The Catholic antidote to our environmental ailments

Integral ecology necessitates that those of us who bear the imago Dei exercise responsible care of all members of the cosmic covenant.

(Image: David Billings / Unsplash.com)

From the perspective of an outside observer, it might appear that being a citizen of planet Earth involves a highly peculiar core requirement. Judging by our politics, news, and social media accounts, it would seem that a fundamental choice must be made between being pro-environment and being pro-life—between caring deeply about the natural world and honoring the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.

On the one hand, those of us who value the sacredness of human life from its very conception are often disquietingly indifferent to broader issues that affect our planet. Indeed, in many ways Christians can rightly be accused of living in a way that is indistinguishable from our secular counterparts when it comes to the overall manner in which we inhabit creation. Even while professing the correct doctrines, our economic and social habits—how we spend our money and how we spend our time—may be every bit as bourgeois and “worldly” as those of our godless neighbors.

Indeed, even as they may lack nuance and be prone to extremes, those without faith are, at times, perhaps more virtuous than us in some areas, particularly in their concern for our fellow creatures. On the other hand, we probably all know someone who would go to great lengths to rescue an abused animal or preserve the habitat of a threatened species yet is perfectly content with the murder of unborn human children in the name of freedom.

The schizophrenic attitudes we humans maintain when it comes to nature can be truly astonishing. Cognizant of it or not, we have a vested interest in standing aloof from realities which, if accepted, would require a serious change in the way we live. Upton Sinclair once penned this haunting line that makes me cringe every time I think about how it must apply in some way in my own life: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” And then there’s the issue diagnosed by Henri de Lubac: “The denser the ignorance, the more enlightened it thinks itself to be.”

The subject of the environment is about as fraught as any within our present cancel culture. Individuals across all belief spectrums appear to be in a race for an ideological purity that makes them reluctant to entertain the perspectives of those who operate within a circle other than their own. This tendency leads people to pursue overly simplistic solutions that leave no room for doubt and no tolerance for proposals that would raise the possibility that truth can be found on both sides of an issue.

Thanks be to God, the Catholic Church with her perennial “both/and” approach to reality possesses the antidote to this ailment when it comes to the environment—if only we are willing to embrace her wisdom. Our recent popes treat this vision of how to inhabit God’s good earth under the banner of integral ecology.

The intrinsic link between treatment of the environment and our fellow men

In my last entry, I reflected on how mankind’s unity with other creatures is so intimate that the Catholic tradition speaks of the universe as a single “organism” and “book.” The concept of integral ecology aptly captures the implications that flow from this holistic vision. Coined in the past century on the basis of the interconnectedness between humans and the wider created world, integral ecology is the holistic practice by which we seek to achieve the well-being of both in a society where they are often pitted against one another.

Benedict XVI sought to disabuse us of the notion that the good of mankind and that of non-human creatures are unrelated or even mutually opposed, declaring unequivocally: “The way humanity treats the environment influences the way it treats itself, and vice versa.” Operating on the classical understanding that all creatures together comprise a single body, the pontiff underscored this practical implication of our covenantal kinship: “Respect for the human being and respect for nature are one and the same.”

Consistent with this perspective, Benedict’s ecological thought emphasizes that authentic human fulfillment requires that we live in peace not only with God and our brothers and sisters but indeed with the whole of creation. Grounded in his conviction that all creatures are bound together in a cosmic covenant, this pontiff reflected often on the theme of “ecological responsibility” and the call to exercise “responsibility toward creation.”

Benedict even spoke of man’s “duties towards the environment,” which he identified as intrinsically “linked to our duties towards the human person.” It will come as no surprise that this pontiff’s teaching aligns well with that of the Catechism, which candidly states that humans “owe kindness” to animals. Connected with this imperative, Benedict invests considerable effort in combating the common error of privileging the good of man at the expense of other creatures or vice versa, which is to say “uphold[ing] one set of duties while trampling on the other.”

So profoundly does Benedict envision the connection between our duties toward our fellow man and our obligations concerning other creatures that he warned, “[T]he human family risks disappearing” unless we “review our entire approach to nature” in a holistic light. In saying this, Benedict is calling for a transformative “shift in mentality” wherein we cultivate the “art of living together” with all of God’s creatures. This means learning to see the earth not merely as a storehouse to be used for our private benefit but rather as our shared “home” with the other creature partners in the cosmic covenant.

If damage to the natural world leaves detrimental consequences for our species in its wake, then the converse is also true. Counter to the reductive philosophy that dominates much of environmentalism in our culture, the pontiff declares, “Every offense against [human] life, especially at its beginning, inevitably causes irreparable damage to development, peace, and the environment.” One of the marvelous features of this pontiff’s ecological thought is that he provides concrete illustrations of how his principles apply in our world:

If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation, and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves.

From here, Benedict explains that the same underlying truth impacts all manner of issues touching on human life, sexuality, marriage, the family, and social relations. Here as elsewhere, the pontiff stressed that man’s unwillingness to live in accordance with his proper dignity leads to disastrous consequences in the wider natural world: from erosion to deforestation, to the depletion of global mineral and maritime resources, to an unequal distribution of basic resources like food, water, and energy across the globe.

Without buying into every sensationalist news headline pronouncing that the most recent hurricane or tornado is the result of human activity, on a number of occasions, Benedict further encouraged research into the field of climate science as a complex area that deserves our attention as Catholics. All this he carried out with full awareness of the widespread confusion and misinformation that abounds today surrounding the issue. A hallmark of the Bavarian pontiff’s approach to the subject was the generous pastoral spirit that he extended toward those who had yet to understand the importance of this issue. Aware of the complexities involved with judgments in this domain, Benedict refrained from endorsing particular empirical claims about the drivers of climate change. All the same, he considered it a serious issue and encouraged the development of concrete ways to address problems through such means as harnessing “the immense potential of solar energy.”

We could go on and on enumerating issues that Benedict held dear to his heart with regard to care for God’s creation, but doing justice to this enterprise would require far more space than we have here. Thankfully, the Magisterium’s doctrine of integral ecology is universally applicable, offering the fundamental principles required to address all these issues and any unforeseen challenges that may arise in the future.

Man, too, has a nature that must be respected: human ecology

From what I’ve outlined above, it should be clear that the Catholic Church has a robust commitment to care for the natural world in all its facets. In contrast with typical secular forms of environmentalism, however, Catholicism’s approach to integral ecology emphasizes that what we normally think of with ecology (understanding and caring for the natural world) is intimately bound up with human ecology, which is to say the truth of man’s integration in the created order and his endowment with a nature that has unique gifts and needs.

While Catholic integral ecology recognizes the interdependence between the two realms, Cardinal Razinger memorably pinpointed that the “defect of the ecological movements” is evident in a blatant discrepancy: “They crusade with an understandable and also legitimate passion against the pollution of the environment,” Ratzinger noted, yet they do little to address the fact that “man’s self-pollution of his soul continues to be treated as one of the rights of his freedom.”

So long as we persist in believing that we are free to manipulate the natural world according to our unbridled whims, Ratzinger underscores that the outward effects of our interior pollution will continue unabated. Without discounting the legitimacy of efforts to reduce the physical pollution of the “outward environment,” the cardinal was keen to point out that the ecological crisis that we are witnessing today “is only the mirror and the consequence of the pollution of the inward environment, to which we pay little heed.” On this front, Benedict’s successor has similarly remarked:

[I]t is troubling that, when some ecological movements defend the integrity of the environment, rightly they sometimes fail to apply those same principles to human life. There is a tendency to justify transgressing all boundaries when experimentation is carried out on living human embryos.

Our last three pontiffs have all stressed that a proper ecological understanding of the natural world must include the recognition that, in the words of Benedict, “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will.” Just as nature has its laws, Ratzinger emphasized time and time again that man has laws by which he must abide to thrive: “Man is essentially a creature and has a creaturely order.” In a statement written decades prior to the present vogue of gender ideology in our society, he added that man’s status as a creature means that he “can’t arbitrarily make anything he wants out of himself.”

In short, integral ecology necessitates that those of us who bear the imago Dei exercise responsible care of all members of the cosmic covenant. In this, he concurs with the observation of environmentalists that manipulating the natural world without due respect for the creatures that inhabit it leads to disaster. But Benedict is here to remind us that the same is true regarding human nature, and so he adds that the same principles apply not only to God’s other creatures over whom we are called to exercise loving dominion, but also with respect to the most vulnerable of humanity—especially the unborn. From this perspective, it is simply not acceptable for a person to work for the protection of other creatures without exercising the utmost care for the unborn, the elderly, and the disabled of our society. In all of this, the pontiff stresses that the dignity of the human person is without rival in the natural world.

This truth has been reinforced often by our present pontiff, who has pointedly affirmed that “[t]here can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology” and that it is “contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person.” Francis has bemoaned the widespread perception that man is the mere product of chance and just one creature among others. In this mistake he sees a serious contributor to our society’s loss of the sense of responsibility for creation. As Francis has taught, the attempt to counter anthropocentrism with a misguided biocentrism merely substitutes one imbalance with another, inadvertently undermining the very objective it purportedly seeks to achieve. In the frank words of our Argentine pontiff, “Human beings cannot be expected to feel responsibility for the world unless, at the same time, their unique capacities of knowledge, will, freedom, and responsibility are recognized and valued.”

Destructive as their activity may be, we don’t blame beavers or parasites for deforestation. We don’t blame other animals for altering ecosystems and the predation by which they can eradicate entire species. We don’t do that because they are not special. Pope Francis is urging people to bear this in mind when tempted to deny man’s uniqueness while rightly expecting those who bear God’s image to live by a higher law.

Conclusion

Catholicism’s doctrine of integral ecology is as timely today as ever. My experience as a college professor has been that young Catholics are increasingly yearning for such a vision but often don’t know it exists. They want an orthodox way to approach care for creation and are often not satisfied by professing traditional doctrines while living the same consumeristic lifestyle and practical atheism as everyone else in the developed world. In general, believers I know would prefer to avoid desecrating the natural world on the one hand or divinizing it on the other.

Unfortunately, in most places, a person consults for wisdom in the manner of the environment, humans tend to be reduced to the same level as other creatures. To take one instance, Aldo Leopold’s seminal concept of “The Land Ethic” remains a mainstay in ecological education. As I see it, this founding father of modern environmentalism did well when he advocated for an expanded perspective so as to envision our community as encompassing not only other humans but also soils, waters, plants, and animals which Leopold collectively terms “the land.” Yet, even as our popes would undoubtedly concur with Leopold’s proposal that we move away from viewing humans as creation’s conquerors and towards a sense of shared companionship with other creatures, an authentically Catholic approach must surely reject Leopold’s characterization of man as “a plain member and citizen” within the biotic community.

What I hope to have begun to show here—and to address further in future entries—is that integral ecology’s approach grounded in the covenantal intimacy that exists among all creatures provides a singularly holistic and compelling response to challenges in the arena of creation. In my next column, I plan to discuss how this vision stands out from the reductive approach on offer in much of present-day environmental discourse thanks to its firm grounding in divine revelation. With this foundation, the message of Catholicism with regard to the environment is one of charity and reconciliation. It is an attempt to share with the world the riches of the Catholic tradition and to fill in some important gaps between faith and reason, tradition and novelty, reverence for the Creator and the care for his creation. With any hope, this endeavor may just help us to discover a new dimension of Catholicism’s transformative power and how essential it is to flourishing in the garden of God’s good earth.


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About Matthew J. Ramage, Ph.D. 12 Articles
Matthew J. Ramage, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology at Benedictine College where he is co-director of its Center for Integral Ecology. His research and writing concentrates especially on the theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, the wedding of ancient and modern methods of biblical interpretation, the dialogue between faith and science, and stewardship of creation. In addition to his other scholarly and outreach endeavors, Dr. Ramage is author, co-author, or translator of over fifteen books, including Dark Passages of the Bible (CUA Press, 2013), Jesus, Interpreted (CUA Press, 2017), The Experiment of Faith (CUA Press, 2020), and Christ’s Church and World Religions (Sophia Institute Press, 2020). His latest book, From the Dust of the Earth: Benedict XVI, the Bible, and the Theory of Evolution, was published by CUA Press in 2022. When he is not teaching or writing, Dr. Ramage enjoys exploring the great outdoors with his wife and seven children, tending his orchard, leading educational trips abroad, and aspiring to be a barbeque pitmaster. For more on Dr. Ramage’s work, visit his website www.matthewramage.com.

16 Comments

  1. This diary entry is a complete waste of time to read. I want the 5 minutes of my life that I wasted reading it back along with additional compensation for the suffering endured reading such nonsensical drivel.

    You don’t get to decide how people spend their money. They rightfully earned their income and it is not yours to spend. Nor is what anyone does with their own time time of any concern to you.

    This article reeks to high heaven of hippie dippie liberal BS.

    Let’s make one thing abundantly clear, Man has absolutely no duty towards the environment. Human ecology and environmental ecology are completely unrelated. We can trash the planet as much as we want. God will take care of it.

    • Wrong, we always want to leave the world in better shape than the world we inherited. We should always strive to leave the next generation a better world. Love of money is a sin, whereas, working as a team to protect God’s creation is part of God’s plan

    • I’m used to reading idiocy on the internet but this is quite spectacular in its low level of intelligence and moral acuity. “Diary entry”? Huh? “hippie dippie liberal BS.” Seriously? Sheer lunacy.

    • I take it that the critic does not subscribe to the Genesis account. To say that up front would save us all a lot of time ill-spent. On the other hand, if we do take the Genesis account seriously, does the notion of “stewardship” not imply some duty of man with respect to nature at least before the Fall? And, if so, why would the duty be abrogated afterward? Dr. Ramage is a theologian. It would appear that theology is on a different planet from that of his critic.

    • WOW! Mathew beware. I think Anthony is on planet2.

      You are right, “all living creatures are connected”. Perhaps not a climate denier.

      We must cleanse our tongues of vitriol.

      God will help those who help themselves.

      • “We must cleanse our tongues of vitriol.”

        Who is this “we?” Judgement begins at the house of God. If this comment isn’t the pot calling the kettle black I don’t know what is. You might want to Google “self-awareness.”

  2. I always get a chuckle from writings on plastic disposable electronics in a house and office filled with disposable plastic electronics, the vehicle transport between the two largely plastic, disposable, and stuffed with electronics, the food fueling the writer largely packaged in plastic, the assorted electronics powered or buffered by toxic batteries, them writing of saving the planet, and me old enough to remember a world of truly durable goods made locally where everything from can openers to clothing to autos lasted for years, decades or a lifetime, was repairable/rebuildable, very little “plastic” anything, food packaged in renewable/non-toxic glass and paper, local workers employed mending everything from clothing, to repairing radios, televisions, phones, furniture, and me wondering if these writers had any idea how much of the worlds waste and pollution and pillage directly from fueling the disposable plastic electronic culture.

    • I suppose what gets me is I live in intentional poverty, and have for years, my total furnishings equivalent to a monk’s cell, the only electronics past a thermostat in the house being my cell phone mostly for weather and news, an ancient small car for grocery runs, and then I read something by a professor with own orchard, world traveler, likely lovely large house and multiple vehicles, lecturing me as to Catholic stewardship…most of the people in media lecturing me as to ecological stewardship fall into the exact same conspicuous consumption camp, and I just can only chuckle…too much like Francis lecturing me on not being petty, gossipy and vindictive.

  3. In the beginning, God created the perfectly balanced ecosystem in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, that perfectly balanced ecosystem did not last long.
    The distortion and perversion of humanity by original sin becomes reflected in everything that we think, do, say and touch. In other words, the very nature around us, reflects us.
    We have broken and corrupted a well-balanced ecosystem to the point that it has become a literal reflection of broken humanity.
    To quote from an introductory paragraph published on the EPA website, “The American conversation about protecting the environment began in the 1960s. Rachel Carson had published her attack on the indiscriminate use of pesticides, Silent Spring, in 1962. Concern about air and water pollution had spread in the wake of disasters. An offshore oil rig in California fouled beaches with millions of gallons of spilled oil. Near Cleveland, Ohio, the Cuyahoga River, choking with chemical contaminants, had spontaneously burst into flames. Astronauts had begun photographing the Earth from space, heightening awareness that the Earth’s resources are finite.”
    We are, indeed, our brother’s keeper. So, we are required to be good stewards of the created world in which God has given us to live, out of love for God and neighbor.
    Now, is all of the atmospheric pollution from CO2 emissions combined with cattle farts on the American prairies, overuse of non-recyclable materials which necessitate the building of enormous landfills causing climate change? I say that it does not. Americans have made enormous gains in cleaning up waterways, reduced atmospheric pollution and worked to manage to distribution and use of toxic materials, including fossil fuels.
    Whenever anyone speaks of climate change, minds immediately go to thoughts of pollution. To do so is bad science.
    For forty three years, I worked in just about every facet of the oil & gas industry, having lived and worked in nine states and four foreign countries encompassing refining, production, distribution and marketing. Taking raw materials out of the ground to production refining facilities to transporting finished products to supply & distribution terminals is done with the utmost safety and concern for the welfare of the employees and the environment across the gamut from wellhead to the gas station. The public is not aware of the onerous regulations (local, state and federal) that help drive fossil fuel-based economics. This business, by its very nature, is incredibly dangerous. Yes, there are accidents, there are spills and, unfortunately, there are fatalities. My point being is that many scientific and engineering advances have tremendously reduced emissions pollution since the 1960’s, even is you factor the cow farts into the equation.
    Fossil fuel-based vehicles and cows are not responsible for climate change. Climate change, within the context of what you see and hear, is a sleight of hand ruse for grabbing wealth and power. Nothing more, nothing less. And its proponents could really care less about you, me or the environment.
    Mind you, we are experiencing a global climate change series of events, but none of this is manmade.
    Humanity does not control power at the magnitudes required to affect the weather, the sea levels or anything else of like nature.
    But, the sun does.
    The earth is but a pebble in comparison to the power being emanated from the sun in a single second.
    What we are watching and living in real time are the effects that a destabilized solar magnetic field has on the little marble in space that we call home.
    Do note, moving forward, how we never hear any scientist, politician, university professor or economist (they know everything about everything, just ask one), link or associate changes in solar behavior to “climate change”.
    Rather, this austere bunch, while continuing to exceed published federal emissions limits with their own greenhouse gas releases, that dwarf those of the combined stock yards of middle America.

  4. Ghost-writer Fernandez (Laudato Si, 2013) almost lost me at the first turn…Five points and a question:

    FIRST, what is an “integral ecology?” This meme is a neologism, a combination of two formerly distinct concepts and realities.

    The first term is “integral humanism,” possibly coined by Jacques Maritain in the 1930s and meaning “at once human and divine—in which alone lies the possibility of a free and worthy life.” And, meaning the whole person and the whole of all persons.

    SECOND, about “ecology,” like Benedict, St. John Paul II also affirmed “the ecological question,” and maintained a clear distinction between “safeguard[ing] the conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology,'” and the interrelated but distinct “natural ecology.” For example, our “duties and obligations toward future generations” (Centesimus Annus, 1991, nn. 37-40).

    THIRD, the new meme “integral ecology” convey an important message, but does it also fuse and potentially confuse the above two points? At risk of being misused as an ideology?
    FOURTH, having said that, what then of the principles of the natural ecology:

    Everything is connected to everything else (glossy auto paints are based on mica mined in India by child slave labor); (2) everything must go somewhere (industrial hazardous waste dumped half way around the globe); (3) nature knows best (or sometimes kicks back as with the 1930s Dust Bowl—which actually happened, rather than not); and (4) there’s no such thing as a free lunch (are we kicking an overhanging “ecological question” down the road, the same as with the overhanging national debt?) (lifted from Barry Commoner, “The Closing Circle,” 1971).

    FIFTH: Ecological systems are actually resilient rather than brittle, but still within limits.

    If marginal perturbations from any source violate these boundaries, then the tipping point can lead to collapse. The Buffalo-hunter phenomenon was reversed in the nick of time. But, what about 133,000 square miles of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef bleaching and dying from very marginal sea-temperature rise (and an incubator for marine food chains), compared to the historical 150,000 square miles of the Dustbowl (tipped partly by man-caused soil exhaustion)?

    QUESTION: How to think clearly with the Church about solidarity/subsidiarity and a fused “integral ecology”?

    Respecting the distinct “human ecology” as also interrelated with the external “natural ecology,” does the so-called principle of “gradualism” endanger the foundational moral absolutes of the human ecology? The interior Natural Law affirmed in Veritatis Splendor and explicitly incorporated into the Magisterium of the Church?

    As already with Fiducia Supplicans, gradualism possibly distorting or exploiting: “time is greater than space; unity prevails over conflict; realities are more important than ideas; and the whole is greater than the part” (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013)? Might we someday see a reductionist, global benefit-cost ratio for carbon footprints (for example), and with draconian implications for the “transcendent dignity of the human person,” the family, and other intermediate institutions prior to the state?

    • Peter. I appreciate your comments, but I believe all living creatures are connected. “Integral Ecology” is a concept derived from the observation of the interconnectedness between humans and the natural world. This interdependence touches every aspect of human life, from political and economic to cultural, social and theological.

      A thought for the day: The environment is not impacted by ANIMAL Flatulence.

      Thanks.

  5. Having worked on, taught at university about, studied the environment for over almost 40 years, I patiently await more who recognize the vast improvement nations with citizen empowerment have made in water, air, and habitat quality since the 1960s. The evidence is incontrovertible. Many of recent generations cannot imagine this progress, but I have seen it with my own eyes and have worked on more than a hundred projects that advanced this 1950s dream. Yes, we can do more, but please recognize the progress that has been made and that this progress has occurred in free societies. Might I humbly suggest that popes could stand to heed this progress too.

    • Tom your vast ecological experience is commendable, for sure. I have made an attempt to give more credence to my fledgling research.

      Most certainly water is the elixir of all life. Perhaps, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the mass production of non-biodegradable substances like plastic, we launched the decline of our ecology. We might shed more light on the human expansion of more than 8 billion humans.

      Recent scientific evidence is that by the end of the 21st century the world population will decline to 6 billion. That alone might not mean much if we continue to ignore the seriousness of a throw-away society.

      Unacif: Approximately 2.5% of the world’s water is freshwater.
      Out of this, only about 0.5% is readily accessible for human use.
      Less than 1% of the world’s freshwater is considered potable.

      My family is careful to recycle non-biodegradable items like plastic, glass and metals, but the word needs to get more media press headlines. I have encountered many climate deniers. I fear if we don’t continue to prove our unrefutable science, the ecological slaughter will only get worse.

      God bless.
      Thank you

  6. Clean air and clean water should not be political. When I was in Beijing, the air was so polluted, I could hardly stand it. We should all try to work towards a clean environment.

    • It’s true, Will. The air pollution can be severe. My daughter in law who wears contact lenses visited China a few years ago. There was so much ash or other particles in the air that it got beneath her contact lens & caused abrasions. She had eye trouble for weeks after her trip.

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