Irish eco theologian, Fr Sean McDonagh, is to be awarded the Eighth
Annual Partnership for Global Justice Award on Sunday May 1, 2011 at the
Church of St Paul the Apostle in New York.
The author of nine books including Climate Change: The Challenge to All of Us; Greening the Christian Millennium; Care for the Earth and Dying for Water,
is to deliver a keynote address at the award ceremony.
The ceremony
will be followed by an orientation symposium in preparation for the UN
Commission on Sustainable Development that will take place at the UN
from May 2 – 14, 2011.
Director of the Partnership for Global Justice, Sr Lucianne Siers,
OP, said the organisation is honoured to present this award to Fr
McDonagh, “a man who has so elucidated our understanding of
environmental justice and whose passion and dedication challenges us all
to hear the cries of the poor and the cry of the Earth.”
She added, “He represents the legacy and spirit of our annual Justice Award by his life-long work as a faithful steward.”
The Partnership for Global Justice is a network of religious
congregations, social justice groups and individuals that seeks to
foster equitable global systems, strategies for ecological
sustainability and a respect for the diversity of cultures and
traditions through educational programmes, advocacy and participation
with the UN as a non-governmental organisation.
It was while serving the indigenous T’boli people on the Philippine
island of Mindanao in the 1970s and 1980s that Fr McDonagh’s
understanding of environmental issues and the relationship between
faith, justice and ecology took hold.
The Columban missionary has since challenged the Church to take up
John Paul II’s plea to undergo an “ecological conversion” and has called
for environmental justice to become a core Catholic activity.
Recently, Fr McDonagh, who is a consultant to the General Council of
the Columban Fathers on ecology and environment and a frequent guest
lecturer at the Pacific Institute in Sydney, Australia, gave an address
to the JPIC USG/UISG [Justice Peace & Integrity of Creation Union
of Superiors General / Internatational Union of Superiors
General] Commission Spring Seminar in Rome on the theme The Garden God Walked in: Cherishing the Tree of Life to mark International Year of the Forest.
He warned in his address that the world’s rainforests “are under
attack” from the Amazon to New Guinea. “In 2011, only 60 per cent of
the Earth’s original tropical forests remain,” he stated.
“In the past decade, the FAO [Food & Agricultture Organisastion]
records show that around 13 million hectares of the world’s forests, an
area the size of England, have been lost each year,” Fr McDonagh
explained.
“As a religious person, I believe it is important to have an adequate
‘God Talk’ or theology about trees, forests and the natural world”, he
told the leaders of male and female religious congregations gathered at
the Fratelli Cristiani on February 19.
“The Christian community must begin to see itself once more as part
of the wider community of life. Insights from biology, botany, zoology
and entomology show us the wonderfully cooperative community of
forests. These insights will help us celebrate the beauty and wonders
of forests and trees with poets, musicians and other artists."
"They will also help shape an ethical consensus which will guide
human interaction with trees, forests and the wider natural world,” Fr
McDonagh, who is a co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests in
Ireland, said.
Acknowledging that in the past two decades, both the late Pope John
Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have addressed the ecological issue on a
number of occasions, he also gave credit to Vatican projects such as the
installation of photovoltaic panels on the roof of the Pope Paul VI
auditorium and the Vatican's funding of tree-planting in Hungary as a
way of off-setting its carbon omissions.
However, he decried the overall inadequate response of the Church to the crisis in its official teachings on justice and peace.
According to Fr McDonagh, despite the publication of papal documents such as Peace with God the Creator: Peace with All Creation (1990), Chapter 10 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), Caritas in Veritate (2009), If you want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation (2010),
he said none of these gave “any overall sense of the magnitude of the
current ecological crisis facing the planet, humankind and every other
creature living on the planet.”
“The only document that has any sense of the overwhelming nature of
the problem was an address by Pope John Paul II on January 17, 2001" in
which the late Pontiff called for an “ecological conversion” for
everyone.
"In that address he used the word catastrophe, and he stated that humanity needed to stop before the abyss.”
Referring to the fact that this document is not found in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,
and has not been quoted in official documents since, Fr McDonagh said,
“It seems to me that, if an individual or institution does not have an
accurate appraisal of the true magnitude of the ecological challenges
facing the earth, one cannot claim that that individual or institution
understands the current ecological crisis.”
He added, “Furthermore, unless one understands the magnitude of a
problem, one cannot design an appropriate response. So, despite an
increased sprinkling of ecological language and concerns in addresses
and documents from the Holy See, these still lack an accurate analysis
of the problem."
As ecology is a science based on empirical data, the eco theologian,
who spent years in the Philippines working with the T’boli people,
questioned why these Vatican documents did not base their ecological
reflections on scientific data.
“The drafters of these documents have available to them competent
scientific data from reputable bodies such as the IPCC or, in the area
of the destruction of biodiversity, from the UN Convention on
Biodiversity.”
But he highlighted that there was no reference to these
bodies or to any other scientific authorities in the Vatican's recent
documents.
Saying the Vatican has no problem quoting UN documents on economic,
social, political and historical data in dealing with almost every other
aspect of Catholic Social Teaching, he wondered why “there is one modus
operandi when dealing with economics and a different one when it comes
to looking at ecological issues?”
Addressing the concerns expressed by some prelates that eco theology
might lead to pantheism, Fr McDonagh told the assembled leaders of male
and female religious congregations, “I cannot see what all this fear of
an eco-centric approach to the biosphere and possible pantheism has to
do with the fact that Pope Benedict XVI did not deal in any substantive
way with climate change in an encyclical issued five months before one
of the most important conferences of the 21st century”, he said,
referring to Copenhagen conference on climate change last December where
world leaders sought to negotiate an agreement on how to tackle climate
change in a fair and just way."
He added, “I do not understand how a scientific analysis of the
causes of climate change, or the horrendous consequences which it holds
for the future of all life, and the steps that need to be taken to avoid
this catastrophe, could lead to pantheism.”
Fr McDonagh urged the Church to call a Synod for Creation and give
support to such advocacy groups as the Forest Stewardship Council, the
organisation on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation,
and the Convention on Biodiversity.
He concluded his address with the plea that “in responding to the
present ecological crisis the Catholic Church urgently needs to develop a
viable theology of creation.”