Bishops on ecology.

On October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi (proclaimed by the Pope in 1990 as the patron saint for ecology), the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops via its Social Affairs Commission, issued a pastoral letter on ecology. Beginning by emphasizing the beauty of nature, its evocative power, and its baleful destruction by humanity, it points out that the cosmological crisis is a moral crisis as well. The Catholic Register covered the letter in an article by Stephen Bede Scharper entitled "Christianity embracing environmental concerns."

Stephen Sharper

Scharper began by citing a 1967 article in Science magazine by Lynn White, Jr., calling Christianity the "most anthropocentric religion the world had ever known." It prepared the soil, he said, for the Western world's technological assault on nature, and hence was largely responsible for the ecological crisis. After 35 years, Scharper declares, the cleavage which White called attention to is at last being repaired. The development of ecological theology and the emergence of religious eco-justice movements, he said, are signs of an increasing Christian embrace of environmental concerns. These developments, together with magisterial statements from the Holy Father and various bishops' committees, demonstrate that the Church is beginning to acknowledge the theological, moral and pastoral importance of environmental despoliation.

He writes that the Letter goes further, to say that the ecological crisis is a profoundly religious crisis, for Christ entered into and embraced our humanity and also all of God's creation. The Church must not merely adopt a "preferential option for the poor" but a preferential option for the earth. Furthermore, ecological problems are intertwined with unjust social structures. The natural world is a "bearer of divine grace," and the bishops urge us to become "co-creators," to join in repairing creation, seriously damaged by our "ecological sins".

In their most compelling section, Scharper writes, the bishops speak of water as the source of all life and denounce the fact that it is being increasingly treated as a private commodity. This is not only a justice issue but a profoundly theological one, given the role of water in Christian religious practice and imagination. They advocate support for actions on this issue by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and the signing of the "Water Declaration." And they point out that accessibility to water is a right to life issue. Water must be seen not as a commodity to be bought and sold but as the fountain of life, to be shared universally with all God's children.

Scharper concludes that the statement will be effective only to the extent that it is forcefully promulgated and fully integrated with the Church itself, including of course the Church's own use of resources and the types of energy it uses.

Scharper criticises the bishops' statement for not going far enough: "Curiously, the profound theological debates around the notions of co-creation, nature as a source of revelation, and ecological sin are not discussed," he states. He also gives favourable mention to Thomas Berry, who has invented a new set of commandments for an ecological age, including listening to the earth speak to us.

Comment:

Let me note first this idea of listening to nature as your teacher. It was the advice given to a friend by William Wordsworth two centuries ago:

Up! Up! My friend, and quit your books, Or surely you'll grow double....

Wordsworth then points to another source of moral instruction:

One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

These words were written in 1798. By 1805, Wordsworth had begun to change his mind and was writing that there may be a favoured few for whom natural impulses are an adequate guide, but for the majority of men, duty, conscience, and law are necessary guides.

Half a century later, the view of nature as a teacher was put to rest by Matthew Arnold, in a poem entitled "To an Independent Preacher." This clergyman had declared that man must be in harmony with nature, and Arnold's response was that whereas nature would teach man to be cruel rather than kind, man must surpass nature to be truly human. He ended, by saying, "In harmony with nature? Restless fool, if thou can't not pass her, rest her slave!"

The Holy Father does not sentimentalise nature either. In 1999 he issued an encyclical on the Church in America in which he again stressed our responsibility to take care of God's creation. He came down hard on the greed of North Americans, who use a disproportionate percentage of the world's resources. At one point he exclaimed, "How much ecological abuse and destruction there is in many parts of America!" "It is enough," he wrote, "to think of the uncontrolled emission of harmful gases ... ...."

As the Pope says, the obligations which we all have in the area of ecology suppose a religious and ethical perspective capable of overcoming selfish attitudes and lifestyles which lead to the depletion of natural resources. At one point he uses a quotation from St. Luke: "From those who have received much, much will be required." Who are those who have received much? We are!

The bishops declare that Canadians are blessed with an abundance of natural resources, but we also are among the planet's most excessively wasteful inhabitants. Thankfully, they said, there is in our tradition an asceptic response through which we can confidently adjust our lifestyle choices to respect ecological limits and put us in harmony with vulnerable peoples. The pastoral letter seems a sane and sensible response to an urgent crises.

David Dooley is English professor emeritus of Saint Michael's College, University of Toronto.