Soon enough we'll find out how accurate the leaked draft of the new encyclical was; we have the official version to look at now.
After the Deepwater Horizon incident in
the Gulf of Mexico, I remember expressing my distress that a company could be so cavalier about the potential for widespread
environmental damage: Even if they had permission from all the
neighboring nations to set up an off-shore oil drilling operation,
didn't they have an ethical responsibility, one no government could
waive, to protect the environment, which does not belong to any
country or its government, nor even to the people whose livespans coincide with the operation, but an ethical responsibility toward the
generations yet to come?
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| Photo by Les Stone, International Bird Rescue Research Center: washing oiled Gannet |
“No,” I was told flatly. “By law,
they are accountable solely to their shareholders and have no binding
responsibility toward any other person or entity.”
I looked at the pictures of the dead
workers, of their families (living in the same neighborhoods as my
own family), of the oil-soaked pelicans and the workers pulling oil
booms across the shoreline, at the shrimp fishermen whose livelihood
was threatened for who knows how long. Nobody had to answer to them
for anything. The government levied massive fines on BP (and its
partners in the project, Transocean and Halliburton) for gross
negligence and reckless conduct, but the company is still
“accountable solely to shareholders,” and we can expect it and
other massive corporations like it to continue to make decisions that
put shareholders first, and the rest of us (and our planet) a few
steps behind.
Pope Francis looks at a situation like
this (and the many, many more that take place on a smaller scale and
in settings where the media coverage
is effectively dominated by special interests), and responds with an
encyclical.
Unlike Rerum Novarum (the
first-ever social encyclical, by Leo XIII), Laudato Si is not
addressed to Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops, nor (like
Quadragesimo Anno, by Pius XII) to Patriarchs, Archbishops and
Bishops “and all the faithful of the Catholic world”, nor even
(like Centesimus Annus, by St John Paul II) to Bishops, Priests and
Deacons, Communities of Men and Women Religious, all the Christian
faithful, “and all men and women of good will,”
Laudato Si is addressed (in N. 3 of the document) to
“every person living on this planet.”
It would seem that not even “good
will” is necessary any more. Francis is simply pleading: “I would
like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home.”
By addressing himself to “every
person on the planet,” Francis has put himself under some
restrictions. He has to start with the concerns of “every person on
the planet” and matters that “every person on the planet” can
recognize and understand, not addressing as “Vicar of Christ”
people who do not know or acknowledge Christ, but speaking as a elder
brother to the whole world, and “every person living” in it.
As always, he presumes that Christians
will read his words in a Christian manner, interpreting what he says
in the light of all that the Bible brings to bear on the subject,
even though strictly biblical reflections are developed explicitly
toward the end of the document. He expects that Catholics will read
his words in an even fuller context, not subjecting a papal document
to an entirely secularist interpretive framework, but parsing it in
the light of the Catechism and of the whole Catholic tradition,
especially in the area of the common good. It would be a grave
mistake, and even an injustice to the Pope and to one's
fellow-Catholics, to read “Laudato Si” in a purely
political light, whether that light is cast from the right or the
left.
Catholics can be accustomed to taking
Papal documents as “the end of the discussion”: Roma locutus
est, causa finitus est, my Dad used to quote in sonorous Latin:
Rome has spoken: case closed. At a press conference this
morning, Cardinal Weurl said, “Francis is … offering a moral
framework in which this discussion can take place … but he's
not saying 'This is the conclusion of this discussion'.”
Do your part! Read the document
(right-click to download and save to your computer):
Press Conference with Cardinal Weurl
and Archbishop Kurtz:
Several Catholic publishers in the
US (including the Daughters of St Paul's Pauline Books & Media)
plan to release print editions of Laudato Si; to get a 20% discount
on your first order from Pauline, sign up for our Discover Hopenewsletter. You'll be notified when the document is printed. (All the
typical publishers in the US are under a one month embargo on this.)
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