1st of four parts
(Fourth Talk delivered at the annual holy retreat of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines held at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay City on the theme “Synod Spirituality: Embracing Ecology in the Light of Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum” on July 2-4, 2024)
Grace to be asked for: (1) To have a courage to prophetically enlighten “those who possess power and moneythat they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live;” and (2) to have a receptive heart that would willingly welcome and self-appropriate the challenging insights and praxis of Laudato Si’s integral ecology in our ecological ministries in the church and society.
Let me present five points for reflection for this fourth conference of our holy retreat.
These past days, I have been discerning on the presence of anthropocentric perspective in our ecological ministry. Indeed, the problem of anthropocentrism still operates in the ecological advocacies of the church. Until recently, the prevailing view of Catholic social teaching is to understand the environmental crisis within a broader matrix of social problems. Perceiving the ecological concerns “as an aspect of other social injustices perhaps marks out the distinctive contribution of [Catholic social teaching] to ecotheology.”[1] With the advent of Laudato Si,’ it is hoped that new pathways can be creatively explored.
1. Human Ecology Connects Environmental and Social Concerns
The term “human ecology” emerged in the early 1920s in the writings of social scientists. “It is a global term that refers to the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and cultural environments.”[2] This term denotes that human beings “belong to a sensitive ecology of life.” Before Laudato Si,’ human ecology was “the primary means by which the Vatican spoke about the environment and linked it to other social concerns, especially those regarding the inviolability of human life.”[3]
In 1991, John Paul II introduced human ecology as a new term in papal vocabulary to be included in the matrix of social concerns. In the encyclical Centesimus Annus, John Paul II contrasted it with natural ecology or physical ecology: “people are rightly worried—though much less than they should be—about preserving the natural habitats of the various animal species threatened with extinction…”[4] He sadly remarked that “too little effort is made to safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology.’”[5] Between these two ecologies, he was more worried about “the more serious destruction of the human environment, something which is by no means receiving the attention it deserves.”[6] Thus, for him, an authentic human ecology includes the protection of family structures and the denunciation of abortive practices and mentalities, or what he called in his previous encyclical as the “culture of death.”[7]
Benedict XVI continued to employ the notion of human ecology to connect environmental concerns with other urgent social concerns. Between the two ecologies, however, he arguably gave the logical priority to human ecology because he believed that issues affecting the natural ecology could not be properly addressed until issues affecting the human ecology were first corrected. This is evident in his famous argument that “when ‘human ecology’ is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits.”[8] This integral approach to the environmental crisis characterizes the Catholic social teaching before Laudato Si’.
2. Introducing the Integral Ecology Framework
What ecological framework is Pope Francis seeking for? In Laudato Si’, the following descriptions attempt to express some of its main qualities: it must be broad enough to have “a vision capable of taking into account every aspect of the global crisis” (LS 137); it should be adequately interdisciplinary that “no branch of the sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out, and that includes religion and the language particular to it” (LS 63); its liberative agenda must embrace an “integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (LS 139); and lastly, its “ecological approach always becomes a social approach [and] 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). These descriptions, though not exhaustive, can be capsulized in the term “Integral Ecology,” a seminal concept and the central theme of Laudato Si.’
Significantly, Laudato Si’ does not straightforwardly define Integral Ecology. This term appeared for the first time in 1958 in the writing of Hilary B. Moore “who called for an expansion of traditional scientific understandings of ecology.”[9] In theology, it was first used in 1995 by the Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff who called for an “integral ecology” that combined various approaches to the ecological crisis “with a view to founding a new alliance between societies and nature.”[10] In today’s scientific usage, integral ecology is “a framework that allows all aspects of reality to connect with what has traditionally been associated with the scientific study of ecology.”[11] Presumably, Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ builds upon these earlier uses of integral ecology.
After the release of Laudato Si’, it has been claimed that integral ecology perspective was widely embraced due to its ability “to articulate the fundamental relationships of the person with God, with him/herself, with other human beings, with creation.”[12] In effect, human ecology no longer enjoys the same privilege that it did before. In fact, it only appeared five times in Laudato Si’. (LS nos. 148, 152, 155, & 156). It is presented as just one ecology alongside a variety of ecologies under the broader umbrella of an integral ecology.
TOMORROW: An Appreciation on the First CBCP Pastoral Letter on Ecology
(Fr. Reynaldo D. Raluto has been serving as parish priest of Jesus Nazareno Parish in Libona, Bukidnon since 2021 and has been leading the Integral Ecology Ministry of the Diocese of Malaybalay since 2022. From 2011 to 2021, he served as Academic Dean of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Cagayan de Oro where he also teaches fundamental/systematic theology and Catholic social teaching. Among his ecological advocacies are planting/growing Philippine native trees, mountain climbing, biking, and active participation in the cultural and ecological activities of the Indigenous People Apostolate of the Diocese).
[1] Celia Deane-Drummond, “Joining in the Dance: Catholic Social Teaching and Ecology,” New Blackfriars 93, no. 1044 (2012): 193–212, at 197.
[2] Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor and for the Earth: From Leo XIII to Pope Francis, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2016), 375.
[3] Lucas Briola, The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si’: Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023), 27.
[4] John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (Vatican City, VA: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1 May 1991), no. 38, http: //https://ift.tt/nhCKHFf.
[5] John Paul II, Centesimus Annus,no. 38; see John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Gregis (October 16, 2003), 70.
[6] John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, no. 38.
[7] John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, no. 39.
[8] Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 51. Italics in the original.
[9] Cited in Briola, The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si’, 68, n. 23.
[10] See Leonardo Boff and Virgil Elizondo, “Ecology and Poverty: Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor— Editorial,” Concilium 5 (1995): ix–xii, at ix.
[11] Sean Esbjörn-Hargens and Michael E. Zimmerman, Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2009), 42.
[12] Cited in Briola, The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si’, 65; cf. Peter Turkson, Conferenza Stampa per la presentazione della Lettera Enciclica «Laudato si’» del Santo Padre Francesco sulla cura della casa commune: Intervento del Card. Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, bulletin, June 18, 2015.
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