An Apocalypse Converted: William Stringfellow and Catholic Social Teaching on Climate Breakdown

2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110313
Author(s):  
Kevin Hargaden
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Spiritual Awakening ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Repeated Calls ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Integral Ecology

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis advances the concept of integral ecology to connect the environmental crisis with a range of social crises afflicting our societies. This concept is grounded in a theological commitment, but directed towards its political effects. Those two trajectories are represented by the encyclical’s articulation of a spiritual awakening described as an ecological conversion and its repeated calls to dialogue. Francis is not unaware of the risk that a naïve engagement in dialogue could stifle serious mitigation of the crises we face. Yet, even with many dire warnings about outcomes, much of the contemporary discourse around the climate and biodiversity crisis runs the risk of underestimating the nature of the problem. Apocalyptic theology, specifically in the work of William Stringfellow, is proposed as a valuable interlocutor at this point. Stringfellow’s account of the Christian life as a battle with the forces of Death allows Christians to name that which we are converted from in an ecological conversion, strengthening the grounds upon which dialogue is engaged.

An Integral Ecology as the Ground for Good Business

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Michael Naughton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Integral Relationship ◽  
Spiritual Consciousness ◽  
Integral Ecology

Integral ecology is an increasingly important term in Catholic social teaching. This paper brings this term in relation to business drawing upon the integral relationship between human and natural ecology. Pope Francis and his two predecessors believe that the current ecological conversation can increase our sensitivity to our impact on the natural environment as well as help us to rediscover the moral and spiritual consciousness of human nature and development that has been weakened and disordered in the wider culture. An integral ecology can enlarge our notion of the good, especially the good in business. Without the cultural and environmental insights from an integral ecology that has the capacity to provide deep moral and spiritual roots, business will always be prone to see itself within its own autonomous and utilitarian sphere failing to connect to the natural and human realities in which it is embedded.

Contributions of the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on Migration

Exchange ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge E. Castillo Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Social

This article searches for contributions provided by the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church to avoid suffering and death under migrants, that, following Pope Francis, are provoked from a ‘culture of rejection’. From an interdisciplinary approach this article facilitates the assessment of mechanisms that generate these situations. It also focuses on the ethical and theological criteria of the Catholic social teaching to achieve a culture of encounter and acceptance of migrants and refugees.

scholarly journals Pope Francis and Catholic Healthcare Ethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 186-201
Author(s):  
Cathleen Kaveny
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Healthcare Ethics ◽  
Field Hospital ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Third ◽  
Catholic Healthcare ◽  
The Church

This article examines the influence of Pope Francis on Catholic healthcare ethics. The first section offers an analytical summary of his ethics. The second section reviews a “Franciscan” approach to Catholic healthcare ethics, which situates that field within the broader context of Catholic social teaching. The third section analyzes the implications of three of Francis’s most powerful metaphors: his injunction to “go to the peripheries”; his contrast between a throwaway culture and a culture of encounter; and his comparison of the church to a field hospital.

Pope Francis and Catholic Social Teaching on Ecology

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-186
Author(s):  
Gregorio Guitián
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Managerial Decisions ◽  
Environmental Friendly ◽  
Synthetic View ◽  
Christian Message

Abstract In his visit to the United States, Pope Francis stressed the Christian message on ecology, which includes a calling to an “ecological conversion”. However, a recent paper on the influence of Christian religiosity on managerial decisions concerning the environment argues that Christian faith discourages managers’ environmental-friendly decisions. Francis message on ecology is part of the Catholic Social Teaching (CST), which contains valuable contributions, but it is still to be known. We present a synthetic view of CST on ecology and its implications for businesses, shareholders and consumers, which can also interest non-Christians concerned with the natural environment. Ultimately, we want to explain why Christians involved in economic activity should be concerned with the natural environment. We offer a moral qualification of acts regarding the natural environment, and conclude with some observations for Christian churches and business schools.

scholarly journals Planetary Moral Economy and Creaturely Redemption in Laudato Si’

2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 886-904
Author(s):  
Michael S. Northcott
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Earth

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis indicates that climate change, and other kinds of ecological destruction, are moral wrongs because they deny the fruits of the earth to the poor and to future generations, and they fail to honor the place of other creatures in Christ’s redemption of creation. LS sets climate change and the environmental crisis firmly in the context of two established features of Catholic social teaching: the dignity of poor and indigenous people and the intrinsic value of creatures to the Creator and their inclusion in the redemption of all things in Christ.

scholarly journals Pope Francis and the Christological Dimensions of Solidarity in Catholic Social Teaching

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-122
Author(s):  
Meghan J. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Social Tradition ◽  
Simple Definition

Solidarity is a central aspect of the Catholic social tradition and yet it is difficult to capture in a simple definition. Building upon his predecessor’s examination of solidarity, Pope Francis develops solidarity’s christological character, a previously underdeveloped aspect of Catholic social teaching. Francis’s use of place and proclamation in public ministry calls for an ethic of inclusion and encounter. Francis turns to the Incarnation as informing a theology of solidarity focused on both Jesus as model of solidarity and of lived solidarity as an encounter with Christ.

scholarly journals Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ Call to Ecological Conversion: Responding to the Cry of the Earth and the Poor—Towards an Integral Ecology

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 136-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ileana M. Porras
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Integral Ecology

The recent Encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, is a remarkable document, both original and continuous within the tradition of Catholic social doctrine. Emerging from and grounded in a very specific religious tradition and constrained by the peculiar encyclical literary form, the document nonetheless seeks to open a dialogue with “every person living on this planet,” about care for our common home. Using the urgency of addressing global climate change as its point of departure, the Encyclical does a superb job summarizing the scope of the present environmental crisis and the disproportionate harms suffered by vulnerable populations of the poor and excluded. It also provides a careful analysis of the root causes of environmental degradation, mapping out the complex linkages and tensions between globalization, economic growth, liberalized trade, unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, environmental degradation, involuntary migration, immiseration and growing inequality. In this respect, the Encyclical, may well come to serve as a useful position paper for the upcoming Paris climate change negotiations or as a background text for a course on climate change or sustainable development. Yet, properly understood, this is not its true purpose. Rather, in its deepest sense, the Encyclical is an appeal to all of humanity to listen to “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” to reject the “throwaway” culture of consumerism, and to embrace a culture of care and a commitment to pursue integral ecology. It is, in other words, a call to ecological conversion: a call addressed not only to individuals but also to individuals-in-community.

Socially Responsible Investment, the Stewardship of University Resources, and Integral Ecology

2021 ◽  
pp. 135-168
Author(s):  
Gerald J. Beyer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Socially Responsible Investment ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Catholic Colleges ◽  
Responsible Investment ◽  
Catholic Colleges And Universities ◽  
Integral Ecology

This chapter stresses the need for Catholic colleges and universities to engage in the just stewardship of resources. First, the author argues that all Catholic institutions must take seriously the notion of socially responsible investment, informed by the principles of Catholic moral theology and Catholic social teaching. The chapter then considers whether divestment from fossil fuels is a moral imperative and discusses how socially responsible investment principles should also inform whether Catholic institutions can accept donations from individuals, corporations, or government agencies that may have done grave harm to either people or the planet. The author advances the argument that Catholic colleges and universities have a duty to fulfil the vision of integral ecology in Catholic social teaching by implementing “micro-level actions” and promoting systemic level changes to promote sustainability. The chapter also surveys some of the efforts of Catholic institutions to green their campuses and contends that these institutions must recognize that integral ecology relates to both environmental sustainability and human welfare, including the welfare of workers on campus and in their supply chains.

Catholic Social Thought against Economism

Send Lazarus ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 15-62
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Eggemeier ◽  
Peter Joseph Fritz
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Benedict Xvi

During the last three papacies, Catholic social teaching (CST) has become particularly sensitized to the danger of capitalist economism, a tendency to reduce the whole of life to economic matters. A concern with economism enters with John Paul’s first social encyclical, continues when Benedict XVI links the error of economism to his criticisms of economic utopianism, and matures when Pope Francis criticizes the contemporary dominant manifestation of economism, which he calls by various names, including “unfettered capitalism,” “the faceless economy,” “the economy that kills,” and “neoliberalism.” The chapter ends by discussing how neoliberalism has been made to seem friendly to Catholics by neoconservatives who distort CST by ignoring the continuity between the three most recent popes regarding opposition to economism.

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