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In Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis acknowledged that “numerous scientists, philosophers, theologians and civic groups have enriched the Church’s thinking” on sustainability. Hospitals and health care organizations may not be an obvious resource for ecological inspiration, but they have been responsible for shaping the contours of sustainability as well. While some Catholic health care organizations have already established measures to mitigate climate change, Laudato Si’ challenges all of Catholic health care to reflect the dual concerns for “God’s creation and the poor and outcast.” Concretely, two ways this can be achieved are by cutting carbon emissions and reducing water footprints.
The Catholic Health Association holds that Catholic health care “continues Jesus’ mission of love and healing in the world today.” We believe that in the face of climate change, this mission calls the health care ministry to divest from fossil fuel corporations and reinvest in companies and industries that promote the common good, of which the climate, as Pope Francis emphasizes, is an essential part. In this essay, we call on Catholic health care systems and institutions to lead the way among all health care systems and institutions by seriously considering financial divestment from fossil fuels.
In this essay I will define green bioethics and provide a theological grounding for care of creation. By presenting two instances of green bioethics already in place through green burial and green hospital administration- both of which are being led by Catholics- the scene is set for furthering the conservation of the medical industry. Four principles for determining if a medical development, technique or procedure is green will be proposed. Current humans needs over wants for enhancement; simplicity in treatments before complexity; general allocation of resources before special interest access; and encouraging compassion and justice to drive technology instead of financial profit will be my four principles for moving the medical industry into the realm of green bioethics. I will conclude by urging medical professionals, bioethicists and ecologists to consider the link between bioethics and ecology and move towards a green bioethic.
In this essay I will define green bioethics and provide a theological grounding for care of creation. By presenting two instances of green bioethics already in place through green burial and green hospital administration- both of which are being led by Catholics- the scene is set for furthering the conservation of the medical industry. Four principles for determining if a medical development, technique or procedure is green will be proposed. The priorities are: 1. Current humans needs should take priority over current human wants for enhancement [environmental conservation]; 2. Simplicity in treatments before complexity [reducing dependence on medical technology]; 3. General allocation of resources before special interest access[ global justice] ; 4. Financial profit should not drive technology, but compassion and justice should instead [ethical economics]. I will conclude by urging theologians, bioethicists and physicians to consider the link between bioethics and ecology and move towards a green bioethic in the medical industry.
The study aims to have a better understanding of ecological stewardship found in Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ in relation to the current environmental problems in the Philippines in order to propose an ecological spirituality for the care of the Philippine environment. In the Philippines, there are key environmental problems that need to be addressed, namely, pollutions, mining activities, deforestation, land conversion, depletion of fisheries and aquatic resources, loss of biodiversity, global warming and climate change. We will analyze the teachings of Pope Francis on his first ever ecological encyclical devoted only to environmental issues, namely Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home. Human beings including the Filipino people, overuse their freedom, which results in the destruction of our common home including the Philippine archipelago. Pope Francis implores all people, including Filipinos, to change their hearts and their ways of life. Filipinos are capable in living this ecological stewardship and spirituality for the care of their environment. Ecological stewardship and spirituality inspire, motivate, and guide a new way of life for all Filipino people, sustaining them to love and care for their environment.
Volume 6 of APT dedicated to the reception of Laudato si' from the perspective of the global South, especially Sub-Saharan Africa.
Solidarity: The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and Secular Ethics
Sustainable Development and Integral Ecology in the Laudato Si' and the Philippine Ecological Experience2018 •
Two of the most important concepts that are related to environmental care and our present ecological situation are sustainable development and integral ecology. Pope Francis in his encyclical letter Laudato Si’ focused on these concepts and stressed the need to safeguard our environment to ensure that while we meet the needs of the present generation we also do not compromise the needs of the future generation. He proposes a development that is both sustainable and integral, a development that is authentically just and for the common good. In this paper I discuss the ideals of sustainable development and integral ecology as expounded by various scholars and from both the western and oriental perspectives and as discussed in Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’. The last section of the paper highlights the Philippine ecological situation to serve not as an ideal but a kind of mirror as to what is happening in a developing country like the Philippines which is situated in an area where different ecological factors converge. The Philippines has always been at the center of the many ecological crises mainly because of human and natural factors. In the end, I stress that sustainable development must be premised on integral ecology and this should be the case not only in the Philippines but in the entire planet.
Laudato si' 4 years later
Laudato si', four years later2019 •
The Christian churches’ traditional environmental ethics, borrowed from Antiquity, is stewardship. It is still the official position of the Compendium of social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which has integrated neither the ethics nor the ecology of Laudato si’. Laudato si’ has augmented the stewardship ethics with an ethics of care, borrowed from the spirituality of Saint-Francis of Assisi and the philosophy of Saint-Bonaventure. The ethics of care is also the one that inspires indigenous people and feminist ethics. The feminist theologians are the ones who built on the feminist movement, deconstructed the patriarchal conception of the omnipotent Creator and of the dominion ethics found in the Bible, and tied social injustices, mainly affecting women, to ecological degradation. Liberation theology, mainly L. Boff, picked up from there to assimilate ecological degradation to the predicament of the poor. While liberation theology had to shed its Marxist ties under the pressure of the Catholic hierarchy, it abandoned, at least in its Argentinian version, its Marxist analysis of social phenomena in favor of education of the faithful. This is one explanation for the major emphasis of Laudato si’ on education and the scant attention paid to policy. Another explanation is the conviction that deep changes need to occur at the individual and social level and that policy is less effective in bringing about these changes. Individualism, in part responsible for the disaffection towards institutional religion, is comforted by this conviction and by the imaginary of the relation networks existing among humans and between humans and non-human nature. On the other hand, the homogeneity of the religious groups should not be overestimated when it comes to more technical scientific or policy questions. Policy towards global ecological problems has been difficult to formulate and implement because the latter are “wicked problems”. The history of American climate policy, as retraced by D. Jamieson and N. Rich, is an illustration thereof. These authors tend to fall back on ethics as a major motivator for appropriate individual behavior, confirming the pope’s conviction. The relatively recent ethics of relational values may be a useful tool in order to build bridges among different types of ethics. Could religion, any religion, be an alternative motivator of pro-environmental behavior? Abundant sociological analysis, at least for the United-States, tends to lead to the opposite conclusion. One analysis finds that environmental illiteracy of the faithful is a major obstacle. The club mentality of numerous churches is such that environmental enthusiasm, if any, doesn’t spill much over the church walls. Generally speaking the conservative/liberal divide affecting religious congregations has been found over and over again to be the most significant explanatory variable. Eco-theology is creation theology which has been shaped by the environmental movement. It is still in its infancy and does not have a unified methodology yet. It is strongly influenced by Whitehead’s process theology and by Teilhard de Chardin. However, it offers the possibility of a mobilising “grand-narrative”. Its detailed analysis requires the enlistment of professional theologians.
The title of my contribution to this volume focuses on: raising awareness to the need for ecological conversion, as proposed by the Encyclical and TO DO IT FROM ITS ACCESSIBILITY TO THE IMPOVERISHED OF THIS WORLD.
Laudato Si’ marks a turning point in the contents of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) by including ecology in its core concerns. As the Pope himself states, the concerns on our common home have previously been addressed by other churches and Christian communities, especially by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (§7-9). After making a summary of key points of the Encyclical from the See-Judge-Act methodological perspective, I will respond to the invitation to dialogue that the encyclical conveys and show some examples on how the ecumenical movement has addressed care for creation and for the poorest.
Foodscapes: Beyond the Food Environment – A Feminist Theological Take on Food Issues in Asia. Edited by Kristine C. Meneses and Christine E. Burke.
Food Security and Food Waste: Reflection from Laudato Si and Ecofeminist Perspective2019 •
VOICES of the Third World
VOICES-2016-2, Laudato Si' and EcologyKAIROS FOR CREATION Confessing Hope for the Earth
"Worship as Place-Based Ecological Formation", as published in " KAIROS FOR CREATION Confessing Hope for the Earth" - Contributions and Recommendations from an International Conference on Eco-Theology and Ethics of Sustainability2020 •
The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy
Proposing an Examen for Living the Ecology of Daily Life and Building a Culture of Care2018 •
Care for the World: Laudato Si' and Catholic Social Thought in an Era of Climate Crisis (ed. Frank Pasquale), Cambridge University Press
Alter-Ecologies: Envisioning Papal & Ecomodernist Nuclear Energy Policy Futures (2019)2019 •
PLURIVERSE: A POST DEVELOPMENT DICTIONARY
"Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary" (AUF, 2019). NEW BOOK edited by Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Federico Demaria and Alberto Acosta. Download full ebook for free (PDF). License: Creative Commons2019 •
Caminhos de Diálogo
Rey Ty. (2019 December). The International Political Economy of Nature and Society: From Climate Emergency to Climate Justice. Caminhos de Diálogo, 7(11), pp. 172-186.2019 •
Religious responses to changing social environment in Southeast Asia
Climate Change and the Catholic Response in the Philippines2018 •
Journal of Religion and Society
Catholic Social Teaching, Ecology, and Food EthicsEarth System Dynamics 9: 1-15
On deeper human dimensions in Earth system analysis and modelling2018 •
Published by the Regents of the University of California
Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions2019 •
Journal of Moral Theology
"'For He is Our Peace': Thomas Aquinas on Christ as Cause of Peace in the City of the Saints"2016 •
Journal of Religious Ethics
The Mysterious Silence Of Mother Earth in Laudato Si'2018 •
The Ecumenical Review
Latin American and ecumenical insights in Laudato Si'2018 •