By Cathleen Chittenden Bascom I remember a heated debate about the environment I had with another student after exiting an ethics class in Chicago circa 1985. Lonnie was a Saul Alinsky inspired seminarian from the Rust Belt. I was a green-minded seminarian from the Colorado Rockies. We turned up our collars against the ear clipping wind as we waited for the elevated train to take us into the city.
“God delights above all in the created order. Everything together,” I argued, emphasizing the word everything, “Everything is very good. It’s like you’ve never read Genesis 1:31.”
“God cares more about the poor. Love your neighbor as yourself. One of Jesus’ top two!” Lonnie says. “I was in Youngstown when 1,400 people lost their jobs in one day and the EPA Environmental regulations were a major factor. 14-percent unemployment. Depression. Alcoholism. God cares about them.” He flicked his cigarette as the train came. “No offense, but Enviro-types like you… white, wealthy…don’t give a damn about the people in the margins.”
We got on the train together, but chose different sides of the aisle. No common ground.
Chapter Three of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Sί transports me. In my imagination Lonnie and I are riding a light-rail train that now extends from Detroit to Denver (dear God may it someday be true…) It is 2016 and we share the same seat on the same side of the aisle. For we have witnessed that, as the ecological crisis unfolds in the 21st-century, it is the people of little or no economic means who suffer most. Together we now mourn the near-extinction of Iowa’s tallgrass prairie. Together we now ponder the growing food security needs of our globe and Iowa’s need for jobs.
To our surprise, who should board the train? But Pope Francis! He sits near us and we turn to learn from him. These are some of his teachings:
1. We must acknowledge the human origins of the ecological crisis. The Pope quotes John Paul II: “instead of carrying out his role as cooperator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God. …” (117) Francis takes this foundational thought to very detailed, specific teaching. While noting with gratitude the incredible contributions of science to the common good, underlines our anthropocentric world-view that must change. He critiques the paradigm views every new technological or scientific power as progress. This is especially dangerous, he notes, when it goes arm in arm with an economic system that accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit (sections 105-109 of the Encyclical.) “The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology” is an illusion. While many of us would never affirm these one-dimensional scientific and economic theories with our words, we too often support them with our deeds! Moreover, “our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.” (105) We must grow in ethics and wisdom commensurate to our technological advances.
2. The Pope in his encyclical calls us to “An authentic humanity built on synthesis with the natural world and all people.” A less anthropocentric paradigm was operative in past centuries: “Men and women have constantly intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand.” But “Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another, the relationship has become confrontational.” (106) Yet Francis believes that “we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom necessary to limit and direct technology (112).
3. There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology. Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with one another and with God.” Human work is a setting for rich personal growth. Its meaning is not only, nor even primarily, economic. Ecological changes must consider the wellness of human beings. Issues of employment and of abortion are specifically named by Francis in the Encyclical. The Pope takes a complex view of genetic modification. “The risks involved are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application.” (133) “Discussions are needed in which all those directly or indirectly affected (farmers, consumers, civil authorities, scientists, seed producers, people living near fumigated fields, and others) can make known their problems and concerns, and have access to adequate and reliable information to make decisions for the common good, future and present.” (135)
I tell Pope Francis that the Episcopal Iowa Creation Stewards hopes to have such listening events across Iowa in the coming months, including at the Ministries Retreat in Grinnell this summer. He offers his intelligent, affable smile. Speaking of Grinnell, the train pulls in, this is the Pope’s stop, and he must leave us (probably to lecture at the college?)
The preceding fantastical trip with Pope Francis across Iowa on a light-rail train is fictitious. His teaching on “The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis” in Laudato Sί is not! It is accessible to all and very worth the read.
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