitment and to look ahead to the future with hope. A tree without roots cannot survive and much less bear fruit.
3. If I think of the experience of the Custody of the Holy Land, it becomes natural for me to present it precisely as a fraternity open to universality. From the very beginning, the Custody of the Holy Land was born as a Franciscan presence with an international and multi-cultural characteristics. It eventually became so even in juridical terms, when Pope Clement VI, in 1342, entrusted the Franciscans with the custody of the Christian Holy Places.
4. Within the idea of a fraternity open to a universal dimension that includes all living and inanimate creatures, we can place the “Canticle of Brother Sun”, that poetic text of a clear biblical inspiration that Saint Francis composed during the year of his death in 1226. This is a text which is truly the canticle of the universal fraternity.
This text of praise to “the Most High, all-powerful and good Lord” is an invitation addressed to the entire creation to lift up to God its own symphony. It is also a invitation addressed to us so that we can learn how to read the book of creation and gather whatever God tells us through His creatures. In recent times Pope Francis, inspired precisely by the Saint whose name he chose, in the encyclical “Laudato sii”, published in 2015, has willed to listen to this message, indeed to the cry of all creation.
5. It is an encyclical in which, after departing from the idea of fraternity, we discover a new way of living some fundamental dimensions of our human and religious experience. Indeed, there are some “supporting beams”, as Pope Bergoglio calls them, which cross through the entire Encyclical and – after having been announced already in the introductory part – return at the end of the document: “The intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet; the conviction that the entire world is intimately inter-connected; the criticism to the new paradigm and to all forms of power which derive from technology; the invitation to look for other ways of understanding economy and progress; the value proper to every creature; the human sense of ecology; the need for sincere and honest discussion; the grave responsibility of the international and local politics; the culture of consumerism and the proposal for a new way of life” (LS 16).
6. The spirit and aim of this day is therefore that of studying in depth through various speakers, and also with a multicultural and inter-religious prospective, some of the aspects linked with the encyclical Laudato Si’. We shall be introduced to the contents of the Encyclical by Doctor Beatrice Guarrera. Next it will be the turn of Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Vatican Ministry for Service of Integral Human Development, to speak about integral ecology for an integral society. Professor Mohammad Dajani Daoud will present the theme of the care for Mother Earth in the Abrahamitic Judaeo-Christian and Islamic tradition. The Jewish prospective on integral ecology will then be developed by Rabbi David Rosen. Finally, it will be the turn of economist Professor Stefano Zamagni to present the theme of the link between mercy and integral development of mankind.
The journey of animation of the Holy Land Custody on themes linked with justice, peace and care of creation, during this year are touching upon many spheres of the life of the Custody, from schools, to parishes, to our young brothers in formation. Within this journey, it has seemed important for us to offer a qualified reflection to all the brothers and also to all persons of good Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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will who are listening to what Pope Francis calls “the cry of Mother Earth”. The next step for each and every one of us will be that of assuming responsibility for a change, which implies, first and foremost, the change of one's mentality and of one's style of life in relation to creation. This change will then ask for an assumption of responsibilities also within the religious and civil communities to which we belong.
7. Before concluding I would like to thank the speakers for their willingness to offer their contribution of reflection. Thanks to the sponsors for their economic contribution which has made this day’s event possible (Notre Dame Centre, the Pontifical Mission, the Catholic Relief Service, the Christian Media Centre). Thank you to the patrons who encouraged this initiative (the Holy See’s Ministry for the service of integral human development, the Apostolic Delegation of Jerusalem, the Assembly of Ordinaries). Finally, I would like to thank all of you who have welcomed the invitation to participate to this day of reflection.
May the Spirit of the Lord accompany us, bless our being here together and make of it a fraternal encounter. May He inspire us all with adequate behavior so that we may take care of our sister Mother Earth; and may He help us to tune ourselves to the wavelength of praise that the entire creation offers to the Most High, all-powerful and good Lord.
A nice and fruitful day to you all.
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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INTRODUCTION TO THE ENCYCLICAL LAUDATO SI’ Beatrice Guarrera
Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure for me to be here today to briefly present the encyclical Laudato si’ by Pope Francis, as I have been asked to do. My intervention will be informative about the Encyclical and then the other distinguished speakers will deepen and discuss the theme that is the subject of the conference. Laudato si’ is the second encyclical of Pope Francis, written in his third year of pontificate. Although it carries the date of May 24, 2015, Pentecost Solemnity, the text was made public only on the following June 18th. It presents an introduction, six chapters, 246 paragraphs and two final prayers. The name, as is typical of these papal texts, comes from the incipit of the encyclical: Laudato si’, in fact, are the first words taken from the Canticle of the Creatures of St. Francis of Assisi, composed around 1226, from which it takes inspiration Pope Francis and citing at the opening. As Saint Francis sang, the Pope also says that “our common home is like a sister, with whom we share our existence” and “like a beautiful mother who welcomes us in her arms”: Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra, la quale ne sustenta et governa, et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba. In the encyclical, the Pope responds to the cry of the earth mistreated by man: “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will”. Hence the reflection of Francis on creation, the relationship of man with it and the need to achieve an “integral ecology”. In fact, the moans of the earth are joined by those of all the poor and of all the “discarded” of the world. The Pope invites them to listen to them because there can be no concern for the environment without compassion for other human beings. “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental - the Pope
writes in paragraph 139 -. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature”.
It is important for us here today to focus on the recipients of the encyclical. Pope Francis says: “Now, faced as we are with global environmental deterioration, I wish to address every person living on this planet”. All are therefore called to reflect on the theme of the environment, which Pope Francis calls “common home”: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change”. If he did not have this hope of being able to reverse the route, the Pope would not have written this encyclical. And it is with the same hope that the Pope invites, through this encyclical Letter, to “acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face”.
In the six chapters with a discursive and clear language, Pope Francis traces a brief path through various aspects of the current ecological crisis, in order to take the best results of scientific research available today, let us touch in depth and give a basis of concreteness to the path ethical and spiritual that follows. Starting from this overview, it takes up some arguments arising from the Judeo-Christian tradition, in order to give greater consistency to the commitment to the environment. Then he goes so far as to investigate the roots of the current situation, so as to grasp not only the symptoms but also the deeper causes. “So we can help to provide an approach to ecology which respects our unique place as human beings in this world and our relationship to our surroundings”, writes the Pope. In the light of this reflection, Francis then traces “broad lines of dialogue and action that involve both each one of us and international politics”. In the end, the Pope, because he believes that every change needs motivation and an educational path, proposes “some inspired guidelines for human development to be found in the treasure of Christian spiritual experience”. The sources used and cited in the letter encyclical Laudato si’ are different: from the Bible to the Fathers of the Church and the previous Magisterium, up to the Council and the Popes of the last century. We also find documents from episcopates all over the world, as well as texts from Christians belonging to other Churches. In fact, two paragraphs present the thought and action of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, called in the world the “Green Patriarch” for his constant attention to ecology. Among the authors cited in the encyclical, also the Protestant philosopher, Paul Ricoeur and numerous references to Catholic thinkers such as Romano Guardini and Teilhard Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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de Chardin. To the surprise of many, Pope Francis also mentions “a spiritual master, AliKhawwas”, a 15th century Sufi Muslim mystic.
Let's find out more in detail the contents of the chapters. Chapter I, “What is happening to our home”, deals with identifying a series of contemporary problems: pollution and climate change, the question of water, the loss of biodiversity, and the deterioration of the quality of human life and the social degradation, the planetary inequity, the weakness of the reactions, the diversity of opinions. According to Pope Francis, “Today we have to realize 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” (LS 49). In chapter II, “the Gospel of Creation”, Pope Francis explains what the great biblical stories say about the relationship between human beings and the world. “Science and religion, with their distinctive approaches to understanding reality, can enter into an intense dialogue fruitful for both” (LS 62). First of all, the Pope disavows an accusation launched against Jewish-Christian thought: starting from the story of Genesis that invites us to subjugate the earth (cfr. Gen 1:28), the wild exploitation of nature would be favored by presenting an image of the human being as a ruler and destroyer. This is not a correct interpretation, but, on the contrary, man, has a responsibility in guarding a land that belongs to God: “We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us”, the Pope writes in paragraph 67. What we must remember is that: “In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the word “creation” has a broader meaning than “nature”, for it has to do with God’s loving plan in which every creature has its own value and significance” (LS 76). “The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God. The history of our friendship with God is always linked to particular places which take on an intensely personal meaning” (LS 84). The Pope insists that, as the earth is a legacy common to all, “every ecological approach needs to incorporate a social perspective which takes into account the fundamental rights of the poor and the underprivileged” (LS 93). In chapter III, “The human root of the ecological crisis”, Pope Francis deals with the technology and the dangers of his “domination”. For example, the danger of international finance that suffocates the real economy and contributes to the deterioration of the environment is Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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highlighted. Faced with all this, the Pope writes that “Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational program, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm” (LS 111). The Pope advocates a “cultural revolution” to get out of anthropocentrism as a deviant lifestyle and emphasizes the importance of work, for whatever set of integral ecology one speaks that does not exclude the human being. 4 In chapter IV, “An integral ecology”, the Pope proposes an “integral ecology” comprising human, scientific and social dimensions. An “environmental ecology”, “economic” and “social” is needed. Pope Francis emphasizes that: “When we speak of the “environment”, what we really mean is a relationship existing between nature and the society which lives in it. Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it” (LS 139). Against a consumerist vision of society that tends to make cultures homogeneous and weaken the immense cultural variety, it is also important to develop a “cultural ecology”, to safeguard the historical, artistic and cultural heritage, equally threatened, that “is part of the common identity of a place and base for building a habitable city”. It is also fundamental that Pope Francis calls “ecology of everyday life”, taking care of buildings, neighbourhoods, public spaces and cities, and proposing and implementing sustainable projects from an environmental point of view. “Human ecology also implies another profound reality: the relationship between human life and the moral law, which is inscribed in our nature and is necessary for the creation of a more dignified environment”, writes Pope Francis in paragraph 155. At the end of the chapter, the Pope comes to reflect on the notion of the common good, which also involves future generations. “What kind of world do we wish to transmit to those who will come after us, to the children who are growing? - asks the Holy Father -. If this question is asked courageously, it leads us inexorably to other very direct questions: what kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? For what purpose do we work and struggle? Why does this land need us? It is therefore a question that calls into question” the significance of our passage on this earth”. In Chapter V, “Some Guidelines and Action”, Pope Francis gives some suggestions for acting on the situation described. He explains that “interdependence forces us to think of one world, a common project”. “A global consensus is essential for confronting the deeper problems, Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
which cannot be resolved by unilateral actions on the part of individual countries. Such a consensus could lead, for example, to planning a sustainable and diversified agriculture, developing renewable and less polluting forms of energy, encouraging a more efficient use of energy, promoting a better management of marine and forest resources, and ensuring universal access to drinking water” (LS 164). “Environmental questions have increasingly found a place on public agendas and encouraged more far-sighted approaches. This notwithstanding, recent World Summits on the environment have not lived up to expectations because, due to lack of political will, they were unable to reach truly meaningful and effective global agreements on the environment” (LS 166). Among the areas of urgent action for poor countries there must be the eradication of poverty and the social development of their inhabitants, the creation of international agreements and a more responsible global reaction to poverty. In paragraph 175, Pope Francis argues that in this context “it is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions”. According to the Holy Father, we need a true world political authority and “a politics which is far-sighted and capable of a new, integral and interdisciplinary approach to handling the different aspects of the crisis” (LS 197). The last chapter talks about “Ecological Education and Spirituality”. Pope Francis, with the usual hope that always accompanies him, maintains that not all is lost, but that humans can always go back to choosing the good and regenerating. We must therefore educate the alliance between humanity and the environment. Environmental education is called to create an “ecological citizenship”, according to its own personal transformation. The family and the Church also have a central role to play in this. According to the Pope, “the ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion” (LS 217) followed by “ecological conversion”. It becomes such when “the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience”. Pope Francis then suggests some lines of action, dictated by Christian spirituality. “The christian spirituality proposes an alternative understanding of the quality of life, and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption”, the Pope writes.
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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The encyclical letter Laudato si’ then concludes with two prayers: one for all believers in an omnipotent creator God, and another “so that we Christians can assume the commitments to creation that the Gospel of Jesus offers us”. The encyclical at the time of publication was welcomed with interest all over the world and even today, three years later, it is a reference for institutions and men who care about creation. It should be remembered that it is not a scientific document, but a spiritual document and as such must continue to question each of us every day. Perhaps making our own the Pope's question “what kind of world do we wish to transmit to those who will come after us, to the children who are growing?”, we are called to respond in the light of the encyclical Laudato si’. All this without ever forgetting what the Holy Father says in his encyclical: “Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise”.
Thank you.
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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AN INTEGRAL ECOLOGY FOR AN INTEGRAL SOCIETY: THE GREAT CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME Cardinal Peter K. Turkson
Your Excellencies, Very Rev. Fathers, Religious Women and Men, Distinguished Invited Guests: I bring you the warm greetings of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development; and on its behalf, I wish this Conference great success. I also want to thank the many organizing partners of this event for their kind invitation to our Dicastery to be part of this event to reflect on how integral ecology generates an integral society, or how integral ecology is connected with an integral society and what challenges ensue from this relationship. Talking about “society�, it is worth noting the observation of Pope Francis that all civil society is founded on the sense of responsibility for our fellow man and women. For society responds to man's naturally good desire to relate and to associate with others, and to man's Godgiven calling to participate in creating and ordering the world around us for the good of all. Thus, fundamental requirements of human coexistence in society are respect for rights that flow from the dignity of all persons, as creatures of God, and their vocation to live in relationship for their wellbeing and common good. But also affecting society's life are several factors, such as, governance and politics, economics, labour, health, food, peace and conflicts, urbanization, poverty and exclusion, inequity and religion.
Method of Presentation
As a method of presentation, I shall trace out the evolution of the concept of integral ecology in the teaching of the recent Popes (from Pope Leo XIII) and in the Church's Social Teaching. Then, with the sense of society above, i.e. as man's vocation for coexistence for its common good, I shall refer to Pope Francis' teaching that everything is interconnected, to show how the evolution of the concept of integral ecology entails that of human ecology and, accordingly, that of an integral society. I shall then zero in on some broad features of integral society, and then conclude with a mere mention of some challenges that the sense of an integral society poses.
The Evolution of the Concept of Integral Ecology in the CSD/DSC & Implications for Human Existence
As you all know, the Encyclical takes its name from the invocation of St. Francis of Assisi: “Laudato si’ mi’ Signore” - “Praise be to you, my Lord”, which in the Canticle of Creatures calls to mind that the earth, our common home, “is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us” (n. 1). The reference to St. Francis also indicates the attitude upon which the entire Encyclical is based, that of prayerful contemplation, which invites us to look towards the “poor one of Assisi” as a source of inspiration. Still significantly for Pope Francis and as the Encyclical affirms, St. Francis is “the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. […] He shows us just how inseparable is the bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace” (n. 10). And this is the concept that I need to explore with you this morning, especially its rootedness in the magisterium of the Church and the Popes. But as you can already see, Integral ecology is inseparable from integral society, understood as a concrete from of integral human development!
Ecology in the Social Teaching of the Church
It is customary to begin the account of Catholic social teaching with the Encyclical Rerum novarum of Pope Leo XIII, issued in 1891. While that Encyclical focussed on the conditions and rights of workers, it also contained some seeds of current ideas about our natural environment. For example, it stated that those who receive God’s bounty in the form of natural resources or property should exercise their responsibility “as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others.”1 Pope John XXIII would be the first to introduce the idea of “integral development of the person” in the Encyclical Letter, Mater et Magistra (1961). He taught about the need for “Christian education” to be “integral” and encompassing every kind of duty. This meant that a Christian should behave as a Christian in all the areas of his life: at work, in family and as a parent, in the fields of economics or politics being a responsible citizen, in the social activities too. But it was Vatican Council II that inspired a committed study of the relationship between man and his environment. Having formulated for herself the task/mission of showing solidarity and respectful affection for the various experiences/problems of man as he/she journeys through
1
Rerum novarum, n. 22.
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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history, the Church of the Vatican Council II and post-Vatican II displayed a sharp and a keen interest in the role and the place of the environment/ nature in man’s response to and pursuit of his vocation to develop. Thus, the Apostolic Constitution Gaudium et spes (1965) speaks of an “integral vocation of man”, the “integral perfection of the human person” and an “integral culture”. Against this background, Pope Paul VI would articulate the scope/place of nature in human development in his Encyclical Letter, Populorum Progressio (1967). That Encyclical Letter taught that “authentic development must foster the development of each man and of the whole man”, thus promoting a full-bodied humanism and the fulfillment of the whole man2. Two of its key ideas were that development is the new name for peace, and that we need some effective world authority to cope with the scale of challenge in the environmental and financial realms.3 And it includes this very positive remark: “By dint of intelligent thought and hard work, man gradually uncovers the hidden laws of nature and learns to make better use of natural resources. As he takes control over his way of life, he is stimulated to undertake new investigations and fresh discoveries, to take prudent risks and launch new ventures, to act responsibly and give of himself unselfishly.”4 In Octogesima Adveniens (1971), Pope Paul VI further addressed the inseparable relationship/interdependence between human life and natural environment, saying: “Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his 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 which may well be intolerable” (n. 21). Similarly, and with reference to St. Pope John XXIIII, he warned against ideological threats to the nature of man deriving from positivist thinking of his day, saying: “But outside of this positivism which reduces man to a single dimension even if it be an important one today and by so doing mutilates him, the Christian encounters in his activity concrete historical movements sprung from ideologies and in part distinct from them. Our venerated predecessor Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris already showed that it is possible to make a distinction: 'Neither can false philosophical teachings regarding the nature, origin and destiny of the universe and of man be identified with historical movements that have economic, social, cultural or political ends...'” (n. 30).
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Cf. Populorum progressio, nn. 14 and 42.
3
Populorum progressio, nn. 76-78.
4
Populorum progressio,n. 25.
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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In November of the same year and just before the Stockholm Conference (1972) launched the UN Program on the Environment (UNEP), Pope Paul VI convoked the Synod on Justice in the World, which first gave prominence to the link between justice and ecology. Its line of thought suggested a close link between concern for the poor and an concern for the earth, the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth, and adverted to the culture of waste of the rich.5 I offer you these historical touchstones to demonstrate that our current Popes have always built their contemporary perspectives on ecology on earlier foundations. Another reason is to assure you that Catholic social teaching offers a rich storehouse for further exploration of these 4
topics.
Saint Pope John Paul II
In his first encyclical on the human person Redemptor Hominis (1979), St. Pope John Paul II already warned about the threat of pollution to nature.6 Later, in his social encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987), on the 28th. anniversary of Populorum progressio, he focussed on the nature of authentic human development and its moral character. In this regard, he adverted to the need for individuals and communities to have full respect for the nature of the human person, whose origin and goal are found in God. He called attention to the need to respect the constituents of the natural world, which the ancient Greeks referred to as the “cosmos” (an ordered system with beauty). Such realities demand respect by virtue of three considerations that may be summed up in the three words connection, limitation and pollution. The first consideration, he wrote, is the need for greater awareness “that one cannot use with impunity the different categories of beings, whether living or inanimate – animals, plants, the natural elements – simply as one wishes, according to one’s own economic needs. On the contrary, one must take into account the nature of each being and of its mutual connection in an ordered system, which is precisely the cosmos.”7 The second consideration is the realization that natural resources are limited. Not all resources are renewable. If we treat them as inexhaustible and use them with absolute dominion, then we seriously endanger their availability in our own time and, above all, for future generations.
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Justice in the World, n. 70.
6
Redemptor hominis, n. 11.
7
Sollicitudo rei socialis, n. 34.
Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
The third consideration reminds us of the effects of a certain type of development on the quality of life in industrialized areas—the sort of development that causes pollution of the environment, with serious consequences for the health of populations.8 When we take these considerations together, I believe they suggest a clear moral message from St. Pope John Paul II. We readily understand that the demands of morality are a sine qua non for the wellbeing, not only of the environment, but also of humanity. We should extend our fundamental conception and application of morality to natural ecology - the use of the elements of nature, the renewability of resources, and the consequences of haphazard industrialization - and to the life of man (human ecology). A few years later, on the one hundredth anniversary of Rerum novarum, St. Pope John Paul II expanded further on this theme in his social encyclical Centesimus annus (1991). With regard to the nature of private property and the universal destination of material goods, he drew attention to what he termed the ecological question and its connection with the problem of consumerism. Here he referred to a widespread anthropocentric error, namely, our failure to recognize that our capacity to transform and in a certain sense re-create the world through human work is always based on God’s prior and original gift of all that exists. Man might imagine that he can make arbitrary use of the earth and subject it without restraint to his will. Rather than carry out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God. The final outcome is a rebellion on the part of nature which is more tyrannized than properly governed by him.9 To correct these faulty ideas, St. Pope John Paul II pointed out that all of us humans, as individuals and in our community, must respect the created world and be conscious of our duties and obligations toward future generations. Certainly, the things that God has created are for our use. However, they must be used in a responsible way, for man is not the master but the steward of creation. The Holy Father did not stop at the natural environment when he drew attention to the ecological question. He focused as well on the destruction of the human environment. Here he introduced the concept of human ecology. Yes, damage to the natural environment is serious, but destruction of the human environment is more serious. We see people concerned about the balance of nature and worried about the natural habitats of various animal species threatened with extinction. But meanwhile, too little effort is made to safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology. Not only has God given the earth to humanity, who must use it with 8
Sollicitudo rei socialis, n. 34.
9
Centesimus annus, n. 37.
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respect for the original good purpose for which it was given, but the human being too is God's gift to us—indeed, it is the greatest gift. For this reason we must respect the natural and moral structure with which we have been endowed. The encyclical applies this thought to the serious problems of modern urbanization, calling for: ✓
proper urban planning which is concerned with how people are to live, and for
✓
attention to a social ecology of work.10
With these teachings, St. Pope John Paul II expanded the Church's Social Thought on the ecological question, leading to the teaching in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church that “the relationship of man with the world is a constitutive part of his human identity”,11 and that the cry of the earth and that of the poor are related.12 In his World Day of Peace Message (1990), St. Pope John Paul II wrote: “The proper ecological balance will not be found without directly addressing the structural forms of poverty that exist throughout the world”;13 and this inspired the Canadian Bishops' Conference to teach that “ecological harmony cannot exist in a world of unjust social structures; nor can the extreme social inequalities of our current world order result in ecological sustainability.”14
To sum up the contribution of Pope John Paul II to our topic: in Catholic social teaching, respect for the natural environment and the human environment are inseparably/closely linked. On the one hand, man must respect the natural environment by not abusing it. On the other hand, the human environment receives the even greater respect it deserves when we respect the natural and moral structure with which we have been endowed. The more we respect our natural and moral structure, the more we respect others and also the created world. The natural environment and the human environment have a close relationship, and for the natural environment to be respected, the human environment must be respected above all.
10
Centesimus annus, n. 38.
11
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Vatican Press, 2005 (reprint 2010), n. 452.
12
Idem, cf. nn. 481-484.
Pope John Paul II, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with all of Creation”, World Day of Peace Message, 1990, n. 11. 13
Canadian Bishops' Conference: “You love all that exists… all things are Yours, God lover of life”, n. 17. Cf. too, Marjorie Keenan, RSHM: From Stockholm to Johannesburg: An Historical Overview of the Concern of the Holy See for the Environment 1972-2002, Pont. Council for Justice and Peace, Vatican City 2002. United States Catholic Bishops' Conference: And God saw that it was good: Catholic Theology and the Environment, 1996 (with pastoral letters of US Bishops and other Conferences); John McCarthy SJ., “Catholic Social Teaching and Ecology, Fact Sheet” on: http://www.ecojesuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/CST_ENG.pdf NB. list of studies and pronouncements of other Bishops' Conferences and local Churches. 14
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Pope Benedict XVI
In the new millennium, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the teaching of his immediate predecessor and elaborated further on the nature of ecology. In his Message for the World Day of Peace (2007), he pointed to four variants of ecology: the ecology of nature, and alongside it, a human ecology which, in turn, demands a social ecology, and, finally, the ecology of peace. For peace to be effected in the world, we must be conscious of the relationship between natural ecology and human ecology. The ecology of peace is comprised of peace with creation and peace among men, which presupposes peace with God.15 He affirmed the urgent need in international relations for commitment to a human ecology that can favour the growth of an ecology of peace, and this can occur only when it is guided by a correct understanding of the human person, that is, an understanding not prejudiced by ideology or apathy.16 (cf. to be baptized by Pope Francis as indifference.) The following year (2008), during his Apostolic Visit to Australia, Pope Benedict drew attention to the beauty of the natural environment created by God. But, as he noted, that the beauty of the natural environment bears scars too, such as erosion, deforestation and the effects of devastating drought. Likewise, the world’s mineral and ocean resources are being squandered and water levels are rising.17 But the social environment also had its scars, such as alcohol and drug abuse, the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, and the false notion that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. He affirmed the true nature of human life that entails a search for the truth, the good and the beautiful, that to this end we make our choices, and that for this we exercise our freedom, knowing that there we find happiness and joy.18 In his landmark Social Encyclical, Caritas in veritate (2009), Pope Benedict XVI dedicates an entire chapter (4) to the issue of the environment and human existence: “The Development of Peoples, Rights and Duties, The Environment”. Because “the way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa”,19 Pope Benedict XVI speaks of an inseparable relationship between human life and the natural environment which supports it as “that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from 15
Benedict XVI Message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace (1st January 2007), n. 8.
16
Message (1 January 2007), nn. 9-11.
17
For example, strip mining which reduces agricultural lands or forests to hillocks of rock-waste and gaping craters, contaminates rivers and springs with mercury, zinc and cyanide. 18
Benedict XVI Address, Barangaroo, Sydney Harbour (17 July 2008).
19
Caritas in veritate, n. 51.
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whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”.20 This bond between man and his world paves the way for the very famous teaching of Pope Benedict XVI that the Book of Nature is one and indivisible, and that it includes not only the environment, but also individuals, family and social ethics. Accordingly, as he goes on to teach, our duties towards the environment flow from our duties towards the person.21 But, for Pope Benedict XVI, the “decisive issue” in the relationship between man and his world: natural and human ecology, “is the moral tenor of society”.22 Whence the redemption of man implies the redemption of creation which groans (Rom 8:22-24). During his Apostolic Visit to Germany in 2011, the Holy Father elaborated further on the importance of respecting both natural ecology and human ecology. There he drew attention to the fact that, in the ecological movement in Germany in the 1970s, “young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives.” Yes, he affirmed that the importance of ecology was no longer to be disputed. But, he quickly tagged on to the ecology of nature, the ecology of man, saying: “Yet I would like to underline a point that seems to me to be neglected, today as in the past: there is also an ecology of man. Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely selfcreating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.”23 Human ecology must be rooted in genuine Christian anthropology. What Pope Benedict affirmed here is a mutual relationship between natural ecology and human ecology: that we must respect the created world and that we must respect the way in which the human person has been created, for only in this way will we be able to fulfil our freedom. Such an affirmation, moreover, is not a religious claim but the statement of a natural fact. 24 Cf. Benedict's list of sickness of the spirit.
20
Caritas in veritate, n. 50; cf. World Day of peace Message 2008, n. 7.
21
Caritas in veritate, n. 51. Cf. too, World Day of peace Message 2010.
22
Idem.
23
Benedict XVI Address to the Bundestag, Reichstag Building, Berlin (22 September 2011).
Cf. Francis George O.M.I., “Legislation creating 'same-sex' marriage: What's at stake?” Chicago: Catholic New World, 6-19 January 2013. 24
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Thus the Holy Father calls for an integral understanding of the world and the human person, one which respects both the created world and the highpoint of creation which is the human person.
If we look at recent Papal Messages on the annual World Food Day, we see how natural ecology and human ecology need to be inseparably interrelated in order for integral development to take place. In 2011, for example, Pope Benedict called attention to the tragic famine in the Horn of Africa. Improvements cannot come unless “the agricultural sector has a level of investments and resources capable of giving stability to production and hence to the market.”25 But this will require changes in human behaviour and decisions if the good of society is to be favoured. In his Encyclical, Caritas in veritate, the Pope spoke of the “moral tenor of society” as the decisive issue. Here, he calls for the cultivation of “an interior attitude of responsibility, capable of inspiring a different style of life, with necessary sobriety in conduct and consumption;” and this, he observes, is for the good of society and “also for future generations, for their sustainability, protection of the goods of creation, distribution of resources and, above all, the concrete commitment to the development of whole peoples and nations.”26 What is needed, in other words, is the interior transformation of persons in order to promote an integral development which respects the goods of creation and brings about authentic human development.
Integral Ecology in The Holy See Interventions
Postponing momentarily the contributions of Pope Francis to the Church's teachings on the issue, I wish to turn now to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development that took place in June 2012. Representatives of the international community came together to discuss many concerns regarding the environment and the need for common commitment on the part of the international community to chart a course forward to address these issues in a sustainable manner. This process had begun in Stockholm in 1972 and had two high points, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 at the so-called “Earth Summit” and at Johannesburg in 2002. Now, they once again came together at Rio+20 to discuss sustainable development and the interplay of the three acknowledged pillars of such development, namely, economic growth, environmental protection, and the promotion of social welfare. 25
Benedict XVI Message on World Food Day (17 October 2011), n. 3.
26
Idem.
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During the initial preparations for the Conference, the Holy See noted that unanimous consensus had emerged in the international community: •
first, that protecting the environment means improving people’s lives; and
•
second, that environmental degradation and underdevelopment are closely
interdependent issues needing to be approached together, responsibly and in a spirit of solidarity. It then focused on the first principle of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which had been adopted at the 1992 Conference - the principle that “human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”27 Expanding upon this fundamental theme, the Holy See called for the discovery of an art of living together—one that respects the covenant between human beings and nature, without which the human family risks dying out. The Holy See explained that there exists a stable and inseparable covenant between human beings and nature in which the environment conditions the life and development of human beings, while human beings in turn perfect and ennoble the environment by their creative, productive, and responsible labour.28 Indeed, the term covenant has a rich history in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this context, covenant is not a public contract between God and man but rather a gift given by God to man. Covenant is not a pact built on reciprocity, but is rather a gift, a creative act of God’s love.29 Applied to the relationship between human beings and the environment, it becomes increasingly clear that what we have in view is the fact that creation has been given to man as a gift by God. For this reason, humans must use this gift for its purpose, not taking advantage of it, not abusing it, but using it wisely for integral human development and thus for the present and future generations. During the negotiations of what would become the outcome document of the Conference, the delegation of the Holy See regularly drew attention to principles that underpin the protection of human dignity. They called for the following: (a) responsibility, even when changes must be made to patterns of production and consumption in order to ensure that they reflect an appropriate lifestyle; (b) promoting and sharing in the common good;
27
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, in Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I), 12 August 1992, Annex I. 28
Cf., Holy See Position Paper, III Preparatory Committee Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio de Janeiro, 13-15 June 2012, 2. Cf., Joseph Ratzinger, “The New Covenant: A Theology of Covenant in the New Testament,” Communio: International Catholic Review 22, no. 4 (1995), 636. 29
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(c) access to primary goods, included such essential and fundamental goods as nutrition, education, security, peace and health, which stems from the right to life; (d) a universal solidarity capable of acknowledging the unity of the human family; (e) the protection of creation which in turn is linked to inter-generational equity—and intergenerational solidarity; (f) intra-generational equity, which is closely linked to social justice and which requires taking into account the ability of future generations to discharge developmental burdens; and (g) the universal destination not only of goods, but also of the fruits of human enterprise.30 These seven principles were the contribution of the Holy See Delegation to shaping the Rio+20 position; and they merit reflections and practical action in pursuit of sustainable development.
Sustainable Development
As we have seen, the Catholic Church affirms that there is an essential relationship between natural ecology and human ecology and that ignoring one will be to the detriment of the other. She also affirmed a link between sustainable development and integral human development, because every economic decision has moral premises and consequences. For this reason, the Holy See Delegation argued that consideration must be given to the ethical and spiritual values that guide and give meaning to economic decisions and to technological progress. Development must be considered not simply from an economic point of view but from an integrally human point of view, that is to say, one which necessarily takes into account the economic, social and environmental aspects of development and is based on the dignity of the human person.31 It followed, for the Holy See Delegation that any neo-Malthusian approach to development must be totally rejected. Such views hold that people are an obstacle to development. The solution to global poverty cannot be to eliminate the poor.32 Instead, people are the drivers of development. As the Rio Declaration had rightly pointed out in its first principle, people are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development.
30
Cf. Holy See Position Paper, 3.
31
Cf. Holy See Position Paper, 5.
33
32
Cf. Peter K.A. Turkson, Statement, Summit of Heads of State and Government on the Millennium Development Goals, New York, 20 September 2010. www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/debate/VA_en.pdf 33
Cf. in this regard, also the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (A/RES/41/128) esp. at Article 1, 1: “The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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Accordingly, during negotiations, the delegation of the Holy See regularly drew attention to the inherent dignity of the human person and thus the role of the family in integral development and resisted efforts to impose language suggestive of population control.34 In the outcome document of Rio+20, entitled The Future We Want,35 Member States agreed to launch a process to determine a set of sustainable development goals. While much discussion surrounded what these goals would be like, agreement was reached during negotiations that they would be “action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature and universally applicable to all countries while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities”.36 For the Holy See Delegation, then, whatever sustainable development goals are finally agreed upon by Member States, such goals must not ignore, but must fully take into account, the dignity of the human person—from conception onwards to natural death—and this includes the needs of the poor, the aged and of future generations. (cf. Ban-Ki-Moon: SDGs are human dignity narrative, that leaves no one behind.)
Pope Francis on Integral Ecology: The Encyclical, Laudato si'
Pope Francis himself offers us a quick review of the core message. Let us watch his short video now – it takes just a minute and a half!37 Let me please suggest the take-aways, to keep in mind throughout today’s discussions: Our nature is created by God and surrounded by the gifts of creation Our failures are that we over-consume and that we do not share the gifts of creation This has dire consequences for the poor and the planet And so it is urgent that we change our sense of human progress, our management of the economy, and our style of life.
are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized”; and Article 2,1: “The human person is the central subject of development and should be the active participant and beneficiary of the right to development.” 34
In this regard, the delegation of the Holy See and like-minded delegations successfully resisted efforts by some developed countries to insert in the text the term “reproductive rights” which can be interpreted to include abortion and artificial contraception. 35
Cf. A/RES/66/288.
36
A/RES/66/247.
37
http://thepopevideo.org/en/video/care-creation.html
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Such change is going to require major shifts in our thinking and commitments – indeed, a conversion of groups and institutions at every level, from local communities to global humanity. These take-aways represent the major strokes of Laudato si’ in which Pope Francis does three essential things: a.
He links the vulnerability of the poor and the fragility of the environment. In
response to these immense inter-twined challenges, he proposes the social teaching of the Church in the form of a new integral ecology to reduce our footprint and reverse the deterioration of the natural and social environment. b.
He makes an urgent appeal for a new dialogue about how to shape the future of our
planet. Such dialogue must include ecological conversion, an education in ecological citizenship and an ethical and spiritual itinerary. c.
He shows profound trust in humanity’s ability to respond and expresses real hope
that we can work together to rebuild our common home.
Implications of the Concept-Evolution of Integral Ecology for Integral Society
The Catholic doctrine of creation does not regard the world as an accident. Our planet, indeed the universe, is an intentional act of God that is provided to human beings as a gift. Creation is not just passing from nothing to many things, a lot of “stuff” getting made. Rather, creation is the first step in the great vocation of man: creation, incarnation, redemption. Humanity is not an afterthought. God did not have two agendas: first, the world and then, humanity. Man and woman are made in the image and likeness of God, they are an intrinsic part of the universe, and their vocation is “to till and to keep” it all. But tilling and keeping cannot include domination and devastation - lest we till too much and keep too little! These make a mockery of dignity and respect of God’s gifts. We are called to participate in ongoing creation and in its ongoing redemption. In this light, we should find it easy to understand the concerns of Pope Francis for the poor and for nature. He is not offering worldly advice on how to be prudent and practical, although his message has immense practical consequences. Rather, he is reminding us of: a)
the basic consequence of creation, which establishes a three-fold level of
relationship for the human person: •
with God the Creator,
•
with other human persons in a bond of fraternity and
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•
with the world as the garden-home for our existence and
b)
the basic demands of our vocation to participate in God’s work as co-creators, and
c)
our responsibility for the work of God who does not hide his face from any aspect
so
of creation, poor or rich, natural or human. This brings Pope Francis to certain virtues and attitudes that are most appropriate to our relationship with creation. Being so connected to all living things, we must accept that “every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity’” (n. 92). Moreover, “a sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings” (n. 91; also nn. 2 and 217). What is needed is the awareness of a universal communion: all are “called into being by the one Father. All of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect” (n. 89). Pope Francis proposes that we think of our relationship with the world and with all people in terms of caring. As Jesus does when he calls himself the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:11-15). Caring for our common home requires, as Pope Francis says, not just an economic and technological revolution, but also a cultural and spiritual revolution - a profoundly different way of living the relationship between people and the environment, a new way of ordering the global economy and global ties. To speak in this way locates Laudato si’ in the great tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. 125 years ago, Pope Leo XIII responded to the res novae or “new things” of his time, when the industrial economy was only a century old and posed many dilemmas, especially for workers and families. Similarly, 50 years ago, in the era of newly independent nations emerging in the 1960s, Pope Paul VI took up the issue of the development of the human person and nations, whole and entire, in his encyclical letter Populorum Progressio. Development, for Blessed Paul VI, was the new name of peace! So too, Pope Francis is responding to the “new things” of our day, when a post-industrial, globalized economy is posing many challenges for humanity and for the planet. He proposes an integral ecology for integral human development and integral society; and these are some features of such an integral society: •
The world’s economy must meet the true needs of people for their survival and
integral human flourishing. This is a matter of respect for human dignity and a recognition of the common good. We must make objective moral judgments in this regard. This is especially important in today’s globalized economy. It seems as if no argument is permissible against
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allowing capitalism free rein to achieve monstrous wealth-accumulation rather than human dignity and the common good. •
How does capitalism relate to the common good? In fact, neither Evangelii
Gaudium (2013) nor Laudato si’ mentions capitalism. Instead, Pope Francis joins Blessed Paul VI, St. John Paul II and Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in asking deeply, “What is development? What is progress?” He also examines many market issues, and these point to common good versus narrow interests. If participants in the market were truly moral actors, motivated by the pursuit of virtue, and if trade was fair and free, they would promote healthy competition, creativity and innovativeness. They would have the happiness and flourishing of people as their goal.38 Now, however, “Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products,” Pope Francis says, “people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending… When people become self-centred and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume.” (n. 203-4). And so, for Pope Francis, “The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast” (n. 217). •
How do technologies contribute to the common good? The Encyclical gratefully
acknowledges the tremendous contribution of technologies to the improvement of living conditions. Yet it also warns about the misuse of technology, especially when it gives “those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world” (n. 104). Moreover, markets alone “cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion” (n. 109). There is a great need for solidarity! •
Solidarity with all, especially the marginalized and the poor, is a hallmark of our
Holy Father’s papacy, and it marks the Encyclical as well. The text speaks with great compassion of dispossession and devastation suffered disproportionately by the poor, vulnerable and those who are unable to protect themselves or escape. Pope Francis embraces all people. “Let us not only keep the poor of the future in mind, but also today’s poor, whose life on this earth is brief and who cannot keep on waiting” (n. 162). •
Solidarity must also apply between generations: “we can no longer speak of
sustainable development apart from intergenerational solidarity” (n. 159). The Pope’s key question for humanity is put in those very terms: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (n. 160).
38
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). See also Thomas Jefferson.
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•
Human dignity underpins the extensive treatment of “The need to protect
employment” (nn. 124-129). Work is a noble and necessary vocation: “Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment” (n. 128). Work is how human dignity unfolds while earning one’s daily bread, feeding one’s family, and accessing the basic material conditions needed for flourishing every day. Further, it should be the setting for rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God. •
In the reality of today’s global society, it is essential that “we continue to prioritize
the goal of access to steady employment for everyone,”39 no matter the limited interests of business and economic reasoning that excludes the human and social costs (n. 127). It is wrong when some businesses simply replace workers with machines on the basis of efficiency and utility, viewing human beings as interchangeable with machines as mere factors of production. Clearly, the drive is to gain still more profit, but at the cost of less and less decent work. Do individuals thrive from being unemployed or precariously hired? Of course not. Does society benefit from unemployment? Of course not. In fact, we everywhere witnesses far too many people who cannot find worthwhile and fulfilling work. We should not be surprised when unscrupulous people with demented fantasies recruit such idle individuals into criminality and violence. •
God has exercised subsidiarity by entrusting the earth to humans to keep, till and
care for it; this makes human beings co-creators with God. Work should be inspired by the same attitude. If work is organized properly, and if workers are given proper resources and training, their activity can contribute to their fulfilment as human beings, not just meet their material needs. It can uphold the full human dignity, the integral human development, of workers. The principle of subsidiarity is a mirror of God’s relationship to humanity.40 •
Proper exercise of care (practices of stewardship) keeps the natural environment
and human systems sustainable. The problem, Pope Francis notes clearly, is that the logic of competition can promote short-termism, which can lead to financial failure and devastation of the environment. “We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals” (n. 190).
39
Caritas in veritate, n. 32.
40
See Respect in Action: Applying Subsidiarity in Business, UNIAPAC &University of St Thomas, 2015. http://www.stthomas.edu/media/catholicstudies/center/ryan/publications/publicationpdfs/subsidiarity/RespectInActi onFINALWithAcknowlCX.pdf Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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•
God is the Creator of all - the entirety of creation, all people, all goods. Justice
requires that the goods of creation be distributed fairly. This has the status of a moral obligation, even a commandment, for Pope Francis. “Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labour is not mere philanthropy,” he said last July in Bolivia. “It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment. It is about giving to the poor and to peoples what is theirs by right. The universal destination of goods is not a figure of speech found in the Church’s social teaching. It is a reality prior to private property. Property, especially when it affects natural resources, must always serve the needs of peoples.”41 To sum up, care integrates these principles and applies them to our global economic, environmental and social situation. Last week at the United Nations, I presented the Holy See’s views on the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. The Holy See believes that the 2030 Agenda needs more than public financing. It also requires financing and investment in accordance with value-based criteria of private investors, as a necessary complement to public finance. All stakeholder need to engage in ethical financial activity to eliminate social inequality and to develop an ambitious new agenda to better “care for our common home”. Indeed, we are called “to care” even when dealing with finance. Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities. When we cast aside anything precious in the world, we destroy part of ourselves too, because we are completely connected. By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.42
Challenges
Dialogue and global governance. The first one is about dialogue and global governance. An integral model of development, enlightened by an integral ecological view, cannot be imposed, but just proposed. Therefore, as Laudato si’ points out, we need the participation of all agents at all levels of the political realm, but especially the participation of those most affected by economic and ecological issues. Apart from international dialogues, such as at UN assemblies and sessions, we also need to create different dialogical frameworks that can respond to different circumstances, such as places in the
41
Pope Francis, Address to the Second World Meeting of Popular Movements, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 9 July 2015, n. 3.1. 42
P. Turkson, Statement of the Holy See in the High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, New York, 21.04.2016. Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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world which do not have even formal structures for public dialogue. In this regard, dialogue between religions is an asset. Likewise, integral society and the integral development of its members are inconceivable without “political charity”43, the type of “healthy politics… capable of reforming and coordinating institutions [and], promoting best practices” (n. 181). We need a global political system that can foster integral human development through social inclusion, environmental care and peace. We all need to acknowledge our own responsibility (as persons, churches, and as nations), and to realise that we must change our behaviours and structures for the sake of those left behind, for the sake of our common home.
Economics and ecology. Another challenge is the relation between economics and ecology or how economy impacts on health ecology and integral human development. This was amply observed above. Though etymologically related, for both words are derived from the Greek “oikos” (oikologia and oikonomia), the interests of economics and ecology often clash; and when they do, experience tells us that economics prevails over ecology. Look at the situation with mining and the use of fossil fuel for example! Closely related with this tension is the challenge of the introduction of robots and other products of artificial intelligence in the work place. These may well make labour efficient; but they also help maximize profit and rob the human person the dignity of being a subject of work.
Indifference and Solidarity. As a result, economic disparities and inequities begin to distort social life, engendering, in their wake, indifference and q growing class of the needy and the poor. These are challenges which call for a show, not only of justice, but also of solidarity and a culture of tenderness, as members of society learn to listen, not only with the mind, but also with the heart.
Thank you all for your kind attention!
43
Caritas in veritate, n. 7.
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LAUDATO SI’ AND THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITION TO PROTECT MOTHER EARTH
Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi
Eminence, Distinguished Guests, Dear Friends,
Three years ago, the historic humanistic initiative of His Holiness Pope Francis, Laudato si’, [“Praise be to you (God)”] – titled, “On Care for Our Common Home,” was made public. In Laudato si’ His Holiness calls for an international dialogue about how to approach and act upon the ecological crisis and embraces human diversity to unify efforts to protect the gift of our Lord. He planted a tree full of fruits giving the option for people to choose which fruit to pick and cherish. Here today, in response to this call we have come together in this esteemed conference to bring more public awareness to this bold global vision. It is a unique honor to be invited here and to be asked to speak on this solemn occasion. It is a blessing to be here addressing these challenges on behalf of the Wasatia (Moderation) Movement. Laudato si’ is a passionate appeal addressed to “every person living on this planet” calling for a new dialogue and action about the preservation of “our common home.” In this inspiring message, Pope Francis hopes to open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts to the extent of harm and damage we are inflicting on our natural habitat. The big challenge this presents is to face up to it and to do something to change such habits. Any deterioration of the environment and polluting the air, the rivers, the oceans harm us all. These elements of nature know no boundaries or restrictions created by man; a polluted river runs from one country to another crossing border without intervention; a disease caused by the careless dumping of garbage and trash would travel from one neighborhood to another.
The questions this raise: To what extent are we aware of the destruction we are causing the environment we live in and without which one cannot survive? How can we make people more aware of the need to leave a better environmental legacy to be shared by our children? How can we develop new beliefs, convictions, attitudes and way of life that would help us achieve this?
The environment, Pope Francis contends, is “God’s handiwork” and gift to humanity. Thus we have to take upon ourselves the solemn oath to be its protectors and guardians and not to use our technological skills and capabilities which God has endowed upon us to tarnish the beauty of His handcraft but to seek to make our earth rich, beautiful, and prosperous. In Laudato si’, Pope Francis asserts, “We are not God. The earth was here before us, and God gave it to us. Given dominion over the earth” does not mean our domination over its destiny nor would it give us the right to transform it to satisfy our material interests. Here, Pope Francis urges us not to live on the balcony and to reflect on the environmental damage we are leaving behind for future generations. He astutely observes a “great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge standing before us”, and he warns that “it will demand that we set out on the long path of renewal.” He observes that in education we may redeem ourselves. “Education in environmental responsibility can encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us,” he counsels. To achieve these goals, he urges the public and civic institutions to pressure political authorities to intervene to meet the urgent needs for environmental protection. In his humanistic outlook, Pope Francis links “The human environment and the natural environment” and correctly perceives that the deterioration in one leads to the deterioration in the other, and reversely, the improvement in one leads to the betterment of the other. Laudato si’ is a passionate appeal directed not only to Christians but non-Christians as well imploring all human beings to take seriously and actively these concerns for the welfare of Mother Earth. The message is not only “in line with the Church’s social doctrine” but also with the other Abrahamic faiths, namely, the Quran’s Islamic teachings this essay will explore, as well as the Jewish religious teaching which others would address.
The Quran and the Environment
The Holy Quran considered by all Muslims to be the core source for Islamic doctrine and beliefs asserts how God created man of earth and that the same earth is God’s creation bestowed by the grace of its creator to humanity that they may appreciate. It is a right and a responsibility to utilize and harness nature which God has bestowed upon us which obligates us to protect and to conserve it.
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The Quran narrates the beginning of the universe, how God created heaven and earth, and how life began. {“Indeed, your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne, arranging the matter [of His creation]”} (Quran 10:3) {“It is He who created for you all of that which is on the earth”} (Quran 2:29) God has created a beautiful, exquisite environment for humans.
God provided all natural resources we need that we may seek contemplation, enjoyment in the appreciation of our Lord’s artistic work. {“And it is He who sends down rain from the sky, and We produce thereby the growth of all things. We produce from it greenery from which We produce grains arranged in layers. And from the palm trees - of its emerging fruit are clusters hanging low. And [We produce] gardens of grapevines and olives and pomegranates, similar yet varied. Look at [each of] its fruit when it yields and [at] its ripening. Indeed in that are signs for a people who believe”} (Quran 6:9) {“It is He who sends down rain from the sky; from it is drink and from it is foliage in which you pasture [animals]. He causes to grow for you thereby the crops, olives, palm trees, grapevines, and from all the fruits. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought”} (Quran 16:10-11)
The Quran mentions the various elements of nature, the environment and the universe such as the planets and stars, the skies and clouds, the sun and moon, the thunder and the lightening, the night and day. The Quran also mentions the earthly elements of nature such as the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the soil, the rain. It also mentions the trees, the fruits, the grains, the animals, the insects, the reptiles, etc.
It follows that man has an obligation not to cause any harm or degradation to the environment and the distortion of its suitability for human habitat. Interesting enough, God knew that man would cause corruption on earth: {“And when your Lord said to the angels, “Indeed, I will make upon the earth a vicegerent (successive ‘human’ authority).” They said, “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?” God said, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know”} (Quran 2:30)
The Quran stresses the value of life, and how life must be preserved and protected. {“For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all
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mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind”} (Quran 5:32)
On this earth, there is much diversity and array of different forms. The earth and universe are evidence of the Creator’s prominence and His love for man. This theme resonates in the Quran: {“And He has made the ships to be of service unto you, that they may sail the sea by His command, and the rivers He has made of service unto you. Moreover, He has made the sun and the moon, constant in their courses, to be of service unto you, and He has made of service unto you the night and day. He gives you all you seek of Him: If you would count the bounty of God, you could never reckon it”} (Quran 14:32-34) {“…It is He Who has produced you from the earth and settled you therein...”} (Quran 11:61) {“Have you not seen that God is glorified by all in the heavens and on the earth — such as the birds with wings outspread? Each knows its worship and glorification, and God is aware of what he or she does”} (Quran 24:41) {“And He has set within it mountains standing firm, and blessed it, and ordained in it its diverse sustenance in four days, alike for all that seek”} (Quran 41:10) {“And a sign for them is the lifeless earth: We bring it to life and bring forth from it a grain of which they eat. Moreover, we have made therein gardens of palms and vines}” (Quran 36:33-35) {“He Who has spread out the earth for you and threaded roads for you therein and has sent down water from the sky: With it have We brought forth different kinds of vegetation. Eat and pasture your cattle; verily, in this are signs for men endued with understanding”} (Quran 20:5354)
The Quranic scripture tells us that everything God has created He created by measure, in balance, and for a purpose: {“Verily, all things have We created by measure”} (Quran 54:49) {“Everything to Him is measured”} (Quran 13:8) {“And We have produced therein everything in balance”} (Quran 55:7)
Everything God has created is full of meaning; pointing beyond itself to the glory of God. {“We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them carelessly...”} (Quran 44:39)
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The relationship between man and earth need to be a reciprocal relationship of care and nurture for Earth which provides man with his food and water, mainly since Mother Earth has not been created exclusively for the benefit of humans, but that God had bestowed His bounty to benefit all of His creation. According to the Holy book, the human resources upon which life depends have been created by God to provide sustenance for all people and all living creatures. The Quran asserts that the essential elements of nature – water, air, fire, and earth – belong to all living things. In some verses, the Quran instructs the believers not to do acts which may cause degradation of the environment and entrusts a man with the protection of natural resources. Human beings should not be wasteful, and should take good care of the natural resources to have future generations benefit from them. The Quran urges man to be moderate in his use of natural resources stating that God had created us to be a moderate, just, middle ground, and temperate community. The Quran says: {“And thus we have made you a mid-ground community (Ummah/nation)”} (Quran 2:143). As such, the believers are instructed: {“Do not squander wastefully, for the wasteful are Satan’s brothers”} (Quran 17: 26-27) {“…Eat and drink, but avoid excesses. He likes not those who waste by extravagance”} (Quran 7: 31)
The Quran calls upon man to work to make the earth flourish through agriculture, gardening, and production. It appoints each man and woman to be the custodian of nature. {“And do no mischief on the earth after it has been set in order: that will be best for you, if ye have Faith”} (Quran 7:85) {“And do good as God has been good to you. Do not seek to cause corruption in the earth. God does not love the corrupters”} (Quran 28:77) {“Children of Adam, dress well whenever you are at worship, and eat and drink (as we have permitted) but do not be extravagant: God does not like extravagant people”} (Quran 7:31)
Guided by the Quran, Prophet Muhammad placed much significance to the sustainable use of natural resources and protection of wildlife and agricultural land and forbade abuse of nature. He taught people to be moderate, live on less, protects animal and plant life, and to worship the Creator by being observant of His creations.
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Prophet Muhammad and the Environment
The Prophet called upon the believers to be in harmony with nature. He prohibited cutting trees that provided shade and shelter to man and animals. He prescribed cleaning litter and stones from the streets as sadakah - an act of charity. He said, “Even if the Day of Judgment should arrive and you are holding a sapling in your hand, plant it.” Prophet Muhammad said: “The Earth is green and beautiful, and God has appointed you his stewards over it. The whole earth has been created a place of worship, pure and clean. Whoever plants a tree and diligently looks after it until it matures and bears fruit is rewarded. If a Muslim plants a tree or sows a field and humans and beasts and birds eat from it, all of it is love on his part.” (Saheeh Muslim) Prophet Muhammad said: “People are partners in air, water, plantation, and fire.”
Threats to the Environment
Islamic teaching identifies some vital threats to the environment. The first danger man faces lies in the contamination of the air which would make it difficult for people to breath. The second lies in the pollution of the water which would make it difficult for man to drink. The third lies in the intoxication of the soil which would make it difficult for people to eat. Consequently, the Quran calls upon the believers to protect animal and plant life, not to pollute water resources and not to contaminate the atmosphere to improve the quality of life.
However, though Islam heavily emphasizes on the urgency to keep Earth clean and pure so as this place of worship is not polluted, unfortunately in practice such is not the case. In general we tend to observe that the tendency of a Muslim citizen is to separate between his home and the outer community space. The house is kept clean and tidy but outside the house he considers the space to fall under the governmental responsibility. Here, citizens are not socialized to realize it is their moral duty to keep the environment around them clean by volunteering for betterment of it, even by planting one tree or a flower. Thus, the focus is to keep the inside clean while the outside becomes the ‘national dumping ground.’ This attitude needs to change but how can it be done.
What is in our culture that we clean the private space and leave the public space dirty? Is it lack of education or absence of punishment or lack of empathy and concern for others?
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In his book The Liquid Modernity (2000), Zygmunt Baumann explains why in our world today no one cares about no one. In his call for the protection of Mother Earth, Pope Francis explains why in our world today we should care about each other. In this message, His Holiness speaks for moderates, peace activists, and all human beings calling upon us to act like every inch of the planet is Our Home. In my opinion, it is the Extremist Culture of not caring that allows cutting trees, crushing flowers and hurting animals without cause. The Moderate Culture of caring impels the tender souls to plant trees, water flowers and feed animals. It teaches moderates to clean the street before they clean their homes and to collect litter from the street pavement making sure children enjoy the safety of public parks as they do their private homes. We need to raise our children with the idea “even if the other person over there is not doing it I should do it because it is the right thing to do.” It is difficult in the beginning but if enough people do it, then that will have an influence on all the others around us to start a caring culture about the public space as if it is private space. Along these lines an Arab proverb says, “If each one of us swept in front of his door, the whole world would be clean.” April 22nd is celebrated every year as ‘Earth Day’ to remind individuals and groups of their national duty and civic responsibility to keep the planet clean. Yet, not much awareness is raised to give high priority for this issue.
Conclusions
To conclude, taking care of Mother Earth is a religious duty, a charitable act, a civic responsibility, a social obligation, for which all human beings are held accountable. All the Holy Scriptures calls upon us to keep Mother Earth clean of all sources of pollution and abuse. Laudato si’ makes it clear that the goal of the protection, conservation, and development of the vital elements of the environment, namely, land, air, water, and soil environment is for the universal good of all living creatures and for the preservation and continuation of life. The paramount lesson of Laudato si’ is that humans need to take good care of all the elements of nature which God had created for our welfare and our endurance. Being mindful of the environment and ultimately Mother Earth is the best way to serve God and our community and to reciprocate for what God had entrusted us. We need to join hands to protect our environment and keep our planet Earth tranquil and peaceful.
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Let the rich themes in the Encyclical Laudato si’ be the primary source of our inspiration. Let us start by spreading public awareness together with our civil society and faith organizations. We can, for instance, organize a peaceful march to bring public awareness to the themes of climate change, human dignity and earth's living creatures raised in the Encyclical Laudato Si. Such a march from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv would bring Jews, Christians, Muslims, seculars, Israelis, and Palestinians together who share our universal love for Mother Earth. In the Encyclical Laudato si’, the Holy Father asks the international community an important question: “In what shape do we want to leave earth for those who will come after us, to the children who are now growing up?” No doubt, we want to leave a better inheritance for those who come after us, to our children who are now growing up than the one left to us by our ancestors.
Allow me to borrow the same question and ask the Israeli and Palestinian communities: “What kind of life do we want to leave for those who come after us, to our children who are now growing up?” The choice is ours to make. His Holiness Father Francis ends with words of hope. Let us walk in his shoes and end with words of hope, hope that we will leave our children a better world in which conflict would have come to an end, a world in which moderation eroded extremism, and love conquered hate, peace triumphed over war and life defeated death. Let us hope that Laudato si’ will inspire us to make the dream of a better tomorrow a reality.
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JEWISH TEACHING ON AN “INTEGRAL ECOLOGY” David Rosen
It is my honour to share insights from the Jewish tradition that resonate so powerfully with the themes expressed in Pope Francis’ remarkable encyclical Laudato si’.
Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Yesodei haTorah, 2:2) addresses the question of how we fulfil the Biblical commandments to love and fear God: “When a person meditates on His wonderful and great works and creations and sees through them his wisdom that is beyond compare and limits, immediately he loves and praises and glorifies and desires a great desire to know Him, to know His great Name. As David said, 'My soul thirsts for God, the living God'. And when he considers these very things, immediately he draws back and is fearful knowing that he is a small and lonely creature standing in weak and limited understanding before The One of perfect knowledge… As David said, 'When I see the heavens and the work of your fingers , what is human being that you should remember him?” For Maimonides, our awareness of the cosmos that God has created is not purely a consciousness of the Divine Presence, but is actually the means by which we fulfil the charge to love and fear God. It is the way which we draw ourselves towards that intimacy with God. Accordingly for Maimonides, as indeed throughout the generations of Jewish tradition (until modern times, which produced, inter alia, a reactionary Jewish withdrawal in ultra-Orthodox circles) , scientific understanding was not only not seen as a threat, but as actually being an essential means by which we develop our love and reverence of God.
And in that Creation that testifies to the Divine Presence in the world, the summit of that Creation is the human person created in the Divine Image (Genesis 1:27) whose explicit special role in the world is expressed in the phrase in Genesis 2:15 “and He placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to preserve it “. The Hebrew word l’ovdah is more accurately translated in this context as “to cultivate”, cultivation and preservation together indicating the challenge of “responsible custodianship”. The word avodah may also be translated as “development” and thus the phrase also reflects the idea
that is so central to the modern ecological movement expressed in the words “sustainable development”. However there is additional meaning to the word, which is most frequently translated as ‘to serve’. It therefore indicates a relationship of humanity to the Creation and all that is in it, as one of service.
Moreover one of the most prominent medieval commentators Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno, actually understands that it is the human spirit that is the object of this activity, and that work itself is essential as service for the human spirit. Thus cultivating, developing the Garden of Eden - in other words the metaphor for human engagement - is an essential facility for the growth of the human spirit. But the Hebrew word avodah is also used to mean Divine service and thus some of our sages actually understood this phrase in Genesis 2:15 not simply in a physical sense but also in a spiritual sense, in a moral sense. Indeed 'Divine service' needs to be understood not purely in the narrower meaning as referring to prayer or the Temple offerings; but also as service in the sense of obedience to and fulfilment of God’s word and way. This suggests a profound connection between consciousness of the Divine Presence conveyed by and reflected in the Creation; and the sense of the moral law that gives it direction, purpose and ennoblement. This is expressed beautifully by Emmanuel Kant: “There are two things that fill my soul with holy reverence and ever-growing wonder. The spectacle of the starry sky that virtually annihilates us as physical beings and the moral law which raises us to infinite dignity as intelligent beings.”
The ecological charge for humanity is expressed in the Midrash (works of homiletical exposition) on the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet Rabbah 7, Section 28): “In the hour when the Holy One Blessed Be He created the first human being, He took him and let him pass before all the trees in the Garden of Eden and said to him, “See my works, how fine and excellent they are. All that I have created for you I have created them. Think upon this and do not corrupt or destroy my world; for if you corrupt it there is no one to set it right after you.”
The aforementioned beautiful little homily contains three essential lessons.
The first is the fundamental principle of Divine ownership. As Pope Francis emphasises in Laudato si’, the Creation belongs to God who made it. This is expressed most categorically in relation to the Sabbatical year (to which I will refers in more detail below) in Leviticus 25:23,
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where God is presented as saying, “For the earth is mine and you are sojourners and temporary residents in it with me.” Fundamental to the Biblical description of the world in which we live and the way in which we should conduct ourselves in relation to it, is the understanding that we are but tenants here in a world that belongs to its Creator. This awareness is something that Jewish Tradition seeks to instil in our daily consciousness, even hourly consciousness, expressed through one of the most central liturgical functions in Jewish tradition that Judaism doesn’t really even think of as liturgical, because it is so much an integral part of Jewish practice and life. This is the concept of the brachah, blessing. In fact the obligation of brachot, blessings, is the injunction for constant awareness and acknowledgement of Divine ownership. Jewish practice requires a brachah before drinking or eating, or even enjoying a fragrance. In so doing we pause for a moment and pronounce the traditional formula and thus express our awareness, appreciation and gratitude for that which God had provided for our pleasure and well-being. For example before eating a piece of fruit one declares “Blessed are You O Lord Our God Sovereign of the Universe, who has created the fruit of the tree”. Through the act of making blessings, Judaism seeks to instil in us a continuous awareness of Divine ownership of our world and gratitude for His gifts.
The second idea that emerges from this Midrash is a fascinating and a rather daring theological concept in the Jewish Tradition; namely, that humanity is actually a partner with God in the Creation. God has in fact created us in order to partner with Him in developing His Creation. This is understood in many passages within the Talmud simply in the very capacities and skills with which humanity is endowed to transform the raw materials that God has created into the various prepared foods, materials, clothing etc., for our pleasure, sustenance and wellbeing.
But of course the idea implies even more than that. It emphasises that God has given us the ability to maintain, sustain and improve our world, as well as the capacity to destroy it. This relates directly to the Divine Image in which humanity is created that distinguishes human beings from the rest of Creation. These capacities are in our hands and are a matter of our moral choices. Accordingly while Judaism permits humanity to benefit from animal resources, it lays down extremely strict demands regarding the treatment of animals and the state they have to be in prior to slaughter. It is questionable today whether present day conditions and demands in the livestock industry and factory farming are consonant with these teachings and whether in today’s world, mass produced animal products can be considered fully kosher.
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However there is no question that today, the livestock industry is one of the greatest polluters of our environment. In fact the UN study Livestock’s Long Shadow indicates that today’s industry in animal products causes more environmental pollution than all forms of transport together globally.
Thus we come to the third of the principles contained in our Midrash. The passage in Genesis where God explicitly gives humanity dominion over the rest of the sentient world is well known and much abused. There has been a tendency – particularly among critics of religion and the Bible - to portray this as a warrant for unbridled exploitation and arrogant anthropocentricism that allows virtually everything to serve its own particular end. Indeed Pope Francis has acknowledged that “some Christians wrongly believe” that this passage “invites us to subjugate the earth (so that) the savage exploitation of nature would be encouraged, presenting the image of human beings as rulers and destroyers.” Pope Francis states “This is not the correct interpretation of the Bible as intended by the Church.” And that is certainly not the correct interpretation as far as an authentic Jewish understanding of the text is concerned. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kuk, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in the Holy Land in the earlier part of the twentieth century and among the greatest of modern Jewish thinkers, is very explicit on this subject in his writings. He points out that the phrase “have dominion” is not, God forbid, the mandate for a form of tyranny, but precisely a mandate for responsibility as that of a benevolent sovereign who takes into full account the needs of those who are his subjects. He points out by way of proof for his argument that the use of the term dominion here cannot mean unlimited exploitation of the physical world, to the very fact that Adam and Eve themselves are initially required to be vegetarian and are limited in what they are permitted to consume. Rabbi Kuk furthermore refers to verse 9 of Psalm 145 which states “God’s mercies are extended to all His creatures”. If God cares for all His creatures and as we are called to emulate Him (e.g. Leviticus 19:1 i.e. Imitatio Dei), then it is our human responsibility to care with mercy for all God's creatures accordingly.
Above all Judaism derives the imperative of environmental responsibility from the specific prohibition in Deuteronomy 20:19 against cutting down fruit trees when laying siege to a city in a context of war. The sages of the Talmud draw an a fortiori conclusion that if in a situation of war where human life is in danger it is prohibited to cut down a fruit tree; under normal conditions the idea of destroying anything that provides sustenance is even greater and indeed extends the Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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prohibition to anything that can be of use and of value. The concept is further expanded in the Talmud against any wanton destruction (Kiddushin 32a) waste (Berachot 52b) and even to over ostentation and over indulgence (Hullin 7b; Shabbat 140b). Accordingly the Talmud also requires certain businesses – notably threshing floors and tanneries - to be kept at a distance from human domicile so that they do not cause harm either through physical pollution or even through the pollution of the senses through unpleasant odours etcetera. The prohibition against cutting down fruit trees is extended by our rabbis even to non-fruit bearing trees where there is no need for such. Today when we both understand how central trees and forests are for human well-being and the cosmos as a whole and yet they are being decimated by human avarice, this prohibition becomes even more relevant and urgent.
The following two passages from later Jewish sources elaborate on this concept against what Pope Francis describes as “a throw away culture”. The first is from the 13th Century work, Sefer HaChinuch. This important book lists and comments on all the commandments in the Torah, the Pentateuch. Concerning this specific commandment against destruction/waste, (529) we read: “The purpose of this commandment… is to teach us to love that which is good and worthwhile and to cling to it, so that that good becomes a part of us and we avoid all that is evil and destructive. This is the way of the righteous and of those who improve society, who love peace and rejoice in the good in people and bring them close to Torah ; that nothing, not even a grain of mustard should be lost to the world; that they should regret any loss or destruction that they see, and if possible prevent any destruction that they can. Not so are the wicked, who are like demons who rejoice in the destruction of the world and thus destroy themselves.”
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch was one of the greatest Orthodox rabbis of the 19th Century, and he actually considered this concept of bal tashchit, the prohibition against wasting and any wanton destruction, to be the most basic Jewish ethical precept in keeping with the goal of brachah, i.e. the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God as the Source and Owner of all. But Hirsch goes further viewing these injunctions as expressing an essential limitation and discipline on our own personal will and ego. When we preserve the world around us, he states, we act with understanding that God owns everything. However when we destroy it, we are worshipping the idols of our own desires indulging only in self-gratification and forgetting if not denying the One Source of all. By observing the discipline of this prohibition we restore harmony between
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ourselves and the world around us and above all consciously respect the transcendent Divine Will which we place above our own selfish interests. According to Hirsch, this is a call to 'be a mensch' - the Yiddish/German word for a person, but used here in a deeper sense to mean a truly moral human being. “Only if you use the things around you for wise human purposes, sanctified by the word and my teaching, only then are you a mensch and have the right over them which I have given you as a human. However if you destroy, if you ruin, at that moment you are no longer truly human and you have no right to the things around you. I, God, lent them to you for wise use only, never forget that I entrusted them to you. As soon as you use them unwisely, be it the greatest or the smallest, you commit treachery against My world, you commit murder and robbery against My property, you sin against Me. This is what God calls unto you and with His call God represents the greatest and the smallest against you and grants the smallest as well as the greatest, a right against your presumptuousness. In truth there is no one nearer to idolatry than one who can disregard the fact that all things are the property of God; and who then presumes also to have the right because he has the might, to destroy them according to a presumptuous act of will. Indeed such a person is already serving the most powerful of idols, anger, pride and above all ego, which in its passion regards itself as the master of all things.” (Horev, 397-8)
These three central ideas mentioned: Divine ownership, partnership in Creation; and concomitant human responsibility; are perhaps most dramatically brought together within two Biblical concepts which a common message. Arguably the most central precept of Judaism, seen by our sages as God’s first special gift to the children of Israel, is the Sabbath. The Sabbath is very much an ecological paradigm providing for a day on which the natural eco-system is able to rest, as well as human society, regardless of position or authority. Again in the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (in his commentary on Exodus 20:10): “The Sabbath was given so that we should not grow arrogant in our dominion in God's Creation… (to) refrain on this day from exercising our human sway over the things of the earth, and not lend our hands to any object for the purpose of human dominion. … the borrowed world is, as it were, returned to its Divine owner in order to realise that it is but lent (to us). On the Sabbath you divest yourself of your glorious mastery over the matter of the world and lay yourself and your world in acknowledgement at the feet of the Eternal, your God.” The Sabbath is accordingly seen as a weekly restoration of the natural relationship both in relation to the Divine and in relation to our environment - social and ecological. Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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It is not that the work and material development of our weekday activity are unnatural – on the contrary. We are in fact commanded “six days shall you work”. But there is a real danger that our creative labour can take us over, subjugating and even stifling our social and spiritual potential. Indeed there is a danger that our technological capacities can become the be all and end all in what has often become a kind of modern idolatry. Pope Francis warns against this in Laudato si’. There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means “an increase of ‘progress’ itself”, an advance in “security, usefulness, welfare and vigour” as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such. The fact is that our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience. …But human beings are not completely autonomous. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. … Put simply, it is a matter of redefining our notion of progress. A technological and economic development which does not leave in its wake a better world and an integrally higher quality of life cannot be considered progress” (Laudato si’, 105.194).
We may add that in addition to a redefinition there is a need for a practical reorientation. In the words of Hirsch again “… to cease for a whole day from all business, from all work, in the frenzied hustle and bustle of our time? To close the exchanges, the workplaces and factories; to stop all railway services? (we might add, to switch off our computers, to do without our smartphones?). Great Heavens, how would it be possible - the pulse of life would stop beating and the world would perish! The world would perish? On the contrary, it would be saved.” (The Sabbath, in Judaism Eternal).
Expanding beyond the Sabbath day, we find the remarkable Biblical paradigm of ecological restoration in the Sabbatical year. The sabbatical year involves three essential components. First and foremost as stated in Exodus 23:10, the land is to lie fallow, untilled and un-possessed, serving as the most eloquent testimony that “the earth is the Lord's”. In an agricultural society, land is also the source of status. Thus in requiring that every seven years the land is, as it were, returned back to its original owner, to God; a very important social ethical statement is being made with regards to the equality of all before God. This restoration of social equilibrium is further reinforced by the other two precepts. Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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The one is the cancellation and annulment of debts. The moral significance of this concept can only be understood within the agrarian context in which it functioned. Loans (and consequent debts) which for us are a normal part of commercial life, were not part of a normal healthy agricultural society. A loan was only taken when a farmer fell upon unusual hardship through diseased crops or drought or suchlike and did not have the seed and resources in order to be able to restore his harvest once again. Thus a loan was an exceptional but essential means to restore a normal agricultural society to its productive cycle. However, taking a loan potentially posed the threat of a poverty trap. If the following year's harvest was not successful enough, one may not have made sufficient to be able to repay one's debt. This may continue year after year, the debt is compounded and the farmer economically ensnared. Accordingly, the cancellation of debts in the Sabbatical year ensured that nobody would ever be caught in a poverty trap for very long.
This served to restore what Pope John Paul II termed the human ecology protecting the dignity of all and protecting a social and economic equilibrium. Similarly with the third component of the Sabbatical year, the manumission of servants who either sold themselves into the employment of others in order to escape poverty or to pay off debts (or punishments administered by the courts.) Thus the Sabbatical year itself combines the three dimensions referred to above – recognition and affirmation of Divine ownership; of the glory and the dignity of the human person; and of the social and environmental responsibilities that flow from these – precisely what Pope Francis means by an “Integral Ecology”.
The most extensive passage in the Bible dealing with Sabbatical year, Leviticus 25, is followed in the next Chapter by the promise of good rains and harvests and prolonging our days on the earth and guaranteeing peace – what Pope Benedict XVI refers to as an “ecology of peace. This ,the Bible explains, is the consequence of observing the Divine commandments; but if we disregard these, we face ecological disaster, no good harvests, no peace, war and devastation. Maimonides could only explain this imagery in metaphoric terms. It only made sense to him as a way of conveying the higher idea of spiritual consequences to our actions, in a manner that even the most simple might be able to grasp – “the Torah speaks in people’s language”, in terns that even the most uneducated minds can comprehend, he explains..
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However it has been pointed out that today we can understand these texts more literally than ever before, because the consequences of human conduct on our environment are so strikingly evident. Human avarice, unbridled hubris, insensitivity and lack of responsibility towards our environment, have polluted and destroyed much of our natural resources, interfered with the climate as a whole jeopardising our rains and harvests and threatening the very future of sentient life on the planet (see the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change http://www.ipcc.ch/). Moreover unrestrained irresponsible indulgence in modern society has not only led to far greater cruelty towards animal life exploited for human consumption, but also to a further exploitation of large sections of humanity to serve a much smaller sector. Indeed shocking numbers of human beings languish in hunger while others over self indulge. Laudato si’ highlights this outrage.
A recent study concluded that the average US citizen needs 100 acres of biologically productive space to support his or her annual consumption of food, water, energy and other resources. Distributed evenly however there are only 15 acres of productive land for each of the 6.5 billion people on earth. That means that the average US citizen consumes over seven times his or her share of the earth's capacity. Multiply this by hundreds of millions of people and the human environmental toll comes into better perspective. While these realities confront global governance as well as national authorities; we as communities, families and individuals are also challenged in terms of our own lifestyles and conduct. I think it noteworthy in this regard , that a plant based diet is not only an important response to the problematic exploitation of sentient life and environmental degradation, but a reduction in meat consumption is critically necessary in developed societies in order to reduce deplorable wastage at the expense of other parts of the world. For example, it takes 17 times the amount of water to produce a kilo of beef than it does to produce a kilo of grain. Wise and responsible reorientation and utilisation of resources could enable us to address most of the shameful hunger and poverty that afflict our planet.
Thus the Biblical link between natural conditions/productivity and our moral conduct is strikingly relevant for contemporary society, as is our very capacity to live in the land. The Torah declares that failure to fulfil the Divine Law will lead to the land vomiting out its inhabitants (see Leviticus 18:28 and 20:22). Indeed it is in such terms that Jewish tradition has understood the destruction of the two Temples and the tragic consequences for the Jewish people. Accordingly we recite in our liturgy “because of our sins we were exiled from our land”. Even if God’s promises Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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are eternal, any long term future in the land depends upon our capacity to observe God’s Word and His Way. Here again I quote Hirsch: “Just as the people is the people of God, so its land too is the land of God. From the time that Abraham was chosen and the land was chosen for him the land has never meekly endured corruption in those who dwelt upon it. The flowering of the land is dependent on the moral flowering of the people which the land has brought forth, nourishing them with its fruit and enriching them with its treasures.” (Commentary on the Pentateuch, on Leviticus 18:24-28) This comment is not limited to any one location. While it refers to a particular context, it has universal application in terms of the relationship between human morality and the ecosystem.
In addition to all of the above, Judaism contains a profound mystical tradition that identifies every aspect of the cosmos with the presence of the Divine and echoes the words of Maimonides with which I opened this presentation. This sensibility is a source of an abundant liturgical richness within our heritage, but I will conclude with this beautiful prayer from one of the great Hassidic masters of the late 18th century, Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, perhaps most identified with this sense of communing with nature as part and parcel of religious devotion. “Master of the universe, grant me the ability to be alone; that it may be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and the grass, among all growing things and there may I be alone to enter into prayer, to talk with the One I belong to. May I express everything in my heart and may all the foliage of the field - all grasses, trees and plants - may they all awake at my coming, to send the power of their life into the words of my prayer, so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source. May they all be gathered into my prayer and thus may I be worthy to open my heart fully in prayer, supplication and holy speech.” (Maggid Slihot,48)
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MERCY AND INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Stefano Zamagni
Premise
The phenomena of globalization and the fourth industrial revolution make a new update of principles and values, in the light of the res novae of a rapidly changing world, urgent and necessary. It is this pace of innovation and transformation that prompts us to reflect and to process and understand the insights and founding principles that Pope Francis has condensed in the exhortation Evangelii gaudium and in the Encyclical Laudato si’. The pontiff has sought to shake consciences when faced with the scandal of a humanity which, while it has more and more potential, has not yet succeeded in defeating some structural wounds that humiliate the dignity of the person, bringing to the attention that we should not settle into the erroneous belief that the “magnificent progressive fortunes” of markets and finance can, almost deterministically, take us to a better future.
The functioning of the economic system is characterized by immense potential and rebalancing mechanisms which are not, however, automatic, but which work if they are activated with wisdom and the right intention. The great historical contradiction is the vertiginous growth of well-being in some areas but not in those which remain left out and marginalised. Globalization has blown up this contradiction by transforming the misery of the marginalised into a threat to the well-being of the wealthy people. With the transformation of local markets into global markets with the possibility of near-instantaneous transfer of “weightless goods” (sounds, data, images, coins) from one place to another on the planet, the billion people living below the threshold of extreme poverty in fact compete through low labour costs with workers of the countries accustomed to living with much better wages and better safeguards, gradually eroding those wages and those safeguards. High income countries, therefore, can no longer save themselves; they have to take into consideration the condition of the poorest if they want to defend the welfare and jobs of young people that are threatened by relocation and erosion of the national productive fabric. This is why working for the marginalised, making the effort to promote their dignity is today not only the heroic choice of missionaries, but an urgent need for everyone to defend the rights and
safeguards that have been attained. Globalization has the merit of making us increasingly interdependent, uniting in a common destiny the rich, the emerging and the poorest on the planet. It is against this background that the considerations of Laudato si’ must be read. It is a masterly, epoch-making document intended to be, for many years to come, an indispensable point of reference towards ecological questions for believers and non-believers. What Pope Francis has written in the encyclical Laudato si’ is not an alarm call but a heartfelt invitation to reconsider the foundations of the market economy now in vogue. It is, therefore, an invitation to get out of the “darkness of thinking” in which the current time period forces us to stay. Markets are not all equal because they are the outcome of cultural and political matrices. There is one type of market that reduces inequalities and one which increases them. The first is called civil because it expands the space of Civitas, aiming to include virtually everyone; the second is the uncivilized market because it tends towards exclusion and regeneration of the “existential peripheries.” Today – we have to recognize - the second type of market has become dominant, and the results are before our eyes: an increase in social inequalities to an extent unknown to previous centuries; democracy subjected to the demands of the market; environmental degradation progressing at a no longer sustainable pace, the paradox of happiness. It is to this very situation, not to a hypothetical reality, that the Pope draws the attention of all, believers and non-believers alike.
Contrary to what a hasty reading of the document might suggest, the Pope is not at all against techno-science nor is he against entrepreneurship. Similarly his intention is not to demonise the market economy. How could he be when one considers that the market economy, conceived as a model of social order, was formed in the 14th and 15th centuries within the core of Franciscan economic thought? The fact is that the Pope’s discourse has a much more solid theoretical foundation than certain mass media would have us believe. His approach is that of historical realism whose key pillar is to link knowledge and experience and to put thought at the service of life. For Pope Francis Christianity can be reduced neither to orthodoxy only – this would carry the risk of rationalistic intellectualism - nor to orthopraxis only, to a kind of spiritual pathos for “beautiful souls” in search of consolation. Concretely this means that to the factum, what man does, there is also the faciendum, what man is able to do in the face of a new historical project. The encyclical does not fall into the trap of biologism, naturalism, or anthropocentricism. The Pope does not subscribe to a “thin” theory of ethics, such as, for example that of justice as fairness by John Rawls. As we know in this theory the task of politics is simply to guarantee purely negative conditions, i.e. to ensure freedom of choice to each individual. But freedom of choice is not the same thing as freedom to be able to choose: in fact it ignores that people may not even have the Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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capacity to wish to carry things out. This is why Pope Francis is fighting in favour of a “thick” theory of ethics, i.e. an ethic of the good aimed at realizing the full potential of human capabilities.
There is so much that is unique about this important contribution to the Social Doctrine of the Church. I shall mention some of it. Firstly, the expositive style: a style accessible to all, even the uninitiated. This is the first time in a Papal Encyclical that the theme of the environment has been treated as an integral ecology, i.e. not as a problem in its own right, though one of great importance, but as a problem that must be read against a background of a new ecological paradigm. A second new feature is the strong scientific basis of the argument. Chapter 1, especially, contains an explicit appreciation of the work of natural and social scientists. The papal document relies upon dependable data from both earth and life sciences. Finally the “guidelines for action” contained in chapter 5 and also in chapter 6 say much about the courage of this Pope and his prudent insistence on the urgency of the faciendum. Man is called – we read in Genesis – “to cultivate and care for creation” (Gen. 2,15). To cultivate means that man must take the initiative; we cannot remain passive with respect to the natural rhythms. On the other hand “to take care of” implies that the planet must be cared for, not exploited. Indeed, guardianship is always a welcoming. “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together.” (LS 48) The great theme of Laudato si’ is well rendered by its subtitle “on the care of our common home.” Integral ecology is the keystone of the text. Precisely because the world is an ecosystem, one of its parts cannot act without affecting the others. This is the meaning of the assertion that: “there are not two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but one single and complex socio-environmental crisis” (139). Ecology and economics have the same root – oikos – which designates the common house inhabited by humanity and by nature. But since the beginning of the Anthropocene – a term coined by the Geology Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen in the 60s of the last century – i.e. since the beginning of the first Industrial Revolution, human society, with increasing intensity, has thrown nature “out of the house.” Nature’s resources have been depleted without regard to their possible reproducibility, nor to the negative externalities that this productive activity was generating. (For an expansion of the argument, let me refer to S. Zamagni, “Civilizing the economy for an integral ecology”, in I. Gabriel and Al. (eds.), Eine Wirtschaft, die Leben Fördert, Grünewald Verlag, Berlin, 2017). Well, it is in an attempt to straighten out the “crooked wood” (I. Kant) of modernity that Pope Francis expends strong words to denounce and challenging the still prevailing growth model. Three main theses are argued and defended in Laudato si’. The first one is that the reduction of Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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poverty and sustainable development are two sides of the same coin. “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together” (n. 48). It is fair to recognize that all those interventions based on the premise of separation between the eradication of poverty and conservation of the environment are destined to failure. Indeed, if poor countries fear collusive agreements between environmentalists and the neoprotectionists designed to limit their access to markets in advanced countries - the concern of eco-imperialists -, northern environmentalists fear instead that environmental protection measures can be swept away by the WTO (World Trade Organization) encouraging a race to the bottom in setting environmental standards. The Pope denounces the lack of an integral vision that does not understand that degradation of the environment and degradation of society are two sides of the same coin.
Already in the 1980s the founder of social ecology, Murray Bookchin, argued that the idea of being able to dominate nature stemmed from the domination of man by man. At that time he was bitterly attacked both by the environmentalists of the time, who were little interested in social problems, and by social movements that considered the environment to be of “secondary consideration.” With Laudato si’ social ecology moves from the periphery to the centre of the ecological debate: “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; [we must] hear the cry of the Earth as the cry of the poor” (49). It follows from this both a convinced refusal of the façade of an ecology that expresses itself in false confidence in partial solutions and in environmental technology and a rejection of a misanthropic attitude typical of deep ecology, which considers “men and women and all their interventions as no more than a threat, jeopardizing the global ecosystem” (60). At the same time the Pope refutes both catastrophism – a temperature rise of over 2 degrees as a disaster! – and the reduction of environmental issues to the utilitarian calculus of cost-benefit analysis. In more general terms, the prospect that emerges from the Encyclical is how to keep the biosphere and the noosphere in harmony. The term noosphere was coined in the 1920s by Theilhard de Chardin to denote the set of all human beings that have the capacity to plan their actions and to have a conscious and common project.
On a practical level, the first thesis has an impact of great moment. Consider the question of climatic inequality: 70 million of the inhabitants of the planet emit 100 tons of greenhouse gases per capita per year – as much as is generated by over three billion of the poorest who are also those most affected by climate disruption. The issue is not only whether climatic inequality is unjust – and that it certainly is – but whether the laws of the biosphere will allow us to maintain it, keeping in mind that these laws are not negotiable. For example, CF4 – “Teflon gas” – is almost indestructible and has a climate-altering power thousands of times higher than that of CO2. This Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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is why Eric Neumayer, an economist from the London School of Economics, has recently proposed computing the cumulative historic emissions of about two centuries as a basis of assigning the share of responsibility for climate instability and the costs of remedying it. It goes without saying that poor countries espouse such a proposal while it is strongly opposed by rich countries. This is why Marco Morosini, a member of the “Climate Policy Group,” has proposed to call our epoch the Plutocene (the era of wealth), instead of the Anthropocene (cfr. Avvenire, 12 dic. 2015).
The ecosystem as a global common good
The second thesis advanced by Pope Francis is that the ecosystem is a global common good (nos. 23 and174), therefore neither a private good nor a public good. It follows that neither the traditional market instruments nor public interventions by national governments meet the need. As we know, the commons are subject to devastating consequences that are typical of situations known as “the prisoner’s dilemma”: everyone waits to see the moves the other makes in order to take advantage of them with the consequence that nobody takes the first move. The fact is that while there is still no global governance of the economy, we are dealing with a single climate system, a single ozone layer, and so on. This is in fact the basic feature of a global common good: the use of it by one country does not reduce the amount available to other countries; on the other hand, no country can be excluded from using it. (Clearly pollutant emissions represent a global common bad).
Now, as economic science has known for a while, commons give rise to an annoying consequence, typical of situations known as “the tragedy of the commons.” (G. Hardin, 1968). And if the common good is global, the negative consequences will also be global. In 1990 the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” proved that Greenhouse gas emissions would lead to an increase in average temperatures, with all the well-known consequences. Still very few countries acted unilaterally to reduce their emissions. Similarly the European Union proposed the introduction of a carbon tax in Europe, but after finding that this example was not emulated by other countries (especially the USA) they arranged to change the programmes. It is precisely the characteristics of the common good that make unilateralism fallacious as a strategy for environmental policy.
Not only that. Even if it were possible to reach some sort of agreement through negotiation or international treaty, the problem that still needs to be resolved is that of enforceability. Consider Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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the case of the Montreal Protocol regulating the use of chemical destroyers of ozone, and the already mentioned Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Why did the former worked, producing the desired effects, while the latter was substantially a failure as has been said above? The response is immediate. The Montreal Protocol contains an incentive mechanism likely to encourage participation and adherence by all the signatory countries, a mechanism such that it is in the interests of each country to abide by the agreed rules. Not so, however, with the Kyoto Protocol, the authors of which have not been able to come up with some mechanism to ensure selfenforcement of the same. 6 What is the specific nature of a common good? A convenient way to respond is to compare a common good with a public good. The latter is a good that is neither excludable nor rival in consumption; a good the access to which is guaranteed to all, but whose usability by the individual is independent from that of others. Just think – to fix the idea – about what happens when an individual drives along a public highway: the advantage that he draws from this is not linked to that of others who travel the same road. On the other hand, a common good is one that is rival in consumption but not excludable and is such that the advantage that one derives from its use cannot be separated from the advantage that others draw from it as well. That’s to say that the benefit that an individual derives from a common good materializes together with that of others, not against others (as happens with private good) and not even regardless of others (as happens with the public good). What, then, lies at the bottom of the “tragedy of the commons?” The well-known argument advanced by Garrett Hardin is that if humanity does not restrict individual freedom it will go the way of the inhabitants of Easter Island, because it ends up destroying those common goods upon which the life of the human species depends. Indeed, the myopic and exclusively self interested pursuit of the individuals leads them – without their explicitly wanting to – to cut off the branch on which they are sitting. Hardin’s example of common and free pasture upon which each farmer grazes their livestock gives a good idea of this. The rational choice – one that maximizes the individual interest – is to gradually increase the number of grazing cattle because, in doing so, the advantage is increased, say, by a factor of x, and the consequent decrease of the grass is only a fraction x, since the damage is distributed among all the farmers who use the pasture. Essentially, it's as if the users of the pasture do not consider at the time of their action the reduction of the common good (pasture grass) that their choice entails. So the crux of commons lies in the still dominant culture of libertarian individualism. I would like to recall, in this regard, the famous statement by Pericles, the great Greek statesman in the fifth century BCE, as reported by Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
Thucydides, that democracy cannot function smoothly if the majority of those who make up the polis is made up of idiotes. It is clear that with such subjects, sooner or later, a critical threshold will be passed and this triggers the individual perception of the imminence of the tragedy, but this happens when it is too late. It so happens that, paradoxically, the race to grab resources increases since they become increasingly scarce.
Economic biodiversity 7 The third thesis deals with Pope Francis's strong defence of biodiversity. A market economy that wants to strive for integral ecology cannot ignore the plurality of forms of enterprise, and especially cannot help but leave room for those subjects which produce value - and therefore wealth – anchoring human behaviour to principles such as that of mutuality and intergenerational solidarity. To deny or prevent this would mean irresponsibly giving up integral human development which, never forget, includes three dimensions (i.e. material growth; the sociorelational dimension; the spiritual dimension) in a multiplicative rather than additive relationship.
As suggested among the others by A. Sen, there is a serious confusion of thought between “market omissions” (what the market could do but does not) and “market malfunctioning” (what the market does, but it does badly). It is such a confusion that has originated a political practice which, rather than promoting “market-including” interventions (those which aim to include basically everyone in the productive process), performs “market-excluding” actions, those that do not allow the inclusion of “surplus people,” persons expelled because they are deemed irrelevant. Scrutinizing the current scenario with devout attention Pope Francis suggests adopting an ecological regard which is able to interact with all dimensions of value and therefore able to see the risk of ending up crushed by that vicious circle that combines improved efficiency (power) due to techno-science with the unlimited expansion of subjectivity (the will for power) This is why we must recover the idea of limitation and also why technical reasons is no longer a safe guide for a model of integral human development. In fact, keep in mind that it is the union of power and the will for power that generates the hubris that leads to collapse. What then should be done? In chapter V of Laudato si’, the Pope advances “Some guidelines for action”. The strategy favoured is that of transforming existing power structures. So neither the way of “revolution” nor that of mere reformism seem to the Pope adequate strategies
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to meet current challenges. The space at my disposal allows me to focus on two suggestions only that can be extracted from the Encyclical.
The first one deals with the urgency of creating a World Environment Organization (WEO) along the lines of what has already taken place some years ago with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Indeed it is the deficit of global institutions that makes the problems we are talking about insoluble. While the markets are globalising, the transnational institutional structure is still that of the end of the Second World War. At that time the negotiators of Bretton Woods in 1944 could not even imagine what the ecological problem was to become. It could be said: aren’t international treaties sufficient to the purpose at hand just as contracts within a country are sufficient to regulate relations among the parties? The analogy is dangerously misleading, because contracts within a country can be ratified by that country’s government, but there is no transnational authority able to enforce treaties between States.
This is why a WEO is necessary: we cannot continue much longer in a situation where, while the market, in its multiple aspects, becomes global, governance structures remain basically national or, at most, international. Today there are about 200 “multilateral environmental agreements” (MEA) in the world. Notable examples are the already mentioned Montreal Protocol; the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; the Basel Convention on International Movement of Toxic Waste; the Kyoto Protocol etc. But these agreements will never succeed in becoming executive in the absence of a transnational authority. Not only that, but what is worse is that under current conditions individual nation States have an interest in creating pollution havens in order to acquire positions of competitive advantage in international trade.
There are three priorities that such an organization should carry out. First, interacting with the WTO, this organization should seek, first, to make the rules of free trade and environmental protection compatible, and to enforce them on all parties. Secondly a WEO should intervene, with substitution roles in all cases in which – as is ever more frequent nowadays – price signals fail to anticipate irreversible environmental losses. As we know, there are environmental degradation thresholds such that up to a certain point economic activity does not block the regenerative environmental functions, but once past that point irreversible environmental changes occur due to the fact that the level of economic activity surpasses the assimilative capacity of the ecosystem. In such situations market mechanisms are jamming; hence the need for their subrogation by an ad hoc agency. Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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Finally, a WEO cannot fail to address the issue of eco-refugees, i.e. global warming as a factor in creating new migratory flows. According to the UNHCR, by 2050 the world could find itself having to manage a forced migration of 200-250 million people leaving lands that are parched or completely underwater, or devastated by deforestation or global warming. Between 1997 and 2020, in sub-Saharan Africa alone the estimates speak of about 60 million forced migrants, people who, even if willing to remain, cannot stay where they are. And yet, neither Convention on Climate Change nor the Kyoto Protocol include measures for the assistance and/or protection of those who in ever greater numbers will be hit by the effects of climate changes. Even today, environmental migrants do not fall into any of the categories covered by the international legal system. If we do not want to continue with the current short-sighted policy of militarisation of borders – the USA border control budget has risen from 200 million dollars per year in 1993 to the current 1.8 billion; even so the number of illegal immigrants has doubled, rising from 5 or 6 million to 12 million – it is essential to create a WEO with adequate powers and resources.
A second suggestion stemming from Laudato si’ has to do with the transformation of finance. Finance is an instrument of enormous potential for the proper functioning of economic systems. Good finance allows savings to accumulate and be used efficiently and allocated to the most profitable investments; it moves the value of assets in space and time; it creates insurance mechanisms that reduce exposure to risk; it allows meeting between those who have financial resources but no productive ideas and those who, conversely, have productive ideas but no budget. Without such a meeting the creation of economic value in a community would remain at the potential stage.
Unfortunately, the finance with which we are dealing today has largely escaped the control of the national authorities. Financial intermediaries only finance those with the money they already have (having collateral equal to or greater than the requested loan amount). The vast majority of derivative tools built to achieve potential insurance benefits are instead bought and sold in the very short term for speculative motives with the opposite and paradoxical result of putting at risk the survival of the institutions that have them in their portfolio. Asymmetric incentive systems for managers and traders (profit sharing with bonuses and stock options and no deductions in case of losses) are constructed so as to encourage them to take excessive risks which make the organisations in which they work structurally fragile and at risk of failure. A further element of dangerous instability arises from the orientation of these organizations towards profit maximization at any cost (which is something different from the pursuit of a legitimate and Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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reasonable profit) because they place the welfare of shareholders higher than that of all other stakeholders. Profit maximizing banks, in the presence of distorted incentives will always find it increasingly profitable to channel resources towards speculative trading activity or to those with margins of return greater than the cost of credit.
Never in the evolution of finance has it been so clear as in recent decades that the markets, especially where returns to scale are increasing, do not tend spontaneously to competition but to oligopoly. Indeed the gradual loosening of regulations and forms of control (such as separation between investment banking and commercial banking) have gradually led to the creation of an oligopoly of banking intermediaries that are too big to fail and too complex to be regulated. The regulators’ sleep has therefore produced a serious balance of power problem for democracy itself. The 2014 report Corporate Europe1 highlights the imbalance in the balance of power between the financial lobby and those of civil society and the NGOs: finance spends 30 times more on lobbying activities than any other industrial pressure group (according to conservative estimates 123 million Euros a year with about 1700 lobbyists to the EU). The relationship between representation of financial lobbyists and representatives of NGOs or trade unions in consultation groups is 95 to 0 in the stakeholder group of the ECB and 62 to 0 in the De Larosière Group on financial supervision in the European Union. The destabilizing effects of financial capitalism – which since the eighties of the last century has replaced industrial capitalism – may be easily grasped from the following data. In 1980 the financial assets of all the financial institutions in the world were equal to the world GDP (gross domestic product), about 27 trillion U.S. dollars. In 2007 – on the eve of the great financial crisis – financial assets had become equal to four times the global GDP (240 trillion against 60 trillion). Today, this relationship is more than five times. In the same period, in the 51 countries that were considered, labour income in GDP fell by 9 points on average in Europe and the USA; by 10 points in Asia and 13 points in Latin America. The lost points from labour went to financial income. In light of these and other similar data it is not hard to understand where to locate the origin of the degrading phenomenon of “surplus people,” whom Pope Francis calls “waste people.”
One question, before leaving the argument: how has all this happened? What is the deep root of such a transformation? The answer requires a clarification that almost never happens. In
1
http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/attachments/financial_lobby_report.pdf.
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October 1829 the famous Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, Richard Whately, introduced, first among economists, the principle of NOMA (Non-overlapping magisteria): if the economy wants to become a rigorous science it needs to separate itself from both ethics and politics. The implied division of labour is that politics is the realm of the ends that society intends to pursue; ethics is the realm of the values that should guide human behaviour; the economy is the realm of the most effective means of achieving the given purposes in respect of those ethical values. As such, the economic sphere does not need to maintain relations with the other two spheres. Starting in the second half of 19th Century, economic thought – with some rare, albeit notable, exceptions – upheld the principle of NOMA and pour cause. However, since the advent of globalization (in the late seventies of the last century) a radical reversal of roles has gradually come about: the economy has become the realm of the ends and politics the realm of means. That is why, as all observers are noting, today democracy is at the service of the market. Ahead of his time Hans Tietmayer, the influential President of the Bundesbank, understood this when in 1996 he wrote: “Sometimes I get the impression that most politicians have not yet figured out how much they are already under the control of the financial markets and are even dominated by them.” Is there any need to say more? (Today, even Alan Greenspan, FED Chairman for many long years, expresses this concept in his 2013 book The map and the territory). Well, Pope Francis does not accept such a “division of roles.” Politics must once again become the realm of the ends, and the three aforementioned spheres must establish a cooperative relationship and mutual respect. There must be autonomy, but not separation among them, keeping in mind that Catholic ethics is based on the Aristotelian and Thomist principle of the primacy of good over justice. Justice makes sense if it is aimed at the good; otherwise it risks becoming justicealism. As we know, today’s dominant thinking does not accept this view. According to juridical positivism, the norm arises only from the consent of the parties involved, with no reference to the notion of good living. In this way, economic action is founded on the principle that consensus facit iustum, just as required by the libertarian individualism set-up that is dominant today.
The role of mercy
Hebrew, piety is a visceral sentiment from the word rechem which literally denotes the womb, the generative viscera. In the Ancient Testament, the organ associated with the concept of mercy is the womb: rachamim is a compassion so profound as to contract the viscera. In the Latin Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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language, the vital centre of human being moves from the diaphram to the heart. It is no longer the breath that keeps a person alive but the circulation of blood. The heart is the centre of life and the sight of the poor and wretched shakes us so much that mercy flows forth from the heart. (See J. Moltmann, “Justice and Mercy,” Vita e Pensiero, 2, 2014). Note an interesting implication of this change of view: for the Latin cultural matrix, mercy is no longer a typical attribute of femininity, since all human beings have the heart. Therefore, everyone can turn his or her “heart for the poor” and be capable of mercy. The spirituality of the Sacred Heart as a symbol of God's merciful love strongly marks the theological thought of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). 12 In the Christian perspective mercy tells the way in which love must manifest itself. Pope Francis has written “God loves mercifully”; that is to say he administers justice rendering those who are forgiven righteous. The comparison of two pieces by famous authors allows us to grasp the meaning of this statement. In W. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice one reads: “Mercy is above the sceptered sway, it is enthroned in the heart of kings. It is an attribute of God himself. An earthly power becomes more similar to God’s power only when mercy seasons justice.” (Act IV, sc. I). From the other side F. Nietsche writes in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85): “Truly, I do not love the merciful … All creators are hard. God is dead and his compassion for man was his death… May that which makes us tough be praised.” These passages speak for themselves. I limit myself simply to the observation that the mercy referred to by the German philosopher – who hated a certain moralistic rhetoric – is an ethical-philosophical act and not theological in the Christian sense. As the Gospel says: “Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful.” (Lk 6, 36). An ancient apologue says: “The disciple had sinned grievously and publicly. The master did not punish him. Another disciple protested ‘You can’t ignore his guilt. God has given us eyes.’ The master replied ‘yes, but also eyelids!’ Mercy has eyelids.
Of the many faces of mercy, the face which especially today deserves particular emphasis is forgiveness, which literally means giving bountifully. There are too many misunderstandings surrounding this concept, so it would be proper to clarify. There are things that we cannot forget and that we think are impossible to forgive. Whence the spirit of revenge and vengeance that binds us to the past. Revenge is the attempt to restore the conditions prior to the offense, which is impossible. Moralism is the most sophisticated attempt at revenge because it weighs on the conscience of the other the guilt without the possibility of redemption: you were wrong; I got revenge downgrading or annihilating you. For this reason one needs to learn how to forget: removing the past is an incorrect operation because removing is not forgetting; it is an undercover operation. The correct way to forget is to become detached; to break away from a given occurrence Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
to understand its deeper reasons. Therefore we should not wipe out the past but should distance ourselves from what weighs upon us. This is true forgiveness which, never forget, always requires the willingness of the other to be forgiven.
The tale of the unbeliever J. Borges is suggestive in this regard. In the infinite spaces of the life beyond, Cain and Abel meet again. They light a fire and sit down to eat. In the light of the flames Cain notes the mark of stone on Abel’s forehead and, dropping the bread that he was about to put in his mouth, he asks to be forgiven for his crime. Abel replies: “Did you kill me or did I kill you? I no longer remember. We’re here together as before.” Then Cain concludes: “Now I know that you have really forgiven me because to forget is to forgive.” The story of this famous Argentine writer captures a decisive element of forgiveness, that of the capacity to transform the wickedness of the guilty person. If you cannot change history, i.e. make it like the actions never happened, it is however possible to act by going in another direction. One cannot be persecuted by one’s past actions. On the other hand, is it not true that there is no Saint without a past or sinner without a future? In this respect forgiveness is a gift of freedom to those who are in danger of being crushed by the past. This is why – as Spinoza says – only those who are free are really able to forgive fully.
A word of clarification now on the notion of development, a word that is too much inflated today. In an etymological sense, development indicates the action of freeing from entanglement, from the bonds and chains that inhibit our freedom to act. It is especially to Amartya Sen that we owe in our time the insistence on the links between development and freedom: development as a process of expanding the real freedoms enjoyed by humans (see his Sviluppo è Libertà, Milano, Mondadori, 2000). In biology development is synonymous with the growth of an organism. In the social sciences, instead, the term refer to the transition from one state to another (for example, a country passing from being an agricultural society to being an industrial society). In this sense the concept of development is associated with that of progress. Mind you, the latter is not a purely descriptive concept, since it involves an implicit, yet indispensable, value judgment. Progress, in fact, is not a mere change, but a change for the better and then postulates an increase in value. It follows that the judgment of progress depends on the value to be taken into account. In other words the assessment of progress and therefore of development requires us to determine what should move towards the better.
Well, it is to this regard that, fifty years after its publication, the Populorum progressio returns to be of extraordinary relevance. Paul VI is the Pope who most opened the horizon of the Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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universality of the Church in the season of human rights and globalization. The philosophical cipher of the Montinian document is historical realism. It is a realist the one who realizes that it is in the development of peoples that peace is played out in the world – his phrase “development is the new name for peace” has remained famous – and the one who knows that development must be integral, i.e. of the whole human being in its multiplicity of dimensions, and solidarious, that is of all human beings. In the climate of the Cold War that was still going on in 1967, Paul VI showed that the real iron curtain was not that between East and West, but that which separated the northern and southern hemispheres, the “people of opulence” from the “people of hunger.” (For this courageous and forward-looking stance Pope Montini was accused of complicity with Marxism, as is happening today with Pope Francis whose Laudato si’ resonates with the echo of the Pauline Encyclical. But it is now evident that these accusations and criticisms are not only aimed to defend vested interests, but they denounce serious philosophical and cultural and economic gaps. (Marxism is a serious and rigorous theory, though not uncontroversial, which in the circles of Catholic conservatism has rarely been read or, when read, understood).
The central point to note is that development cannot be reduced to mere economic growth – still measured by that indicator everyone knows as GDP – which is certainly a dimension of development, but not the only one. The other two are the social-relational and the spiritual ones. But – mind you – as noticed above, the three dimensions have to remain together in a multiplicative relationship, not an additive one. Which means that you cannot sacrifice the social-relational dimension in order to increase growth – as is happening unfortunately today. In a multiplication, even if only one factor is cancelled it is the whole product that becomes zero. Not so in a summation, where nullifying an addendum does not cancel the total amount; indeed it might even increase it. Here is the big difference between the total good (the sum of the individual goods) and the common good (the product of the individual goods): strictly speaking one cannot, talk about solidarious and inclusive growth, whereas one can and must speak of solidarious and inclusive development. In essence, integral human development is a transformational project that has to do with change for the better in people's lives. Growth, instead, is not in itself a transformation. And that is why, as history has shown, there have been cases of countries that have declined while growing. Development is an end, while growth, which is an accumulative project, belongs to the order of means. An unknown ironic apologist allows us to grasp the point. An economist was trying to demonstrate that growth is the capital factor for development. “This is the law of both the economy and of nature: every growth is good in itself.” One of the audiences at the Conference raised a hand and a hesitant voice exclaimed: “Unfortunately, the cancer cell also thinks so!”
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The question arises: what promotes the practical exercise of mercy? As Adam Smith understood in the wake of a line of thought opened by civil humanists, the institutional structure of society must be forged in such a way as to promote among citizens the civic virtues. If economic agents do not already include in their preference structures those values that you want to be successful in society, there won't be much to do. It will be useless to pass new laws, perfect from the point of view of legal technique, or even carving out increasingly sophisticated procedures. In fact, according to the ethics of virtues, the enforceability of legal and social norms depends, first, on people's moral constitution; that is, by their internal motivational structure, more than it does on exogenous systems of enforcement, whether they be incentive schemes or sanctions of various kinds.
The point that deserves emphasis is that the character of the ethics of virtues is its ability to resolve, by crossing it, the conflict between interest and concern for others, between selfishness and selflessness. It is this juxtaposition, daughter of the tradition of individualist thought that does not enable us to grasp what constitutes our good. The virtuous life is a life which is better not only for others but also for ourselves. In fact, the common good is the good of the same being in common. That is the benefit of being placed in a joint action, as the economic action typically is. Note that while the public is opposite to private, common is opposite to one’s own. At the same time, however, the common good is not dissociable from the good of the individual. The good of the individual does not disappear, undifferentiated, inside the magnitude that is the sum of the individual goods. Therein lays the profound difference between the common good and the collective good.
This is why to cultivate mercy is an indispensable task not only from the point of view of the civitas – which has long been known – but also from that of the economy. Since economic institutions influence economic performance to a great degree, it is necessary to ensure that the economic and institutional structure of society encourage and, do not penalise, the widest possible dissemination of the practice of mercy among citizens. The results will then follow, despite what the skeptics think. The secret of merciful action is all here: it helps us to overthrow the still dominant utilitarian ethics, bringing us to reflect on the essence of the dimension of gratuitousness at any place of the human experience, and therefore also in the economy. If it is true – as I believe – that gratuitousness can be thought of as a characteristic of the human condition, then it must also characterize the way the economy functions. To show how it is possible to conduct economic activity obtaining excellent results in the market, without severing the relationship with the other people, is the great contribution of the principle of gratuitousness today. Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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The Roman historian Gaio Igino in his Fabulorum Liber has given us a mythological tale that makes us understand well the socio-economic role, so to speak, of mercy. In the story Care gives form to humans moulding the shape with mud. Jupiter, invited by Care to infuse her piece of clay with spirit, wants to impose his name upon it; but Earth intervenes reclaiming that her name were to be giving to the new creature since she gave part of her own body. Saturn, elected to judge the matter, decided that this creature would be called homo (from humus, mud), that Jupiter would have the spirit at the moment of death while Earth would receive the body; but Care would have owned the whole of its life since she had given it shape. Care shapes the mud, thereby giving it human dignity. This is the mission of mercy in economics: that of giving “form” to the market, humanising it.
Indeed it is the multiple acts of mercy that, despite everything, continue to be put into practice that make us realize that society cannot progress along the path of integral human development if the code of efficiency is kept separated from the code of fraternity. It is this separation that accounts for the paradox that plagues our societies; on the one hand they multiply attitudes in favour of those who, for various reasons, lag behind or are even excluded from the market. On the other hand the entire economic discourse is centred solely on economic efficiency. Is it any wonder then that today social inequalities are increasing despite an overall increase in wealth? And if the merit principle is clumsily confused with meritocracy as if they were synonyms? And if reciprocity is confused with altruism or philanthropy? And if the commons (such as environment, knowledge, territory, identity etc.) have come to be treated as public goods?
Having forgotten the fact that a human society which extinguishes the sense of fraternity is not sustainable helps us understand why, despite the quality of intellectual forces in the field, we have not yet arrived at a credible solution to the big trade-off between efficiency and equity. A society in which the principle of fraternity is dissolved has no future; nor is that society where there is only the idea to “give to get” or “giving through duty” capable of progress. This is why neither the liberal-individualistic view of the world in which everything (or almost everything) is exchange, nor the state-centric vision of society in which everything (or almost everything) is obligatory, are reliable guides for our leaving the shallows in which our societies are today bogged down. The need for fraternity emerges from all spheres of community life – economic, political and social. The great challenge is how to reconcile the libertarian requirement that is proper of subjectivism of rights, and the Communitarian plea. That is to say, how not to loose the subjective sense of liberty while not betraying the other’s space, not only by not invading, but by contributing Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation - St. Saviour's Monastery - P.O.B. 186 - 9100101 Jerusalem (Israel) - jpic@custodia.com
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to its enrichment. A famous passage from William Blake – poet and artist nourished on Sacred Scriptures – helps us to grasp the power of the principle of fraternity: “I searched for my soul and didn’t find it. I searched for God and did not find Him. I searched for my brother and I found all three.” The intuition of the English poet derives from the Gospel passage in which Jesus tells us that His face is hidden behind the shabby profiles of the least of our brothers (Mt., 25, 31-46). It is in the practicing of mercy that a person meets his/her own self, the other, and God.
In conclusion Albert Camus wrote in “Nuptials”: “For if there is a sin against life it is not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.” Camus was not a believer, but he teaches us a truth: we should not sin against this life by disqualifying and humiliating it. Therefore we must not shift the centre of gravity of our faith in the afterlife so far as to make the present insignificant: we would be sinning against the Incarnation. What Camus is saying is, in truth, an ancient thought, dating back to the fathers of the Church, who called the Incarnation Sacrum Commercium, to underline the deep reciprocal relationship between the human and the divine and especially to emphasize that the Christian God is not a Godsubstance, is not a God-cause - this is the God of philosophers. He is a God of men who live in history and that interests Himself deeply in the human condition. To love existence is an act of faith, not just a personal pleasure. This opens to the hope, that concerns not only the future but also the present, because the human person needs to know that his work as well as his final destination have significance and value here and now. The message of hope that comes from Laudato si’ is that the certainties offered by technoscientific progress are not sufficient for us. This, progress, has increased and will continue to increase our ability to find the means to achieve all kinds of goals. But if the problem of means is presenting itself today more favourably than it once did, the same cannot be said for the problem of the ends. Hence the need for a new hope. The old hope is directed to the means; the new hope is directed to the ends we decide to pursue. So if it is true that abandoning the search for means would be foolish, it is also true that the new hope goes directly to the ends. Having hope today means exactly this: to consider ourselves neither as the mere result of processes beyond our control, nor as self-sufficient being with no need to establish fraternal relationships with the other.
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