By Fr Seán McDonagh SSC

Care for creation has become a central theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate. In July 2008, he told the dignitaries gathered to welcome him at Government House in Sydney that ‘the need to protect the environment’ was of paramount importance. The following day, addressing a crowd of more than 250,000 young people who had gathered for World Youth Day 2008, he spoke about the feeling of awe for God’s creation which he experienced during his long plane journey from Rome to Sydney. ‘The views afforded of our planet from the air were truly wondrous. The sparkle of the Mediterranean, the grandeur of the north African desert, the lushness of Asia’s forests, the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the horizon upon which the sun rose and set, and the majestic splendor of Australia’s natural beauty . . . It is as though one catches glimpses of the Genesis creation story – light and darkness, the sun and the moon, the waters, the earth, and living creatures; all of which are “good” in God’s eyes, Immersed in such beauty, who could not echo the words of the Psalmist in praise of the Creator, “how majestic is your name in all the earth”’. 

It was against this background that he delivered his message about environmental destruction. ‘Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of the earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption’. He went on to challenge the young pilgrims: ‘the concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity’.

One year earlier, in response to a question from a priest, he told an audience in northern Italy to link religious teaching to the concerns young people have about the environment. Against the background of beautiful Alpine peaks and colorful meadows, he told his audience that ‘nature itself tells us that some things are naturally right and some are naturally wrong’.

The pope insisted that, in the Christian view, the natural moral code is not an arbitrary list of do’s and don’ts thought up by religious leaders or resulting from a majority vote, but is part of human nature and the result of being created by God. Humans are special creatures precisely because they have the ability ‘to listen to the voice of the Creator and, in this way, know what is good and what is bad’. ‘I would propose a combination between a secular way and a religious way, the way of faith. Everyone today can see that man could destroy the foundation of his existence – his earth - and, therefore, we can no longer simply use this earth, this reality entrusted to us, to do what we want or what appears useful and promising at the moment, but we must respect the inherent laws of creation’. 
The pope explained that the first thing young people can learn is that ‘our earth speaks to us, and we must listen if we want to survive . . . The destruction of the environment is a stark example of how future survival requires that people obey the laws of nature, especially when everyone else is taking shortcuts that may increase their pleasure at the moment, but are obviously damaging in the long term’. Pope Benedict continued, ‘It might not be that great of a reach to help young people understand that the same natural voice telling them littering is bad, clear-cutting a forest is a shame, and that water and clean air are precious resources, is really saying that life is precious. We must not only care for the earth, but we must respect one another. Only with absolute respect for this creature of God, this image of God which is man, only with respect for living together on this earth can we move forward’.

The pope concluded that priests and other religious teachers should try to use ‘the obvious paths’ opened up by secular moral concerns, such as ecology, to lead Christian young people to ‘the true voice of conscience,’ which is communicated in Catholic moral teaching. ‘Through a journey of patient education, I think we can all learn to live and to find true life’.

Pope Benedict’s approach to the environment is summed up in his message to the 92nd Social Week in France in November 2007. He wrote, that ‘a moral awakening in favor of the environment is needed, and rich countries should not abuse the resources of developing countries’.

This article was published in Sunday Examiner, the newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong.