THE LAST WORD

LIFE-GIVING DREAMS

BY FATHER SILVANO FAUSTI SJ | BIBLIST AND WRITER

“Don’t be afraid to take Mary with you” (Mt 1: 18–25)

THESE ARE the words that the angel says to Joseph. From Mary, in fact, he will receive Jesus, the Son begotten of the Spirit, the God-with-us.

This account clearly answers the two questions that open the previous passage, the genealogy of Jesus: who is the Father of Jesus, and how does Joseph enter into his kinship?

Christ is the Son of God Himself, begotten by the Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary; Joseph, the prototype of the believer, becomes his consanguinity by marrying Mary. In him we see man’s doubts and resistance of the person to open up to something much bigger that what one is, even if it is what one is made for.

Faith in the Word establishes the kinship between us and God. Through it, like Joseph, we welcome the One who has the power to make us children (Jn 1: 12). Everything is left to our responsibility, our capacity to respond to the Word of God: this is the ‘angel’ who offers us the possibility to welcome him, to listen to him and to answer him.

The genealogy of Jesus tells us how God enters into our history; in this passage, instead, how we enter into His. He takes our flesh as it is, we receive Him as He offers Himself to us, in Mary.

Joseph is the descendant of David, to whom God promised the Messiah. But He who promises, always commits Himself, and what He promises at the end is Himself, committed in every one of His promises. The son of David will be, not only the promised Messiah but, the same Lord who makes the promise.

The Son is not born of us; He comes from the Spirit, because God is Spirit. Joseph thinks he must step back out of discretion and unworthiness (vv. 18, 19). But he is encouraged by the angel to take the mother and the Son. He must give the name to the One who is not his.

He is someone else, he is the Other himself, who awaits his “yes” to be his son, the God-with-him, the One who saves him and every generation from the loneliness of non-being (vv. 21–23). Joseph is from now on presented as the one who listens and executes the Word (vv. 24, 25).

Jesus is the Son of God, begotten in eternity by the Father in the Spirit, and born in time from the flesh of Mary, by the work of the same Spirit.

The Church, like Joseph ‘the dreamer’, realizes God’s dream: in silence adoring, through faith welcomes the gift of the Son. 

Praying the text

I imagine Joseph’s perplexity; what he thinks and why 
I imagine his thoughts and feelings, his fiancé is pregnant 
I listen to the words of the angel to him as he sleeps, how he reacts to his mission of giving name to Emmanuel, God-with-us 
I ask what I need for my life: not to be afraid to take God’s gift in Mary.

SPIRITUALITY •ECOSOPHIES

ECOLOGICAL SPIRITUALITY FROM THE WISDOM OF THE ECOSOPHIES

The ecological problem, the unprecedented environmental global degradation in which we currently find ourselves, is certainly the greatest crisis facing humanity today. The response to it will define the future of our planet and its biodiversity while a passive reaction will bring forth the risk of self-destruction

BY RAFAEL GÜITRÓN TORRES | COMBONI MISSIONARY

WHAT IS the root cause of this ecological crisis? Surely, we can affirm that it lies on the devaluation of life and its meaning. Confusion and disappointment are fluttering in the hearts of many people, even though for others, this situation may provoke, in turn, an awakening and openness to new horizons of humanity. 

Some people, thirsty for meaning and roots, turn their gaze towards spirituality as one of the sources to quench their thirst. Spirituality refers to the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul, as opposed to material or physical things. It seeks the integration of the human being’s thirst for unity and harmony; a willingness to care for creation; an openness to transcendence; a tension between the earthly life and the craving for salvation. Pope Francis (2015), in his encyclical, Laudato Si’ (LS), invites us to turn to our interior life if we want to heal the world. He repeatedly promotes a culture of life or a way of being in the planet that protects all forms of life and cares for spirituality (LS 63, 64), and states that this is medicine for the ecological crisis. 

This search for spirituality moves our hearts to look for God and His presence among us. God imprints the seal of His creation through two calligraphies: the canvas of nature from where we can extract His mark, and the Word of God, a Word incarnated in the history of salvation, as we find it in the Bible. Both are papyri engraved with environmental spirituality • ECOSOPHIES 42 worldwide dec-jan 2021 worldwide dec-jan 2021 43 characters (those sprung from creation in its beauty, as well as elements of nature present in the sacred texts), in need of being examined to generate a creative action (LS 85). In the light of creation and in front of the text of the burning bush (Ex 3: 1f), we take off our shoes with a humble heart and open our intelligence to contemplate nature and, with it, the One who is Beauty and Life.

God invites the human being to a spirituality of a new genesis through His loving epiphany: creation becomes an environmental covenant that, through its care, transforms humanity (LS 240). Finally, the trace of God’s Spirit is found in the cosmos which is, at the same time, His gift and vestige; wisdom that emanates from nature, or ecosophy. However, it demands that its message be interpreted, in order to nourish and motivate the fluttering of the spirit of the peoples. 

Ecosophy is the wisdom that comes from the relationship of interdependence between the elements of the cosmos, God and the human being, forming a cosmotheanthropic bond. As Raimon Panikkar (1994) affirms, it is about the relationship of the One with the Whole. Indeed ecosophy, as wisdom-spirituality, defines a mode of an integral relationship between nature and society; it engenders a healthy communion that cares for the common home (LS 78). If the human being forgets the essential elements that generate life, its immediate consequence is similar to the contraction of Alzheimer’s disease, the annihilation of history and the destruction of nature—an ecocide. Therefore, it is fundamental to recognise the ecosophy transmitted to us by peoples scattered throughout the length and breadth of the planet, who represent traces of the Good and the Truth and knowledge of an integral ecology.

THE WORLD-VIEW OF ECOSOPHY

The purpose of this reflection continues exposing some of the cultural knowledge present in the different peoples of the world, which should be the points of reference for the human search for sense andglobal solidarity (LS 201).

The ecosophies of the peoples of the American lands propose the following key elements: life in harmony with nature, as their fundamental principle; a diversity of narratives within a religious and spiritual sense of existence; the importance of education in knowledge and skills for life; a sense of the meaning of life and death; a hierarchy of values; justice, presented always as the way to restore order; forms of self-government based on uses and customs; a cosmo-vision of good and evil that articulates morality; and finally, the principle of identity, meaning that one is a person because one belongs to the community. All these values of life are reasons for a radical demand to care for and nurture a good living in the territories between the Pacific
and Atlantic Oceans. 

Moving on, let’s briefly explore the sub-Saharan ecosophy of Africa, especially in the Bantu tradition which comprises more than 400 ethnic groups. The heart of their perspective is found in the Sotho proverb, Motho ke motho ka batho babang (a person becomes a person because of other people), referring to those who contribute in making one a human being. So, the identity and relational values of the Bantu spirit are defined in the light of the Ubuntu/botho (humanity) ecosophy. Indeed, some central elements of this African cultural knowledge are as follows: the interconnection and communion as founding the fundamental values of the tribe; the community as the origin and destiny of the individual and the inalienable duty to become fully its member; the value of the family, in a broad sense; fraternity as a principle of co-existence and a guarantee of survival; communion between generations: the past, the present and the future, and the ancestors; group solidarity in the daily struggles; ecological harmony as essential to life i.e. the prayers and rites propitiatory for example, a good storm. It is the cosmo-vision of Ubuntu-humanity that creates the community of people and, therefore, forms the individual (Nontobeko 2006). Finally, Africa is the land where life dances to the rhythm of the drum.

In the same way, the European continent is home to movements that signify old-new values that prevent forces, in a particular way, against an environmental destruction. So, the fruit of this encounter-divergence, as far as ecosophy is concerned, interweaves the following paths: the search for a balance between matter and spirit; the education for the care of the biosphere; the common good as an ecological principle; the value of an eternal instant that combines yesterday’s and tomorrow’s time; the constant change of cultural paradigms; the promotion of solidarity-based economies; proximity as an integrating element; the demand to link truth and politics; and the phenomenon of the relationship between the environment and religious belief (Maffesoli 2017). In conclusion, the European paradigm incorporates action that tends to heal the relationship between society and nature, going beyond a simple respect for the ecological, towards an integral care for creation.

The Asian continent, sanctuary of important spiritual movements (Tianchen 2003), proposes the following founding elements: nature is endowed with a capacity to harmonize itself and its balance is the moral criterion for human relations; there are vital rhythms that need to be respected; a principle of benevolence that demands a healthy relationship between humanity, earth and heaven, for the flourishing of the Pure Earth; frugality, as a demand that limits human excess; the person is not the master of nature; the need of harmonious co-existence with other living beings and the fact that truth is reflected in human actions. In short, it promotes the safeguarding of the social and natural environments, thus guaranteeing the salvation of the spirit of humanity. 

After reviewing the values of the main ecosophies throughout the planet, we may consider the need for integrating them towards an
ecological spirituality.

ECOLOGICAL SPIRITUALITY (LS 202)

Humanity is facing the problem of an environmental uprooting, i.e. the lack of ground, identity, history and spirituality. Uprooting is the process in which people lose contact with their own vital roots, those that define them in a sociocultural and geographical environment. It produces evident effects such as political indifference; ethical relativism; objectivism; domination of the quantifiable; migrations caused by ecological reasons or habitat destruction; degradation of justice; adoration of power-money; lack of creativity; absence of religious inspiration and depersonalization. The person loses one’s vital references and habitat, one’s place of cultural and historical coexistence, producing a suffocation of the fluttering of the Spirit. However, it is in the common home or territory where the human being takes root, grows and dies as an incarnated spirit that loves life by rising to transcendence.

Spirituality becomes a well that contributes to satiate the human aspiration for a better environmental world, from the ontological demand of unity in diversity. This implies some prerequisites: human greatness that creates communion; care for creation; seeking quality life styles; enjoying sobriety as an authentic mode of existence; incarnating a mystical prophecy; fighting for the common good; promoting peace and learning to rest (LS 222–227). 

Spirituality is thus the oasis where the ecosophies brought by the pilgrims of life converge. It is the oasis as a propitious space-time that breaks down all barriers and creates the persona of the common home. Spirituality is the place where the traveller dwells and is nourished; where the person lives together with others and prepare themselves to resume again the adventure of life, in the communion of the One
with the All.

References 
Maffesoli, Michel. 2017. Ecosophie. Du Cerf, France. 
Nontobeko, Winnie Msegana. 2006. The significance of the concept ‘ubuntu’ for educational management and leadership during democratic transformation in South Africa. Stellenbosch University, South Africa. https://core.ac.uk/download/ pdf/37319167.pdf 
Pannikkar, Ramon. 1994. Ecosofía, para una espiritualidad de la Tierra. San Pablo, Madrid. 
Pope Francis. 2015. Encyclical, Laudato Si’. On the care for our common home. Vatican City. 
Tianchen, Li. 2003. Confucian ethics and the environment. Culture Mandala 6, no. 1, art. 4. The Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies, Queensland.

FRONTIERS •GREEN REGENERATION

A WALL FOR A GREENER AFRICA

The first idea of creating a green barrier against the growing desertification of Africa was conceived in 2005 during a regional Conference of African Heads of States in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Two institutions, the African Union (AU) and the Pan-African Agency for the Great Green Wall (PAGGW) for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative, are currently leading this programme, aimed at reforestation 

BY MARTA GATTI | ITALIAN RESEARCHER AND JOURNALIST

THE GREEN great barrier would consist of a 15 km wide strip, from Senegal to Djibouti, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, for a total length of about 8 000 km, across 13 countries in the Sahelian area. It aims to regenerate 100 million ha of degraded land by 2030, capture 250 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere and create 10 million jobs in rural areas, directly contributing to the UN’s sustainable development goals. The Wall has promised to be a compelling solution to the many urgent threats—notably climate change, drought, famine, conflict and migration— facing not only the African Continent, but the global community as a whole. 

The way to achieve that ambitious mission has been planting trees to stop the advance of the desert, reverse land degradation and to help curb the impoverishment of the population. It aims also at boosting food security, and through an eco-sustainable economy, support local communities so as to adapt themselves to climate change. 

Various actors are also involved in the project, the UN Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), the World Bank with The Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the European Union as well as other African
regional organizations.

The initiative has now been expanded to a vaster territory, surrounding the Sahara Desert: north of the Sahelian belt, and in the south, up to Benin, Togo and Ghana, countries initially excluded. It involves, at different levels, a total of 22 countries and 232 million people who live in the area surrounding the Sahara and would benefit from the project.

RESULTS

It is difficult to understand what the achieved results actually are. According to www.greatgreenwall.org, a website managed by the UNCCD, a decade in, and roughly 15% of the total final objectives would have been reached. The site states that the initiative is already bringing life back to Africa’s degraded landscapes at an unprecedented scale, providing food security, jobs and a reason to stay for the millions who live along its path. Once complete, the Great Green Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet, three times the size of the Great Barrier Reef. There is, however, no mention of the number of jobs created. (https://www. greatgreenwall.org/).

The figures vary a lot if we use the PAGGW as the official source: three million hectares regenerated in 11 countries and 11 000 permanent jobs created. The records are still different if we take into account the numerous programmes created in support of GGW.

A COMMON STRATEGY AND THREE CRITERIA

In 2012, the Harmonized Regional Strategy, still in force today, was adopted by the leading institutions of the project, aiming to standardize and provide guidelines to the acceding countries. According to this document, the project intentions to conserve, develop and manage natural resources and ecosystems, strengthen the infrastructure and potential of rural areas, diversify economic activities and improve the living conditions of the communities. These are, therefore, multi-sectorial actions which must be integrated. 

In the opinion of the scientific and technical director of the PAGGW, Abakar Zougoulou, there is still a problem of a misunderstanding among the many institutions that follow the inspiration of the project, but whose actions are not part of it. “In order to be considered part of this initiative, three criteria indicated in the Harmonized Regional Strategy must be respected. The first is about the geographical space, the circum-Sahara, from the Maghreb to sub-Saharan Africa. The second refers to the portion of territory in each state: i.e. areas with the lowest rainfall, from 100 to 400 mm. This has been identified by the African scientific community as a priority area for intervention.

Up to now, 28 million ha of land have been regenerated and 12 million trees have been planted in five of the twenty-two countries that have joined the project

The third criterion applies to the species of plants used. “About 200 species have been identified, based on their adaptability. Not having enough funds available to cover the entire part of the countries, priority areas had to be chosen. All institutions that want to be part of the project must take this into account, but often they have not done so”,
says Zougoulou.

According to him, only recently have the partners understood the need to act first in the low rainfall areas and then expand their action outside. Considering the three criteria mentioned above, many World Bank projects would not fall under the GGW initiative because their actions have touched areas of the countries outside the indicated rainfall zone. 

THE KEY IS AGROFORESTRY PASTORALISTS

The ecological rehabilitation of this area must take into account several factors, not the least, the access to land. Farmers and shepherds are the main protagonists of the Green Wall. Hence, the project must involve the community farms in the natural reforestation process.

In Ethiopia, for instance, to combat depopulation, the World Bank has envisioned making some rural areas more attractive so as to retain their inhabitants. In Niger, agroforestry systems, combining tall trees and annual crop production, have been adopted. FAO has focused its projects on introducing various agricultural techniques and technologies as well as developing local skills and competencies. Native plants that are useful to communities, as a source of timber, food, fodder and as a sale product, have been incorporated. In particular, initiatives with gum arabic, forage, seeds and oils of local species have been developed. FAO ventures have focused on agroforestry systems that guarantee food, income and market. “The main beneficiaries are women involved in the processing and sale of plant products”, points out Nora Berrahmouni, regional head of FAO for Action Against Desertification projects in Africa. 

FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE

The motto of the PAGGW has been ‘for the people and by the people’, a multisectorial, inclusive and ecologically based approach that involves people in an active, conscious and voluntary way. These are community farms originated from a village or a group of villages. Up to now, there are six active projects that have to be replicated. In farms of about 3 000 ha, horticulture, beekeeping and small animal breeding are developed. The venues are identified on the basis of the three mentioned criteria: geographical, social and cultural homogeneity of the populations, the amount of rainfall in the area and the adaptability of the species to be included. The reforestation programmes involve areas between one village and another and include the cultivation of plants considered strategic, such as gum arabic, moringa and spirulina (commonly called spirulina algae, a cyan bacterium rich in proteins). Water management takes place through the conservation of rainwater and the construction of large wells.

The Green Wall area includes community gardens, pasture areas, spaces for fruit and income trees, beekeeping initiatives, among others, multisectoral activities that guarantee an additional income to the local populations

In some cases, specific technologies have also been introduced, such as the Vallerani System, a mechanical tool made up of a plough and a tractor that allows the tilling of arid and semi-arid soils in order to rehabilitate degraded soils. This technology also optimises the conservation and the rational use of rainwater. Technologies are not always welcomed at the level of individual countries; sometimes fear of losing jobs replaced by mechanical tools, emerges.

In other cases, GGW has appropriated local techniques used by farmers and shepherds. This is the case in Burkina Faso where the zaï system has been adopted and even exported. It consists of small holes made in the ground, enriched with manure, in which water is collected, making the soil more fertile. This is a traditional technique made famous by the Burkinabe farmer, Yacouba Sawadogo. Among the methodologies adopted by the projects, assisted natural reforestation is also used.
It provides for the protection of indigenous tree species which are normally cut or burnt to fertilize the land used for
agricultural production.

SOCIAL REHABILITATION

Among the difficulties encountered, the main actors involved in the GGW mention the insecurity in some areas of Sahel, the conflicts in spaces where water resources are very scarce and the abandonment of the countryside. To avoid the emergence of conflicts within the communities affected by the projects, the PAGGW has adopted the above-mentioned criteria of homogeneity; a system that may also risk exclusion
instead of inclusion.

The right of access to land was one of the issues raised, particularly taking into account the logic of transhumance and the involvement of nomadic users of the land. “Often the aim is to close the spaces of use, without attempting to reconcile the different activities. In cases where the land aspect has not been taken into account, the project has failed”, stresses Mélanie Requier-Desjardins, a researcher at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier. She took part in the drafting of the document, The African Great Green Wall Project: what advice can scientists give? edited by the French Scientific Committee on Desertification. According to the researcher, moreover, it must be clear that the ecological rehabilitation of a territory must also be matched by a social rehabilitation: “If free access land is transformed into areas forbidden for some, inequalities are generated. For example, when the rehabilitated areas are assigned to farmers who have many animals, we lose the small shepherds”. The initial project focused mainly on agricultural communities according to Mélanie.

Abakar Zougoulou has a simple solution for involving nomadic populations too: “Shepherds can use the undergrowth pasture and collect forest products. They can produce straw and fodder to store and use them in the dry season”. FAO has focused on plants that are useful to shepherds, integrating the interests of each productive activity, to avoid conflicts. In some cases, the solution found, mentioned by the PAGGW, was that of fences. The debate is still open. 

In Senegal, the only country to have started reforestation on the whole 15 km wide strip of land, a change of strategy has been made. Youssef Brahimi, a former member of the UNCCD Global Mechanism, an institution created to assist countries to mobilize financial resources to address desertification, land degradation and drought, states: “They started with reforestation, but afterwards they realized that the itinerary included villages and communities. Therefore, they also included vegetable gardens, with a particular contribution by women”. 

In the Harmonized Regional Strategy, explicit reference is made to ensuring fair access to land resources for all the populations living in the arid areas. Brahimi participated in the drafting of the document: “The securing of land has been promoted not only on an individual level, but as a common good, through community management. We felt pressure from institutions to develop national land legislation that would allow individuals to have a right to land—but we know that where there is an individual property right, it serves to put the land up for sale. That is why most projects have set up community management committees. Action Against Desertification projects, for example, are carried out on community land, in agreement with municipalities and mayors. The land is identified by involving the population and the local administration. “The existence of a management committee is important because it allows to locate the land and to record its use in an official way”, points out Nora Berrhamouni, FAO regional co-ordinator.

PRIVATE PARTNERS

In regard to the entry of private capital, not all the partners of the GGW share the same attitude. According to the PAGGW, private capital is not needed because “they would take most of the hectares”. The FAO is not of the same opinion, as it has produced a document aimed precisely at private individuals who want to invest in land redevelopment activities. The call for private capital has also been launched by the African Union and the World Bank. 

In any case, in most countries, land belongs to the state and it is the state that decides its use. Abakar Zougoulou explains well what this means: “If oil is found in an area where reforestation has been carried out, it is unlikely that trees will remain”. 

PROFILE •ST FRANCIS AND ST CLARE OF ASSISI

THE CRY OF THE EARTH, THE CRY
OF THE POOR

The article reflects on the legacy of St Francis and St Clare, which has been so influential in shaping Catholic thinking today

BY MARIAN PALLISTER | AUTHOR AND CHAIR OF PAX CHRISTI, SCOTLAND

WHEN JORGE Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected leader of the Catholic Church in March 2013, he chose the name Francis. No Pope had ever used this name before, but the new Bishop of Rome told the waiting media that during the election, he had been thinking of the poor and so, when his appointment was confirmed by that puff of white smoke, he felt that Francis had to be the name by which he would be known.

He explained it was because St Francis “is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.” 

In the years since, Pope Francis has pulled the principles of St Francis forward eight centuries to place the environment and the poor at the heart of his papacy. The encyclicals Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti ask us to hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth, and each takes words and ideas straight from the heart of the Italian saint. Those of us who were raised with images of a gentle St Francis, birds perched on his outstretched arms, squirrels attentive at his feet, have perhaps been jolted by Pope Francis into a better understanding of the reality of the man who initiated a doctrine of nonviolence 800 years before the word became a social media hashtag, who promoted care of our common home, supported the poor, and who practised interreligious dialogue when the Church itself seemed hell bent on slaughtering
those of other faiths.

Some saints from the past are wreathed in myth and legend, but St Francis of Assisi is well documented. That may be because the city of Assisi in central Italy was already in the 12th and early 13th centuries a sophisticated—if fractious—community that kept records of its citizens. It is also because in 1228, just two years after Francis’ death, Pope Gregory IX asked the monk Thomas of Celano to write a biography of St Francis. Using material gathered from Francis’ friends and followers and his own personal knowledge, the record was finished within a year. A later version was written in 1246. Thomas also compiled a book of the collected miracles of St Francis, and he wrote a biography of St Clare of Assisi. This abundance of information shows how quickly St Francis was recognised as an important figure in the Church, and makes the man’s philosophy and teaching unusually available, given the eight centuries gap.

Francis Bernardone did not start life with the name ‘Francis’. His father, a wealthy cloth merchant, was away from home on business when his son was born in 1181. His mother had the child baptised Giovanni—John in English—in honour of St John the Baptist. Returning home in 1182, Pietro Bernardone was evidently greatly displeased. The name suggested to him that his son would grow up to be a man of the Church, while he was hoping for a successor in the lucrative cloth trade. Much of that trade was with France, and so he renamed his son Francesco (Francis). 

Growing up with all the benefits that the cloth trade brought to the Bernardone family, it is no surprise that Francis did become the merchant Pietro hoped for. But as wealthy youngsters sometimes do, he had his ‘tearaway’ phase, instigating the wildest of wild parties. Thomas of Celano pulled no punches in his biography, writing “In other respects an exquisite youth, he attracted to himself a whole retinue of young people addicted to evil and accustomed to vice.”

He perhaps spent more than he brought into the business, and he was vainly ambitious for a place in the ranks of the aristocracy. When war broke out between Assisi and neighbouring Perugia, he headed for the battlefield. Rank and file soldiers from Assisi were massacred, while those who might fetch a ransom were imprisoned. The Bernardone wealth was legendary and Francis spent a year chained in a dank dungeon.

Saints are often comfortingly sinners before turning to good works, and this spell in a dungeon would seem to have been a good time for a Damascene moment to change Francis’ lifestyle and thinking.

However, after he was released on payment of a ransom, he continued to enjoy the high life. He even grasped another opportunity to get the much-desired knighthood at the start of the Fourth Crusade, an armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III to recapture the Muslimcontrolled city of Jerusalem.

To the modern mind, the Crusades may suggest noble (if misguided) faith-driven campaigns. Francis Bernardone set out on the Fourth Crusade more anxious to show off his expensive, gold-plated armour than to lend his strength to the cause.

It was then that the vision came. Just a day from home, Francis had a dream in which God told him to return home and change his ways. He responded to the dream, but this was not an overnight conversion. Francis was a complete novice in religious terms. He had to extricate himself from the family business, from his life of extravagance, from the secular world he’d loved for the first 25 years of his life. 

There were hard lessons. He took cloth from his father’s business to fund the repairs of a church, leading to a rift with his family. This wasn’t just theft from the family business: Francis still lacked understanding that the message from God was not literally to renovate a ruined building but to rebuild the Church itself, which at the time was experiencing corruption.

The local bishop helped him understand what his mission really was. It was then he could renounce everything and start a new life, preaching a return to God and obedience to the Church. Joined by others who wanted to share this simple life in which he relied on God to provide all, he turned to the Gospel for guidance and took as the Rule for this ‘brotherhood’, three commandments found when he randomly opened his Bible—the command to the rich young man to sell all his goods and give to the poor, the order to the apostles to take nothing on their journey, and the demand to take up the Cross daily.

These would be the guiding rules of the Franciscans — a brotherhood rather than a religious order. A brotherhood that was inclusive of people from every walk of life and all creatures sharing our common home.

He preached to the birds; he rebuked the wolf; he kissed the leper. The brothers followed biblical teaching and went out in pairs. They gave to the poor, those even more poor than themselves. The cry of the poor, the cry of the earth, the response of nonviolence to those who attacked them as madmen: this was revolutionary. It is still revolutionary—as Pope Francis is finding eight centuries later, while trying to convince 21st century society of the need to respond to our world in a similar way.

Perhaps St Francis’ most revolutionary act was to make direct contact with the Muslim leader during the Fifth Crusade in an effort to make peace. Today, Pope Francis calls the kind of meeting his namesake sought with al-Malik al-Kamil, the Muslim Sultan of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, “the culture of encounter”. In 1219, no such phrase had been coined. No such meeting had ever taken place before.

During the devastatingly bloody siege of the Egyptian city of Damietta, Francis and one of his brothers, Illuminatus, set off to meet the Sultan. Illuminatus spoke some Arabic, but had al-Kamil’s guards not mistaken the pair for Muslim holy men, this could have been nothing less than a suicide mission. Ushered into the presence of al-Kamil, Francis talked to him through interpreters about his faith, and made a plea in the name of God for peace between the warring factions. Although his advisers wanted to kill Francis and Illuminatus, al-Kamil was evidently a man who preferred prayer to the violence of war. He recognised holiness in Francis and invited the two Christians to be his guests. Whatever conversations took place during that seven-day stay, neither converted to the other’s faith, but Francis was subsequently more open to the other,
to the different.

Today, Catholic social teaching encourages interreligious dialogue.

There are echoes of St Francis’ mission to see the Sultan in the huge strides towards co-operation between faiths and peoples engendered by the document entitled, Human fraternity for World peace and living together, signed in February 2019 by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb in the United Arab Emirates.

Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, seeks to inspire an acceptance of that ‘other’, recognising that people of all faiths and none, are nevertheless all brothers and sisters together.

Perhaps Pope Francis has also looked to the 13th century Francis for a response to the role of women in the Church. Thirteen years younger than Francis Bernardone, Chiara (Clare) Offreduccio was one of his first followers when he took to the religious life. Like Francis, she was from a wealthy family. In his wilder days, he may well have envied that aristocratic dynasty with its large palace in Assisi and a castle
on Mount Subasio. 

Clare’s mother, Ortolana, was very devout and had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostella, and the Holy Land—major journeys in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, especially for a woman. She must have had a strong influence on all three of her daughters, and Clare in particular was a prayerful child. She was in her teens when she heard Francis preach during a Lenten service at the Church of San Giorgio in Assisi. She asked his advice on how to live the Gospel, and on Palm Sunday, 20 March 1212, she left her father’s house with an aunt and another companion and went to the chapel of Porziuncula to meet Francis. Just as he had done, she laid aside her expensive clothes, put on a simple robe and her hair was cut.

Of course, her father tried to force her to come home, but she clung to the altar, saying she would have no other husband but Jesus Christ. Her sister Catarina (who took the name Agnes) joined her, and soon other women moved into the small building created for them beside the church of San Damiano. They became known as the Poor Ladies of San Damiano, living a life of poverty, austerity and seclusion.

What makes Clare remarkable for the age in which she lived is that she wrote the Rule for Life for her Order, the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written by a woman. We might reflect that eight centuries later, women’s role in the Church is still debated. In 1994, Pope John Paul II erected strong barriers against a more inclusive attitude, and even Pope Francis has been accused of not listening to the cry of women.

This is not to suggest that the followers of Clare led a feminist-centred existence centuries ahead of their time. Unable to share the same ministry of Francis’ followers in preaching around the countryside, the Poor Ladies of San Damiano lived an enclosed life, carried out manual labour, prayed, slept on the ground, walked barefoot, and adhered rigidly to their vow of strict poverty. However, having at first been directed by Francis, in 1216 Clare accepted the role of abbess. This gave her greater authority, and the order was not obliged to obey a male hierarchy.

Of course, she revered Francis, whom she saw as her spiritual father. After his death on 3 October 1226, she continued to expand her order throughout Europe, and after her own death on 11 August 1253, that order became known as the Poor Clares. Successive Popes had wanted the Order’s vows of extreme poverty to be diluted. She disagreed, and she won. Both St Clare and St Francis embraced a theology of joyous poverty in imitation of Christ. The man who took the name Francis for his papacy perpetuates their legacy. 

SPECIAL REPORT •LOVE FOR A WOUNDED WORLD

SPARKS OF A LIGHT FOR A WOUNDED BEAUTIFUL WORLD FALLING IN LOVE
WITH REALITY

The first to fall in love with reality, with trust and defenceless love, is God the Father. From his incurable enthusiasm for life, a project of love takes shape, declined with the alphabet of beauty. Sharing the same enthusiasm we, children of such a Father, can see the world with His eyes and fall in love with humanity, with nature, with everything that exists, as Jesus His Son did. We not only dream of the birth of “a new earth and a new heaven”, we also share it and make it happen

BY ERMES RONCHI OSM

CHRISTOS YANNARAS, a Greco-Orthodox theologian, wrote these words about falling in love: “If you fell in love once, you now know how to distinguish between real living and survival. You know that survival means life without meaning and sensitivity, a crawling death: you eat bread and can’t stand up; you drink water and don’t quench your thirst; you touch things and don’t feel them by touch; you smell the flower and its scent doesn’t reach your soul. But, if the beloved is beside you, everything suddenly rises again and life floods you with such strength that you feel the clay pot of your existence is unable to sustain it. That fullness of life is Love. Such love is not the privilege of the virtuous or the wise: it is offered to all with equal possibilities and it is the only foretaste of the Kingdom” (Yannaras, Christos. 2005.Variations on The Song of Songs. Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Massachusetts).

Reality is not only what you see, but all that can be put under this name, as long as it is not fictitious, but made up of people, eyes, stars, blades of grass, olive trees, birds, flowers, feelings, music, colours. How can you fall in love with reality? Two things are necessary: pure eyes and a spacious heart1 . For impure eyes can never see reality, and the hardened heart can never embrace it.

1 The author is referring to the Hebrew expression ‘rōhab lēb’, that is a listening heart, able to comprehend the fullness of the world phenomena, thus becoming a ‘spacious heart’. [editor’s note]

THE KEY OF BEAUTY

God, the Creator, sees and interprets reality with the key of beauty. Six times God cries to reality: “How beautiful!” The seventh time, seeing man and woman, He shouts: “What unattainable splendour!” The Creator of the universe is filled with wonder. He is not all-mighty God or all-knowing God, but all-loving God and all-embracing God.

We can all draw from this spring of divine wonder, at every dawn, which at times is so full of darkness. Made in God’s image and likeness, we too can embrace all reality, leading us to God himself, for all creatures are characters of a revelation.

When we talk about falling in love with reality, we think of the light and beauty that we see in it, and that must be enjoyed and transformed into sources of prayer and loving action. ‘The most beautiful thing is he whom you love’—the object of your love. “Beautiful is my beloved”, repeats The Song of Songs because the rule, the norm of beauty is love. Beauty and good come first, and are deeper than evil. This makes me fall in love with God’s plan, scattered in syllables on every face, in every womb, in every blade of grass, in every musical note. But… As the Irish poet Anne Brontë expressed: “There is always a ‘but’ in this imperfect world”.

DARK HOLES

Reality is complex, made up also of dark holes: millions of jobless people, waves of refugees, burnt forests, spreading deserts, violence, famine, migrants drowned at sea, violated children. Dark holes are in the fabric of the world: Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Rwandan genocide; the Apartheid regime; the all too many forgotten modern wars; the separating walls erected between one state and another, or between a social class and another, or between a rich city and its miserable suburbs. The dark holes are also the monstrous atrocities that occur at present: the raped woman, the suffering child and the old grandparent considered uneconomic, and hence, discarded.

The reality is not always understandable,
but is always embraceable and loveable.

Pope Francis’ ecological encyclical Laudato Si’ (LS) does not use the expression dark holes, but describes the situation in which our planet is moaning and succumbing to. Its first chapter draws a picture of the problems of the world, namely what is happening to “our common home”. After a period of “irrational confidence in progress and human abilities” [LS 19], we have to ask ourselves whether this is the right way to go. The “throwaway culture” [22] is shown as opposite to how nature works in sustainable cycles; this label does not refer only to material goods, but to human beings as well, discarded as waste, when they are no longer useful to support the needs of the rest.

Pope Francis’ encyclical offers the reader a depiction of climate change, The reality is not always understandable, but is always embraceable and loveable. Dark holes are in the fabric of today’s world. This label does not refer only to material goods, but to human beings as well, who are discarded as waste. 26 worldwide dec-jan 2021 worldwide dec-jan 2021 27 recognising that it “represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day” [25], mainly affecting developing countries, the poor and more vulnerable populations, more dependent on natural ecosystems, and with less capacity to adapt. The text also presents other elements of the environmental crisis, such as the pressure on water resources or the loss of biodiversity.

Considering that the human and natural environment deteriorate together, Pope Francis turns the discussion to the poor, the excluded, those who suffer first and foremost from the effects of environmental degradation. “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach” he says, and therefore, issues of justice have to be integrated into environmental debates, “so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” [49].

“A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor”

The ecological crisis presents huge economic and ecological challenges, but Pope Francis sees it also as an opportunity for humankind to show its best while giving enthusiasm and encouragement to people. “Let us do it”, he says, “with the joy of knowing that it will be a beautiful collective effort that, beyond saving our common home, will make all of us become better human beings”. 

The key to Pope Francis’ encyclical rests in his plea to “acknowledge the appeal, the beauty, the immensity and the urgency of the challenge we face” [15]. He sees an alluring beauty in our commitment to fight for the salvation of “the earth, our home, which is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth” [15].

TO LOVE IS TO GIVE

What can I do when confronted with these dark holes in history? How can I love them?

Scripture suggests one verb, concrete, proactive, and accomplished by hands: give! In the four Gospels, ‘to love’ is translated with ‘to give’. Jesus says: “There is no greater love than to give one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15: 13); and also: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” (Mt 25: 35). Listening also with a spacious heart we discover the surprising truth in the
following verse: 

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones… will certainly not lose their reward” (Mk 9: 41). What reward? God does not reward with things. God cannot give anything less than Himself—He is the reward. A glass of water— something close to nothing, which even the poorest person can offer; but there is a genial wing-beat, characteristic of Jesus: water must be fresh, good for the great heat; it must be the best water you have, with the echo of your heart inside it. Faced with this reality, disfigured by dark holes, we must fall in love with the cry of the poor and the cry of Mother Earth´. 

“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground” (Genesis 4: 10). Abel’s blood cries out to God. If we listen well, we will feel the pain for the cosmos, where crowds are killed, chased, driven into the pit, left alone, sick, frightened. Are they far away? No, if the heart is everywhere. How can I love them? I can give my sincere readiness to listen to their cry and let it enter my spacious heart. Then, a little big change happens: in an instant, I am made aware that I am not one who does something for them, but ‘I am they’, ‘I am theirs’. I am these people, threatened, frightened, hunted. I am here in their stead. I am Abel and Cain. I am the nameless man or woman who, at this moment, cries out in the forests of Africa, or in the war of Azerbaijan; is thrown back into the Mediterranean Sea from the satiated coast of the opulent West, or is blown up in Kabul. I am that man. That woman is my mother.

COMBATIVE TENDERNESS

Then, it is not a matter of giving alms, topdown, with the attitude of the conceited superiority of a rich man who deigns to part with an ounce of his smug selfishness to help someone who is sick and suffering, but of beginning to say: “I, in place of all the wretched of the earth” cry out in protest: “No! You don’t throw him overboard. Because that child is my son”; and in doing this with combative tenderness— a wonderful oxymoron created by Pope Francis (The Joy of the Gospel 85). 

Honestly, what does this tenderness solve? What solution does it bring in the terrorism of Isis or Al-Qaida, in the stonehard hearts of politicians, in the havoc of hurricanes, in the ravenous exploitation of natural resources, in the mad pollution of the atmosphere, in the
desperation of migrants? 

Tenderness can be tough. It never gives up. It always resists, and makes the world start again and again. Tenderness is intelligence and alertness. It is the U-turn of the vessel at the first signs of the approaching hurricane—for, if the ark of our history continues its journey in its present direction and with ever-increasing speed, it will
crash on the rocks. 

Tenderness cries out: “Love each other… or you will destroy yourselves” (Gal 5: 14, 15). This is what the Gospel is all about, and it is the revolution. The response of Christians to persecution has never been a like-minded retaliation, but disorienting gestures, like turning the other cheek, offering a glass of fresh water, breaking their bread to the hungry, clothing the naked, and opening the doors of their houses to the unsheltered poor. Tenderness is the relentless patching up of the continually torn fabric of the world.

LUMINOUS HOLES

In opposition to the dark holes, we too offer the luminous holes, the possibility to escape from the present mortifying and moribund system of ours, and the chance to imagine putting the first bricks of an alternative scenario in place. If the dark hole is the space at the end of everything, the luminous hole is at the beginning of everything—a space of freedom on a human scale. It could be the bottom of the folder where the child hides its figurines, or the wall of the cell where the deportee writes messages of love and resistance, or a hermitage where a new road to God is traced, or a person who has stolen himself from the system of uniformity, a poet, a writer, an artist, a film director, a pianist, whoever they are, free and creative for themselves and for those
who approach them. 

Our task is to find our luminous holes, our spaces of resistance, which very often are small (a corner of the garden, a book, a line of a poem, a church, a small Christian community, a friend), but all able to speak to us with ancient and new words, pregnant with light and truth. The strength of this luminous place is that of a little crack that works slowly and, in the end, makes the building collapse, without letting anyone die in it; a crack almost invisible, so small, but powerful enough to surprise you. 

In this world of consumerism, you enter a supermarket, and, if you are free, you are no longer at the mercy of those who have prepared the shelves. You can decide what to buy, with a power that neither destroys the shelves nor shoots the supervisor, rather it sets out alternatives. You may buy a Cadbury chocolate or another bar produced with less human exploitation, and where the money that you pay goes to the co-operative of peasants and only a small part to distribution. With that little gesture, almost insignificant in most people’s eyes, you are pronouncing a strong alternative word and above all, thinking that there are alternatives. By choosing to buy that product, you act against the murderous economy that prevails in today’s world. You vote every time you open your wallet, not only during elections, and choose the type of world you
want to live in. 

A luminous hole, no matter how small and pale,
teaches us that the world is still capable of amazing us

A luminous hole, then, is the idea that the world is also made of spaces for diversity, where not everything is standardized and the unexpected is possible. It implies not accepting the idea that everything is just the same, nothing will ever change. It means refusing to believe that it is no use trying: all are accomplices, aligned, cheaters, scared; this is falling in love with reality; having passion for the possible— the possible smile, the possible peace, a possible different world—is to believe in goodness. We must have pure eyes to spot it and spacious hearts to embrace it, to multiply it in myriads of luminous holes where the unexpected will open up for another economy, another community or way of praying, another humanism, other smiles.

THE WITCH OF ENDOR

We find luminous holes in Sacred History. The Spirit acts against the giant Goliath with a shepherd’s slingshot; contravenes Pharaoh’s decree, teaming up with two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah; puts his words in the mouth of a prophet that does not know how to speak, since he is too young. How beautiful our God, who works wonders with little things! 

After the death of Samuel (1 Kings 28: 3–25), King Saul has banned from the land of Israel all mediums and those who consult the spirits of the dead. Soon after, he sees his kingdom falling apart. The Philistine army attacks his reign and he becomes frantic with fear. So, he goes to an old witch, able to consult the spirits of the dead. He meets her in a cave in Endor and asks her to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel, who made him king so that he may ask for his advice. At first, the old witch is suspicious and thinks that the king has set a trap to unmask her and put her to death. The king swears: “As surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this”. Evoked by the woman, the prophet appears and, with extreme harshness, announces to Saul his end and that of all his children. King Saul falls, full length on the ground, paralysed with fright because of Samuel’s words. He is also faint with hunger, for he has eaten nothing all day and all night. The old witch, knowing she is risking her life because her trade is forbidden, leans over the king and takes care of him. She takes her fattened calf and butchers it at once for him. She takes also some flour, kneads it, bakes bread without yeast, and breaks it for Saul. This old woman overcomes her bad trade, is transformed, and her loving hands and comforting words raise Saul up. She shows us that we are all potentially capable of doing better things and saying better words than those life makes us say every day. 

It is a gloomy scene, taking place in a dark cave, but there is a ray of light— ‘an ounce of light’—that illuminates the cave, and we are witnesses of an intense moment of pity, created by an excommunicated witch, which beautifies the entire scene. What is it that makes her capable of light and piety, if not the Spirit of God and the deep humanness that is primordial in her and in us all (‘the beauty that is more original than original sin’) and is able to illuminate any anathematised woman or man and make them believe in goodness?

INFINITE PASSION

Infinite humanity of the Bible! It was ‘the last supper’ of King Saul. The words of the woman were the last living words the great king heard—words that life (Samuel and God) had denied him. The Bible is infinite also because of the gestures it narrates of ordinary men and women, often considered sinners and, therefore, discarded. These gestures allow the biblical word, at times, to be more human than the words spoken by the prophets, and the very words of God spoken by
his official emissaries. 

Dark holes are there, but there are also unexpected luminous holes. When you approach a person with pure eyes, you discover cracks that open up to infinity. The person you thought was lost is, instead, a wayfarer. There is sickness and death around us, wars, fake news, lies, violence, and rejections, a haemorrhage of humanity in the world, which is groaning everywhere, with open veins. However, there are also witches who become merciful mothers. If I look at anything that exists with pure eyes and a spacious heart, I then become passionate about what exists in all its forms. 

Passion means both being fond and suffering. Faith opens the heart to suffering and makes one passionate for everything that lives. An infinite passion is a never-finished relationship that leads you to love heaven and earth with the same intensity. You cannot sing hymns in a church and, outside, be indifferent to the rubble and the beauty of history.

I can fall in love with reality because I feel that it is not only
a problem to solve, but also a joyous mystery, a mystery
I can enjoy to the point of falling in love with it.

TIRELESS SEDUCTION

The surrounding reality often comes to us as suffering, a scratch, a claw mark on the heart, but it also reaches us with a tireless seduction. Take the mouth of a new-born baby. It is only a few minutes old, and yet it already knows the fundamental philosophy of life: reality is not made of thought, but of body and soul. Even before reaching the mother’s breast, the mouth sucks the emptiness, confident that the breast will appear, because it exists. The baby’s reality is made of emptiness and fullness, of desire and contentment (St Augustine would add: “… and of a restless heart and God”). Life comes as a gift and as a grace, from a reality that
is external.

There is a second lesson we learn from the baby’s lips. The mother’s breast is not only the hill of milk and a means of subsistence. It is an object of enjoyment. By sucking the breast, the child enjoys the blessing. The same holds true for reality, which is not only what keeps us alive and without which we could not live, but it is also a principle of delight. 

We find this aspect of reality—as a joyous mystery—looking at some attitudes of Jesus in the Gospel, what we could call ‘the pedagogy
of Jesus’. 

Let us take the parable of the sower. The man may seem unwise to us as he threw the seed on brambles, thorns and stones but in doing so, he showed one truth: God embraces the imperfections of the field. Nothing is discriminated against and excluded. No one is just a trodden path, a rocky place, or thorns. 

We are all like the field of the parable, wounded, dull, hard, stony, thorny, unfinished. Yet, the loving hand of God continues his creative work tirelessly, certain that this imperfect humanity of mine is fit to give life to the seed of His word. Imitating this divine generosity, the sower widens the gesture of his arm and breathes better, because he believes, not in a nicer, almost perfect reality, but in one more true and authentic. 

It invites us to fall in love with a field where good wheat grows with weeds, and with a bush though it is sprinkled with brambles; not a cornfield where the rows of the stalks are perfectly aligned and the ears have the same number of grains, where pesticides have killed every type of grass. Instead, we fall in love with the imperfect field, the defective tree, the flawed vineyard where vine diseases are shown on the leaves. In perfect vineyards, you will never find powdery mildew: just empty jars of poison, labelled with a dead man’s skull, not a single luminous hole enfleshed by a goldfinch with its note of freedom and joy in the air, not a squirrel, not a flower, not a broken branch, not a grape embellished with the visit of a butterfly. 

The Gospel is full of seeds, shoots and buds swollen with life, whose territories are unfinished, unstable and in-the-making. We, too, are not in the world to be immaculate, but to be on the move; not to be perfect, but to be fruitful—at least of a gram of light. Called to be children of light, we must not fear night too much, but love it a little, because the most important things happen at night. Do we not celebrate the night before Christmas and the night that turns into the Easter dawn? Does not the night transform men and women into lovers? At night—in every night of the world—there is a role for us.

SUBVERTING LAMP-BEARERS

Lamp-bearers are always there; little prophets who explore new trails. It is fascinating to see the world with the gaze of Jesus, not from the top of a castle or from the pinnacle of the temple, but from our house garden; read the Gospel from below, or rather, from the ground, to annul, thanks to a mustard seed, the distance between God and the earth, and to realise that the divine transpires from the depths of every being.

It is fascinating to see the world with the gaze of Jesus;
read the Gospel from below, and to realise that the divine transpires from the depths of every being

The Gospel of Jesus—the Good News of Jesus who loves the earth—subverts all norms: it encloses the great in the small, the high in the low, the contents of faith in the secular language, the sky inside the earth; it leads us to the school of the vine, of the blade of grass, of the fig tree, because the laws of the spirit and nature coincide. The norms that govern the coming of the Kingdom of God and those that nourish the life of creatures are the same; and you perceive that it is proper of nature, of plants, of God and of man to offer fruits, shelter, coolness, rest. 

From Jesus’ parable of the sower, read from a new perspective, emerges a beautiful vision of the world. What is this history of ours if not a sowing, a germinating, a sprouting, a growing, a grain filling,
a ripening, a harvesting?

Everything, with its mysterious rhythm, is an ever-growing trust and a joyful surrender to life on the way towards fruitfulness, the unknown divine power of the smallest seed. If, at every spring time, one is able to marvel at the ‘wisdom of the earth’, then it will be clear that there are good forces at work in the world. Someone cares to keep them alive and multiply them, despite stones and thorns. 

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

Jesus is in love with smallness as it runs through the whole Bible. It represents its deepest soul: the master seed, Abel, the first human seed hidden in the earth, sterile mothers with tears of humiliation, Joseph sold by his brothers, Amos, a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, Jeremiah, young, shy and sentimental and moreover stammering, Mary, the little servant of the Lord, Bethlehem, “the smallest among the clans of Judah” (Micah 5: 2), Golgotha, little rock of the crucified God, YHWH a “thin voice of silence” (1 Kings 19: 12). 

Taking the economy of smallness seriously leads us to wade the world in another way, to look differently at our wounds, and to seek out the kings of tomorrow among the discarded and the poor of today. It will enable us to take the young people and children very seriously, to find merits where the economy of greatness—the economy of scale—sees only demerits. 

When Samuel goes looking for a king in the house of Jesse, all his sons are there. Only David is absent, the youngest, grazing the flock. The prophet sends for him. God wants him. Work is not the obstacle to discover our vocations. The most important theophanies and the greatest vocations simply happen while we are inside reality—grazing the flock, or fishing in the lake. To understand our place in the world, we can do nothing better than continue to be inside reality through our little work. God’s love encloses the great in the small, the universe in the atom, the tree in the seed, man in the embryo, the butterfly in the caterpillar, and eternity in the moment. 

Faced with the darkness of history and of many hardened hearts, the combative tenderness cries out “No! You cannot do this; that forest, that river and that lake belong to all humanity; that man is my brother and that woman is my sister and mother.

OPPOSING DEATH HOLES

During the Special Laudato Si’ Jubilee Year, we are invited to open our eyes and dilate our hearts, to see, feel, and understand reality, by increasing the capacity for attention, curiosity, openness and creativity. Our present problem is that of having shrunken hearts, scaled down to the measure of one’s self, of one’s hunger, of one’s needs. Pope Francis urges us to reverse this course of death. 

Faced with the darkness of history and of many hardened hearts, the combative tenderness cries out “No! You cannot do this; it is not lawful for you to do that; that is against the common good; that forest, that river and that lake belong to all humanity; that man is my brother and that woman is my sister and mother”. 

So, with infinite tenderness and tireless combativeness we can continue our battle against all the dark holes of history, in favour of all possible luminous holes, many already present but kept hidden or impeded from shining. This battle against evil will make us fall in love with good more and more. And, as lovers of good, we will free the best and most constructive energies, embrace the imperfection of the world, and live a deep communion with the whole. These are the necessary conditions to give existence to a positive new world narrative. 

SPECIAL REPORT •COMMON HOME

POVERTY, JUSTICE, ECOLOGY, THEOLOGY:
A FRUITFUL DIALOGUE

There are those who wonder why religions have taken an interest in the ecological question in recent years and, above all, what they can contribute to a seemingly technical debate. In the case of the Catholic Church, the answer is simple: her interest lies on the close connection between environmental degradation and vulnerability of the most disadvantaged or fragile: the poor, children, the sick, the elderly, women, indigenous peoples and racial minorities

BY JAIME TATAY NIETO SJ | PROFESSOR OF ECOLOGY, ETHICS AND SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH AT THE PONTIFICAL UNIVERSITY OF COMILLAS, MADRID

WITH THE passage of time, other reasons and motives have been added to this initial interest in the ecological question, such as the importance of thinking about future generations or the value of creation itself, as a gift from God and a place of encounter with Him. However, there is no doubt that the social question was the gateway to the ecological question for Catholics. There is a phrase in Pope Francis’ encyclical (2015), Laudato Si (LS), that explains it clearly and directly: “Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited. For example, changes in climate, to which animals and plants cannot adapt, lead them to migrate;
this in turn affects the livelihood of the poor, who are then forced to leave their homes, with great uncertainty for their future and that of their families” (LS 25). 

Indigenous populations and poor farmers in developing countries are the most exposed to the impact of environmental degradation, although they are not the only ones. The evidence accumulated over the last few decades shows that certain groups in all countries — rich and poor, South and North — suffer disproportionately from the impacts of biodiversity loss, natural resource depletion, pollution, scarcity of water and its poor quality, rising sea levels, deforestation, overfishing, extreme weather events or uncontrolled mining. All these groups have been given special attention by the so-called environmental justice movement. They have incorporated into their analysis, the findings of ecological economics, feminist thinking, environmental ethics and racial and post-colonial studies. We will refer to them below in order to establish a dialogue and thus being able to perceive more clearly the similarities and differences between environmental justice and the Catholic thought on ecology. There are new practical initiatives that have been launched in various Christian communities trying to offer a response to the threefold challenge of our time: to build a world in which social peace, economic justice and environmental sustainability reign. 

ECOLOGICAL SENTINELS AND SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

In the opinion of the French thinker Éloi Laurent (Laurent & Prochet 2015), there are certain groups of people who are privileged witnesses when it comes to seeing and understanding what is happening to our planet. They not only see, hear and analyse, but also smell, touch and feel in their own bodies the effects of deforestation, disappearance of fauna, pollution, erosion, drought or migration. They know well that ecological and human degradation go hand in hand. In the contemporary environmental debate, a number of expressions have become popular that come from environmental activism and the experience of the ecological sentinels: climate justice, food sovereignty, bio-piracy, land grabbing, ecological debt, environmental racism or environmentalism of the poor are some of the best known. 

For Joan Martínez-Alier (2005), an economist at the University of Barcelona, Spain, as well as for Laurent, these recent expressions, often used by political ecology and ecological economics, have been developed and deepened by the thoughtful reflection of academics, but it is the experience, denunciation and creativity of indigenous peoples and marginalised groups that have generated them. In this sense, the much quoted 1855 letter from Chief Seattle of the Suwamish tribe to President Jefferson of the United States can be considered one of the first testimonies of socio-environmental activism available to us. One of its most significant paragraphs is worth reproducing: “The earth does not belong to man; it is man who belongs to the earth. All things are related like the blood that unites us all. There is a union in everything. What happens to the earth will fall on the children of the earth. Man did not weave the fabric of life; he is merely one of its threads. Whatever he does to the fabric, he will do it to himself”.

Seen from the Christian tradition, the denunciation of Chief Seattle of the Suwamish tribe and of the ‘sentinels’ referred to by the scholars, resonates in some way with the biblical tradition, and especially with the prophets as seers, men and women capable of anticipating the future and warning of the risks to which present decisions lead. The prophetic dimension of the Christian faith can be perceived in the words of Pope Francis himself when he affirmed, in a phrase often quoted, that “today we cannot fail to recognize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach, which must integrate questions of justice into discussions about the environment, in order to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS 49). With the passing of time, the intuitions and denunciations of the first ecological sentinels have expanded to include new and unsuspected aspects. An example of this expansion was the experience that led to the coining in the 1980s of a new term to denounce environmental racism.

Laurent calls them ‘ecological sentinels’ because they — poor people, children, women, the elderly, indigenous people — are the ones who experience the impact of environmental
degradation in a more direct or dramatic way

MARGINALIZED MINORITIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

For the population as a whole, racial minorities and impoverished social groups have traditionally lived closer to polluted areas or where the quality of public services, air, water and food is poorer. This is a sociological reality about which there is already ample evidence in many parts of the world. As a result, these communities are exposed to a greater number of pollutants or pathogens, or live in areas where the environmental risk of floods, droughts or extreme weather events is greater. In recent years, we have witnessed these differential risks first-hand both in developed countries such as the US and Australia and in developing countries such as Mozambique and the Philippines. 

Since these social groups have neither the political influence nor the economic power to move, to lobby their parliaments or to influence national policies, they are often chosen to locate activities or projects of higher environmental risk in their vicinity, whether they are mining, industrial, agricultural or livestock operations. 

Benjamin Chavis of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice (1987) defined environmental racism as “racial discrimination in the deliberate targeting of ethnic and minority communities for exposure to toxic and hazardous waste sites and facilities, along with the systematic exclusion of people of colour from environmental policy making, law enforcement and reparation”. The definition emerges from the concept of environmental justice, understood as “the fair treatment and meaningful participation of all people without regard to race, colour, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies”. 

The well-founded criticism of the racism that is latent in many contemporary socio-environmental problems also coincides with the analysis of post-colonial studies, which have highlighted the impact that colonisation has had and continues to have on the way natural resources are extracted, how the wealth they generate is distributed and the environmental impact of their extraction, processing and commercialisation. The Church has echoed this reflection.

A direct reference to it appears in Laudato Si, when it is stated that “there is a true ‘ecological debt’, particularly between the global North and the South, related to commercial imbalances with consequences in the ecological sphere, as well as to the disproportionate use of natural resources historically carried out by some countries” (LS 51). Another veiled reference to this issue appears in the criticism of certain ‘green’ proposals from developed countries: “The imposition of these measures penalizes those countries most in need of development. Thus, a further injustice is perpetrated under the guise of protecting the environment. The poor end up paying the price” (LS 170). As always, the thread is cut by the weakest. Together with the contribution of the environmental justice movement, which has incorporated criticism of racism and the neo-colonial dimension of the dynamics of environmental degradation, feminist thought has also contributed significantly to revealing another of the cultural dynamics that has led us to the current situation.

WOMEN’S VISION AND UNHEALTHY DUALISMS

One of the currents of contemporary thought that has converged in the complex ecological movement is that of feminist thought. A number of women academics—including several theologians—have made significant contributions to this field over the past 50 years. Following the publication of Le féminisme ou la morte (d’Eaubonne, 1974), the first to address the environmental question from a gender perspective, thinkers such as Rosemary R. Ruether, Sally McFague, Vandana Shiva, Ivone Guebara, Anne Primavesi or Yayo Herrero have stated that one of the reasons for the current ecological crisis is cultural: the dualistic approach that has established a set of false dichotomies or oppositions between culture or nature, mind or body, reason or emotion, scientific or traditional knowledge, independence or dependence, man or woman. Along with this split, Marta Pascual and Yayo Herrero point out that “all eco-feminisms share the vision that the subordination of women to men and the exploitation of nature are two sides of the same coin and respond to a common logic: the logic of patriarchal domination and the subordination of life to the priority of obtaining benefits”. Moreover, our (capitalist) culture “has developed all sorts of strategies to subdue both and relegate them to the realm of the invisible. That is why the different eco-feminist currents seek a profound transformation in the ways in which people relate to each other and to nature, removing formulas of oppression, imposition and appropriation, and overcoming anthropocentric and androcentric visions”. 

Although Catholic social thought does not share all the approaches of eco-feminism, it is legitimate to say that there are elements of the critique to dualistic thinking and the revaluation of the feminine in our contemporary culture that are being incorporated into the ecclesial reflection and praxis. So much so that, right at the beginning
of his encyclical. 

Later, he will make a critical examination of the history of Christianity to recognize that Jesus “was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of the world. Such unhealthy dualisms, nonetheless, left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel” (LS 98). Pope Francis recognizes, in a way similar to many contemporary thinkers, that the dualistic thinking has distorted the Christian message. He also turns his attention to the future generations. 

Pope Francis affirms that “our common home is also like a sister, with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us” (LS 1)

THE DISTANT NEIGHBOUR AND THE FUTURE NEIGHBOUR

The contemporary icon of environmental activism is a Swedish youngster named Greta Thunberg. Although her person raises passions for and against, it is true that she has helped to raise awareness and mobilise a multitude of children, adolescents and young people with regard to ecological problems. Some of the arguments she has articulated in her speeches refer to social injustice and the damage done to other forms of life, but above all to the impact that environmental degradation will have on the future generations she represents. This is an old argument in the field of ethics, already developed by Hans Jonas in his well-known 1979 essay, The imperative of responsibility (the so-called intergenerational responsibility) although it is already present in most religious and philosophical traditions. It is also a type of argumentation that has articulated the environmental discourse of most religious and ecumenical statements, including the Catholic one. Pope Benedict XVI insisted in his encyclical (2009), Caritas in Veritate, that “economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations” (CV 50). 

Pope Francis, years later, will recall these words to link intergenerational responsibility to the social question: “Our inability to think seriously about future generations is linked to our inability to broaden the scope of our present interests and to give consideration to those who remain excluded from development. Let us not only keep the poor of the future in mind, but also today’s poor, whose life on this earth is brief and who cannot keep on waiting” (LS 162). In the case of Christianity, monastic life is particularly enlightening since it is a way of life based on stability. It always seeks a presence, in a territory, that is oriented towards the future, lasting in time — sustainable, we would say, today — to which the innumerable well-preserved natural spaces that we find around religious communities bear witness. Nevertheless, the extension of the temporal radius of moral consideration that the new ecological consciousness proposes, extends not only to the distant neighbour (those of our contemporaries who suffer the injustice of environmental degradation), and the future neighbour (those who will come in the future), but it also points to the rest of the species and ecosystems. Again, in this respect, we find convergences and divergences between the proposal of ecological consciousness and that of Christian social thought. 

THE VALUE OF SPECIES AND ECOSYSTEMS

One of the crucial debates in philosophical anthropology revolves around the status of the human being in nature as a whole. What is it that distinguishes us from other forms of life? What makes us special? What legitimizes our lordship over other living beings? Thinkers who have asked themselves about the differential and distinctive aspects that give human beings a unique place in the history of the planet and, therefore, justify their privilege and authority to decide on other forms of life, conclude that it is consciousness, language and superior intelligence that have allowed the incredible technological development of Homo sapiens. This view of the human being is shared by most religious and philosophical traditions, as well as by many agnostic or atheistic thinkers. However, some philosophers and environmental activists have labelled it as anthropocentric. Moreover, this excessive claim, say the detractors of the dominant anthropological vision, is what has led us to the current situation of ecological bankruptcy, the disregard for other forms of life and the accelerated process of biological extinction in which we are immersed. 

Expressed in another way, the question raised by ecological awareness is whether we should lower the human or raise the non-human, that is, in any case dilute the narrow distinction that our culture makes between those who are an end in themselves and possess intrinsic value (humanity) and those who are a means and possess instrumental value (the rest of nature). For much of the ecological thinking, this false dichotomy is the justification for our despotic actions towards other forms of life and the reason for the injustice we commit against them every day. The debate has been served up and the issue remains an academic battleground through which rivers of ink flow. In the case of Christian humanism, which has always defended the universal and inalienable character of human dignity, the question has been reformulated by drawing on tradition, the Bible and the
theology of creation. 

Pope Francis avoided falling into anthropocentrism by speaking of a ‘sublime communion’ in which the human being, without losing their inalienable dignity, is part of a web of life that also has an intrinsic value: “We take these systems (ecosystems) into account not only to determine how best to use them, but also because they have an intrinsic value independent of their usefulness. Each organism, as a creature of God, is good and admirable in itself; the same is true of the harmonious ensemble of organisms existing in a defined space and functioning as a system. Although we are often not aware of it, we depend on these larger systems for our own existence” (LS 140). Taking the Bible, the Catechism, Christian thinkers and the Magisterium as references, Pope Francis insists: “we warn that the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures” (LS 68); likewise, “the Catechism questions, in a very direct and insistent way, what would be a distorted anthropocentrism” (LS 69). 

However, and here is where it is vital to go slowly so as not to go from one extreme to the other and fall into the temptation of a subtle misanthropy, “a misguided anthropocentrism need not necessarily yield to ‘biocentrism’, for that would entail adding yet another imbalance, failing to solve present problems and adding new ones” (LS 118). In short, as usual in Catholic thought, the dilemma that the environmental crisis has highlighted is addressed by keeping the extremes in tension, just as sacramental theology does it by recognizing the created world as a sign or ‘sacramental’ of God, without confusing or merging it with the Creator. Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis recalls in this regard: “Christians, moreover, are called to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet” (LS 9). Species and ecosystems have a value that goes beyond their instrumental use, a value that we need always to recognise and preserve.

References 
Chief Seattle. 1855. Letter to President Jefferson of the USA. (http://www.csun. edu/~vcpsy00h/seattle.htm) 
d’Eaubonne, Françoise. 1974. Le féminisme ou la morte. Horay, Paris. 
Jonas, Hans. 1979. The imperative of responsibility: in search of ethics for the Technological Age. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 
Laurent, E. & Prochet, P. 2015. For a social ecological transition: what solidarity in front of environmental challenges? Les petits matins, Paris. 
Martínez-Alier, J. 2005. El ecologismo de los pobres: conflictos ambientales y lenguajes de valoración. Icaria, Barcelona. 
Pascual Rodríguez, M. & Herrero López, Y. 2010. Ecofeminismo, una propuesta para repensar el presente y construir el futuro. Bulletin ECOS n. 10. CIP-Eco-social, Available in https://www.fuhem.es/media/ ecosocial/file/Boletin%20ECOS/ECOS%20 CDV/Boletin_10/ecofeminismo_construir_futuro.pdf) 
Pope Benedict XVI. 2009. Encyclical Letter, Caritas in Veritate. On integral human development in charity and truth. Vatican City. Pope Francis. 2015. Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si’. On care for our common home. Vatican City. 
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. 1987. Toxic wastes and race in the United States: a national report on the racial and socio-economic characteristics of communities with hazardous waste sites. Public Data Access, Michigan.

WORLD REPORT •FUTURE CHALLENGESITY

BOREDOM GETS
A GRIP ON SOCIETY

The current worldwide wave of riots and uprisings are the result of an underground discontent that has long been breeding and triggered now by the corona crisis said the chairman of the Dutch Teilhard de Chardin Foundation, Henk Hogeboom van Buggenum in a recent interview with the author

BY PIETER BLIEK | BACHELOR OF ARTS AND MASTER OF ARTS
IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES, HOLLAND

ACCORDING TO Hogeboom, the French priest and palaeontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) predicted in his book, The phenomenon of Man (1976) that boredom will be the greatest threat to modern society. He also adds: “That is why it is important that everyone can get to work”. 

However, what if, as a result of technological and digital advances, which is implementing a different mode of life, forty percent of jobs disappear without being replaced by new ones? This is what the Irish priest, eco-theologian and advisor to the Vatican, Sean McDonagh (in prep.), warns against in his book, Robots, religion and the future of jobs, which he is currently preparing for publication. McDonagh claims that the corona crisis is speeding up the process of robotization and digitization and that the recent riots and uprisings are only the beginning. The longer the crisis lasts the more unemployed there will be who are dissatisfied and feed the riots. According to him, the current social upheavals are a foretaste of what society will face when the tsunami of mass unemployment pours over us.

The death of the black American George Floyd as a result of racist police violence at the end of May has provoked a worldwide wave of protests and riots. Consequently, the Black Lives Matter appeared as a movement against police violence, institutional racism and other forms of aggression and oppression against black people. 

However, it is not only a black persons’ revolt, also other underprivileged population groups have made their voice heard through protests and riots since then, e.g. demonstrations in deprived neighbourhoods in the big cities, all over the world. The uprisings are jokingly called corona riots. Furthermore, there has been a worldwide wave of protests against the strict corona measures and the uprising in Belarus, among others; no one can ignore the fact that there is a general discontent.

“Those riots all over the world are not separate”, says Hogeboom. “It all has to do with the burgeoning awareness that things have to be done differently in society”. He argues that the Black Lives Matter Movement can be compared to the uprising against the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko. “In Belarus, after 26 years of repression, people suddenly dare to take to the streets despite the presence of numerous police. In America, many people, mostly the black population, continues to demonstrate against police violence”. Hogeboom explains that all these uprisings are eased by the fact that most people now have a computer, a TV and a cell phone: “People see what is happening in other countries and become dissatisfied with their current situation. This is exacerbated by the corona crisis and the ongoing technological and digital advances, as a result of which many people suddenly lose their jobs, no longer have an income and get disheartened. That all works together and finds its way out by means of protests and uprisings¨.

Teilhard de Chardin was highly controversial. He tried to reconcile Christian faith with the evolution theory. Neither the Catholic Church nor science thanked him for this. Teilhard claimed that matter has an interior consciousness. As Hogeboom explains: “In a certain way, the COVID-19 virus has a kind of consciousness, capable of breaking the balance in the world, when this is disturbed by environmental pollution and climate change. When, in the early 1970s, the environmental movement pointed out to us that we were on the incorrect path, nobody was interested in taking action or heeding the warning. Gradually, the awareness is growing that we are all heading in the wrong direction. Then comes the environmental and climate crisis with the corona crisis and social unrest as a result. Essentially, we all created this virus, but strangely enough, it can also become our salvation. That little piece of matter helps us to become aware that we still have to do a lot of things differently”.

According to him, “the social unrest in the United States also has to do with the fact that there is still a very large group of people who feel comfortable with the old situation and are resisting change; among others, he refers to Trump supporters. However, the underprivileged population has developed and will no longer take the oppression. Everything that is oppressed, be it people or nature, eventually rebels”. McDonagh fully agrees with Hogeboom’s view: “Particularly in American society, institutional racism is deeply rooted. It dates back to the slave era. That is why racism is an intrinsic part of American society. Here only the lives of white people matter”. The Irish priest denounces the corona approach of the richest country in the world when he says: “See how they deal with health care and social problems. Where is the American dream? No wonder the population is rebelling.”

According to the chairman of the Teilhard de Chardin Foundation, Hogeboom, a possible solution for the social unrest is the provision of a worldwide basic income. “I was already enthusiastic about this idea when I set up the foundation in the mid-1990’s and thus came into contact with the Dutch artist Pieter Kooistra. He is the founder of the Dutch Art Library”. Kooistra had written the groundbreaking Marshall Plan for all people, The ideal self-Interest, (Kooistra 1993). In it the artist argues for a basic income for everyone, but also adds a comprehensive plan to develop the talents that every human being has, so as to use them for the benefit of society. Hogeboom admits that the plan is rather idealistic, but in view of the current increasing social unrest, it is still worth considering. McDonagh affirms: 

Kooistra is therefore not necessarily agreeable to the unconditional provision of a basic income. Hogeboom coincides with his view, “a precondition is that people first learn to discover who they are and how they can make a contribution. To this end, the unemployed should gather in groups and, under the guidance of a discussion leader, take stock of what kind of needs exist in society and how they can fulfil them. In this way, people can feel valuable again and make themselves helpful, and they do not have to feel useless and get bored. Insurrections and riots can possibly be prevented by this”, says Hogeboom. He attaches great value to Kooistra’s plan, because it is completely in line with the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. Together, Hogeboom and Kooistra attended a meeting of the United Nations to present The ideal self-interest. Hogeboom states: “Due to the fact that the son of the Irish Prime Minister, Erskine Hamilton Childers, who led the meeting, became unwell at the podium and was taken unconscious to the hospital, the session was adjourned and unfortunately, Kooistra’s presentation was not completed”.

McDonagh is very much in favour of the re-evaluation of Teilhard’s ideas. Thanks to his advice, Pope Francis referred several times to the French priest in the ecological encyclical, Laudato Si’ of 2015. “In addition to caring for human wellbeing, it is also crucial to build a sustainable future if we are to survive as a species on this fragile planet. Teilhard’s ideas could serve us well in this respect”, says McDonagh. Hogeboom acknowledges that “Kooistra said just before his death in 1997, that with his plan he planted a very small seed that will eventually germinate”. Perhaps the corona crisis and the ecological crisis are fertile soils in which The ideal self-Interest can still germinate.

References
Kooistra, Pieter. 1993. The ideal self-interest. A UNO Marshall Plan for all people, Kok Agora Publishers, Kampen, The Nederlands. McDonagh, Sean. In prep. Robots, religion and the future of jobs. Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. 1976. The phenomenon of Man. First Harper Torchbook,
New York.