God's Creation

A neighbor's cow has been bellowing mournfully throughout the night and into today. Yesterday a truck came and took away three of its fellows, including a couple of young ones, and so we think perhaps they are calling back and forth since we can also hear a lowing cow in the back pastures of our neighbor's farm.

I check the Vatican site about once a week to catch up on Pope Leo XIV's calendar. Most recently, I read Cardinal Secretary Parolin's address to the 30th UN conference on climate change . Since it looks like the Pope wants to keep up the momentum with socio-ecological reflections on the earth, apparently begun with Pope Paul VI back in the 70's when the first climate warnings came out, and addressed by all popes since, it seems appropriate to deepen my thinking on a topic that tends to get stratified along political lines.

However-- since I do this fairly frequently, surfing a topic that has become interesting -- it is one of the purest delights of the internet -- and this blog is about my relationship to the internet and all that involves -- I will mostly focus on process.

I know very little in depth about the theology of creation and stewardship besides the obvious. Speaking of the obvious, it often is not as obvious as one would think. The Catechism provides a starting point. Some, at least, of the footnotes are linked to Scripture and magisterial teachings, and can be very helpful for lining up the principles at hand.

Laudato Si has some references to past magisterial teachings as well. But it's quite long.

I found two authors who focus on a theology of creation in some way. I hadn't heard of either of them before.

One is Michael Dominic Taylor who writes for Communio. A couple of these can be read in pdf, though I have not read them yet. He is an admirer of Laudato Si, but wrote a slightly critical review of Pope Francis's follow-up exhortation Laudate Deum.

Another is Matthew Ramage who teaches at Benedictine University. He also has a strong focus on Catholic stewardship of the earth, and has written about Pope Benedict's principles of environmentalism, and also about Pope Leo's thought on the topic so far in his papacy.

This post has been simply an outline of my starter resources. When I'm learning about a topic, I usually go to survey sources (like the CCC) and primary magisterial sources if they are not too long. Then I look for trustworthy commentary. ... which means briefly, writings that will go into theological territory with reference to continuity.

The CCC says of the Church's social doctrine in general:

2420 The Church makes a moral judgment about economic and social matters, "when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it."200 In the moral order she bears a mission distinct from that of political authorities: the Church is concerned with the temporal aspects of the common good because they are ordered to the sovereign Good, our ultimate end. She strives to inspire right attitudes with respect to earthly goods and in socio-economic relationships.

Of care for the Earth it says:

2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity.195 Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.196

You can see that this is theological justification for the efforts of the Church to articulate concern for the environment and for social issues, but it certainly isn't in itself an endorsement of a political party or specific procedural proposals.