Benedict XVI, Apostle of the Environment, Justice and Peace
A Reflection for Earth Day 2023
By T. Michael McNulty, SJ
Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI died on Dec. 31, 2022. This gentle, prayerful and wise man astounded the world by resigning the papacy in 2013, recognizing that advancing age and infirmity led him to the conclusion, in his words, “that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”
Benedict was a tireless advocate for the environment, for economic justice, and for peace. A perusal of his writings will uncover clear statements on the redistribution of wealth, the impact of environmental degradation on the poor, the moral unacceptability of war and violence, and the positive obligations of governments to promote the common good. Here are a few examples:
[T]he natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself. [Caritas in Veritate, #48]
The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when “human ecology”is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits. [Caritas in Veritate, #51]
Peace, however, is not merely a gift to be received: it is also a task to be undertaken. In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, in being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth, the promotion of growth, cooperation for development and conflict resolution. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God’, as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:9). [World Day of Peace message, 2012, #5]
It is not surprising that Pope Benedict’s many pronouncements on the environment earned him the sobriquet “the Green Pope.” It is clear that the roots of Pope Francis’ “integral ecology” are to be found in Benedict’s writing. In fact, Francis references Benedict twenty-two times in his environmental encyclical Laudato Sí. At least two collections of Benedict’s pronouncements on the environment were produced during his papacy: Ten Commandments for the Environment: Pope Benedict XVI Speaks Out for Creation and Justice; and The Environment. In 2013 Marquette University Press published a series of essays on Benedict’s environmental thought: Environmental Justice and Climate Change: Assessing Pope Benedict XVI’s Ecological Vision for the Catholic Church in the United States. But Benedict didn’t just write about the environment. During his papacy the Vatican became the first carbon-neutral nation in Europe through the installation of solar panels, electric vehicles and the use of carbon offsets through the planting of forests.
The theme of Earth Day 2023 is “Invest in Our Planet.” And clearly a re-prioritization of economic resources is essential for addressing the existential crisis that is climate change. But Benedict offers some important caveats for those who would rely only on the market to solve our environmental problems:
Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution. [Caritas in Veritate, #36]
The Church’s social doctrine has always maintained that justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs. Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence. [Caritas in Veritate, #37]
The essential work of protection of the environment is for Benedict inseparable from the promotion of justice and a commitment to peacemaking. The service of the common good has its root in the commonality of all people as equal in dignity:
To make a concrete response to the appeal of our brothers and sisters in humanity, we must come to grips with the first of these challenges: solidarity among generations, solidarity between countries and entire continents, so that all human beings may share more equitably in the riches of our planet. This is one of the essential services that people of good will must render to humanity. [Audience to seven new ambassadors to the Holy See, June 16, 2005]
Political categories are ill-suited to assess the contributions of a man so steeped in the wisdom of the Gospel and conscious of the love of God. As Thomas Reese, SJ, put it:
Benedict believes that if people understood God’s love for every single human person and his divine plan for us, then believers would recognize their duty “to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator’s watchful eye.”
As Pope Francis ends his funeral homily for his predecessor: “Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever!”
