The Seamless Garment and the Environment

The bishops of the United States have spoken about the Catholic community’s concern for the environment in the pastoral statement Renewing the Earth: An Invitation to Reflection and Action on Environment in Light of Catholic Social Teaching.

            In this document they maintain that, “at its core, the environmental crisis is a moral challenge. It calls us to examine how we use and share the goods of the earth, what we pass on to future generations, and how we live in harmony with God's creation.”

            Their statement has six major concerns:

1. to highlight the ethical dimensions of the environmental crisis;

2. to link questions of ecology and poverty, environment and development;

3. to stand with working men and women and poor and disadvantaged persons, whose lives are often impacted by ecological abuse and tradeoffs between environment and development;

4. to promote a vision of a just and sustainable world community;

5. to invite the Catholic community and men and women of good will to reflect more deeply on the religious dimensions of this topic; and

6. to begin a broader conversation on the potential contribution of the Church to environmental questions.

 But, they argue, above all, we seek to explore the links between concern for the person and for the earth, between natural ecology and social ecology. The web of life is one. Our mistreatment of the natural world diminishes our own dignity and sacredness, not only because we are destroying resources that future generations of humans need, but because we are engaging in actions that contradict what it means to be human. Our tradition calls us to protect the life and dignity of the human person, and it is increasingly clear that this task cannot be separated from the care and defense of all of creation.

The bishops main that, American Catholics are an integral part of this new awareness and action. In many small ways, we are learning more, caring more, and doing more about the environment and the threats to it. As a community of faith, we are also seeking to understand more clearly the ethical and religious dimensions of this challenge. This pastoral message, building on the previous statements and actions of individual bishops, dioceses, state conferences, and the episcopal conferences of other nations, as well as on the reflections and research of theologians, scientists, and environmentalists, is an effort to help that understanding. A distinctively Catholic contribution to contemporary environmental awareness arises from our understanding of human beings as part of nature, although not limited to it. Catholics look to nature, in natural theology, for indications of God's existence and purpose.

 In elaborating a natural moral law, we look to natural processes themselves for norms for human behavior. With such limits in mind, Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus urged that in addition to protecting natural systems and other species, we "safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic ‘human ecology'" in urban planning, work environments, and family life (Centesimus Annus, no. 38). Nature is not, in Catholic teaching, merely a field to exploit at will or a museum piece to be preserved at all costs. We are not gods, but stewards of the earth.

 To Learn More:

Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good

Caring for God’s Creation:USCCB’S Environmental Justice Program

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