During this week in class, we all read the Pope’s Encyclical
on climate change. A very interesting as well as easy read from the perspective
of the Catholic Church. I must say right off the bat how impressed I am with
the Catholic Church in its recent spark of interest in Climate Change. In the
past, as we discussed with our guest theology professor this week, the Catholic
Church had a history of dealing with anthropocentric issues and stress these
values more than anything else. We even touched on some of the history behind
the church’s history and environmental issues touching on Lynn White’s article
and the development of Catholic Social teaching. It’s important to note that
this encyclical has shed light on something no other Pope has done really in the
past and that is cite outside sources from around the world. This shows in
itself how radically different his take on things compared to most views even
just a few years ago. If you read the encyclical, (Laudato si), you would know
that this international researching is in of itself part of what the Pope was
trying to get across. In my reaction paper I touched on this underlining theme
of “social fixing” because I thought of it so crucial to the environmental
crisis. The pope said, “we cannot presume to heal our relationship with nature
and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships” (Francis
35). Pointing to the fact that our social relationship with each other, whether
that be: physical, social, economic, political, scientific, etc., the fixing
these issues start with us as well as end with us.
One other bit I would like to mention would be the
Benedictine value of Stewardship that we practice here at CSBSJU in central
Minnesota. For those of you who do not know about our school, it was founded
upon the Benedictine tradition and is upheld by what the Monks and Sisters call
the Benedictine Values. These are very similar to Catholic Social Teaching in
ways, especially that of Stewardship and Care for God’s Creation. Last semester
when I wrote a paper in my Theology and the Environment class, I talked about
Saint Benedict, (who provided our institution with these values), and brought
up an interesting point about the power of local communities. In order to
promote change back when he lived within the Roman Empire he wasn’t focused on
the radical changes in policy and government but rather the local concerns of
the people in his own community. To promote change, he did more or less what
Jesus did and led by example. More specifically he tried to “build a new
society in the shell of the old” (Lifestyle
114). Benedict suggested that one could apply these teachings to the idea
of Stewardship and reform of our current environmental struggles. By “embracing
the interdependence implied by sustainability” (Lifestyle 122), our society
might come to realize the complexity of these issues and come together in order
to put in the work necessary to solve them. Even though we did not get a chance
to talk of these values and positive effectiveness of local communities as well
as international, I think it’s important for us to examine these topics in
order to better understand what the role of the Catholic Church is now and
could be in the future. In my opinion, I believe that they could start making a
real impact on Environmental issues as a whole.
Below is a link to my college’s web page that talk about the
Benedictine tradition.
Here is also a list of Major Themes from Catholic Social
Teaching
-Life and the Dignity of the Human Person
-Call to Family, Community, Participation
-Rights and Responsibilities
-Option for the Poor and Vulnerable** (also very important
in Laudato Si)
-The Dignity and Rights of Workers
-Solidarity
-Care for God’s Creation**
No comments:
Post a Comment