When we speak of integral ecology, even amongst men and women religious, the term is often understood simply as a commitment to the environment: recycling, saving energy, tending the community vegetable patch or garden. These are valuable actions, but on their own they do not fully capture the meaning of what Pope Francis set out in Laudato si’. There is a risk of relegating integral ecology to a ‘sector’ of pastoral care, to just one activity amongst many, or to a passing fad, thereby losing sight of its evangelical and prophetic significance. For this reason, before delving into individual topics, we feel the need to clarify exactly what we are talking about.
The encyclical does not offer a definition in a single formula, but clearly outlines its contours. Its starting point is that ‘everything is interconnected’ (LS 16, 91, 117, 138): we are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but with ‘a single, complex socio-environmental crisis’ (LS 139), for which we must listen together to ‘both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’ (LS 49). Integral ecology is therefore the perspective that brings together the fundamental relationships on which life depends: that with God, that with our neighbour and that with the earth (cf. LS 66). Chapter Four sets out its various dimensions: environmental, economic and social, cultural, and those of daily life (LS 147–155), together with the principle of the common good (LS 156–158) and intergenerational justice (LS 159–162). At the heart of it all, Laudato si’ points to the need for an ‘ecological conversion’ (LS 216–221), that is, a change of heart, of lifestyles and of development models, which arises from an encounter with Christ and which involves prayer, community and mission.
In this regard, the 19th General Chapter reminded us that “In response to the challenges of the epochal change we are experiencing, in the light of the Word of God, we embrace Integral Ecology as a fundamental pillar of our mission, linking the pastoral, liturgical, formational, social, economic, political and environmental dimensions.” (AC 2022, 30).
In this sense, we can say that integral ecology is a paradigm of knowledge and action, founded on faith in God the Creator, which recognises the interconnection between all creatures and between all dimensions of reality (spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural and environmental), and calls us to a personal and structural conversion so that we may care, with justice and love, for our common home and for those who inhabit it, beginning with the least among us.
The following factsheets are intended to help religious communities explore this paradigm through specific themes (climate justice, extractivism, indigenous peoples, martyrs of Creation, food security, the energy transition, peace and others), showing how each one serves as a gateway to a single vision. They are not a list of ‘new commitments’, but an invitation to re-examine our charism and our mission in the light of ‘integral ecology’ as the evangelical vocation of our time.
Sheets
