This essay was awarded first place in the 2019 Catholic Seminarian Essay Contest on Sustainable Behavior which was organized by The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development. To read more about the contest, click here.
CATHOLIC PRACTICES ON ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE BEHAVIOR
By Bernardo Castañeda Fernández
Assumption Seminary, México
INTRODUCTION
I would like to start by talking about the experience I’ve had, how I have been implementing it, and how I intend to integrate it in the future. As Pope Francis says in Laudato Si: “All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.”1
I studied Architecture in Mexico and later, before entering the seminary, I worked there in an apostolate called “Incluye” in which we built an ecological house for people who had left the street. The walls of the house were made with rammed earth, which are thermal and aesthetic walls. We made several visits to sustainable centers and discovered other very useful techniques to generate electrical energy, for example, with bikes. Another efficient and economic system of natural air conditioning we found is the Canadian or Provençal well. This system uses the outside air and makes it go through buried pipes approximately 2 meters underground, where the temperature is more constant throughout the year, and it is injected into the interior of the house, thus maintaining a constant temperature all year long. These are examples of sustainable measures that we can consider as an alternative to air conditioning, which has recently been used indiscriminately. This is where the root of the environmental problem begins: our lifestyle of consumerism which is focused on pleasure.
OUR LIFESTYLE, THE MAIN CAUSE OF ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
Our lifestyle is definitely not very healthy, neither for us nor for the planet, and “many things have to change course, but it is we, human beings above all, who need to change.”2 This consumerist lifestyle is reflected simply by observing people and their habits, not critically, but objectively. Obesity and chronic degenerative diseases have increased enormously. Our sedentary lifestyle puts us at risk of consuming more. In America, “we are sitting an average of 13 hours a day.”3 Part of this lifestyle is also reflected in what we eat. Our intake of processed foods has become very common nowadays and “the average amount of meat consumed per person globally has nearly doubled in the past 50 years.”4 It is also necessary to analyze meat production since it is one of the things that most affects the environment: “Raising livestock, produces more greenhouse gases than the emissions of the entire transportation sector…The UN along with other agencies reported that livestock was responsible for 51% of human-caused climate change and it is also the leading cause of resource consumption and environmental degradation destroying the planet today. Raising animals for food is responsible for 30% of the world´s water consumption, occupies up to 45% of the earth´s land, is responsible for up to 91% of Brazilian Amazon destruction, is a leading cause of ocean dead zones, habitat destruction and species extinction.”5 While this is only taking into account the environmental aspect, it would still be necessary to take into account the damage to our health. Without going into further detail, it gives us an idea of where we should focus to really achieve a substantial change. It is impossible for everyone to stop eating meat, and this is not what I propose, but it could help at least to consider reducing our meat consumption by using strategies, such as Meatless Mondays. It is a sacrifice that could have beneficial effects on our spiritual, physical and environmental health. Even “Saint John Paul II would call for a global ecological conversion. Every effort to protect and improve our world entails profound changes in “lifestyles, models of production and consumption, and the established structures of power which today govern societies”.6
PROMOTE WITH EXAMPLE
After seeing this sad panorama, now I would like to focus on the solutions that can be implemented specifically in the Church. I believe that the best way to promote ecologically sustainable behavior is by example. There is no better way than this, for the example attracts. We have a clear example in the Bible when Peter tells us: “not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.”7 It is not about imposing, but about proposing. I believe there’s enough to propose as a Church; in this time that I’ve been in the seminary, for example, I started a community garden. These are simple practices that have many benefits for the community. We can go back to the old practices that were held in the monasteries and which “were revered as sacred.”8 We must go back to the basics, as well as “for the monks and nuns in the past, garden work was acknowledged as part of God’s command to care for the earth. Besides the utilitarian aspect,”9 the main purpose was “to live in communion with God”10 through gardening. This must be our main purpose too, and gardening helps in this goal. In addition, having a community garden has many benefits as it creates more community, puts us more in touch with nature and with God, teaches us to care more for the environment, teaches us virtues such as patience and generosity, and teaches us to be more optimistic, apart from the fact that we obtain organic and fresh foods that improve our health and help us to live in a simpler way. In the canticle of Daniel, together with nature, we are called to bless and praise the Lord: “Let all creatures praise the Lord. Let the earth bless the Lord….Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.”11 As well, in Laudato Si, Pope Francis through the words of Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us again “how we can Praise the Lord through our Planet Earth and what it gives to us: Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.”12
SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES IN THE PARISHES
An essential part of our life is lived in the parishes, and the role they play is crucial in the development of our spiritual life. That is why I propose an imaginative exercise in which we can vision all the sustainable practices that could be carried out in the parishes. Just imagine the existence of sustainable parishes, which I have not found to date, in which water could be collected and recycled, energy could be saved for its design, and sustainable materials which could be operated by solar, wind or geothermal energy. The walls of these parishes would be built with sustainable walls, and more people would be involved during some stages of construction. This would create a greater sense of belonging and care. Some parts of the parish could even be acclimatized with techniques such as the Canadian or Provençal wells. The community would be involved in the creation and maintenance of urban gardens that in turn could feed the people of the community and the poor. Compost could be made, and children and people could learn sustainable practices through workshops. The effects will be immense, one of them being the improvement of the economical aspect of the parishes, but the main effect would be that the life of people would be “…grounded in the three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself.”13 In this way, people would be educated, and they would learn and implement these practices and habits more easily, even replicating them in their homes, such as through backyard farming. Besides the fact that the life in parishes would be much more active and inclusive to more people, this would increase, perhaps, the assistance of more people to other activities of the parish.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I believe that the main issue of protecting the environment is our lifestyle, our habits, and ways of thinking. “We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes and forms of life.”14 We should aspire to lead a different lifestyle, simpler and more connected with nature, as Pope Francis states in Laudato Si: “Christian spirituality proposes…and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, one capable of deep enjoyment free of the obsession with consumption. We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that “less is more”. Christian spirituality proposes a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little.”15
FOOTNOTES
1. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.14
2. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.202
3.Cision PR Newswire. July 17,2013.
5. Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret documentary. Directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, Producer Kip Andersen, 2014.
6. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.5
7. 1 Peter 5:3
8. Vegetable gardener, April 28, 2009.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Canticle of Daniel 3:57-88
12. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.1
13. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.66
14. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.202
15. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter On the Care of Our Common Home, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015, no.222