The Call of Creation

Following is the Introduction and Section II. The Headings for the remaining sections are given. It is well worth getting a copy of this document for further reflection and action.

I. INTRODUCTION

It has become clear that care for the environment presents a major challenge for the whole of humanity in the 21st Century. The Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales wishes to add its voice to the many calling for urgent action to protect our earthly home from further destruction. A way of life that disregards and damages God’s creation, forces the poor into greater poverty, and threatens the right of future generations to a healthy environment and to their fair share of the earth’s wealth and resources, is contrary to the vision of the Gospel.

The environmental crisis is especially complex since it involves not only many branches of scientific knowledge, but also politics and economics. The Church recognises and respects the ‘autonomy of earthly affairs in all these disciplines (Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 1965, Section 36). Its own task is to ‘read the signs of the times and uncover the spiritual and moral issues that lie at the root of the challenges of our time.

Care for the environment is fundamental to the universal good, since the health and well-being of all life depends on a healthy environment. The full human development of every human person both now and in future generations cannot be separated from the fate of the earth.
In Catholic social teaching the concept of the common good ‘implies that every individual, no matter how high or low, has a duty to share in promoting the welfare of the community as well as a right to benefit from that welfare (Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, The Common Good and the Catholic Church’s Social Teaching, 1996, Section 70). Therefore, if the environmental crisis affects us all each of us has the responsibility to play our part in addressing that crisis. What is happening to the earth indicates that we must think beyond local and national interests and define ‘the community’ in global terms. The way we live and the choices we make affect the lives of others: not only human life, in fact, but also the other forms of life found on the earth. In 1983 the Catholic Bishops of the USA, referring to the nuclear threat, wrote, ‘we are the first generation since Genesis with the power to threaten the created order. Today we are threatened by the disregard of a minority for the manner in which their way of life affects the rest of the world.

The Bishops Conference offers these reflections to all people of goodwill, particularly to Catholics, Christians of other denominations, and followers of those other religions that recognise the earth as the gift of a loving Creator. The task before us is ‘the shared problem of the human race?(Common Good, Section 106) and therefore demands the united effort of all humanity