Wounded Shepherd by Austen Ivereigh

Author:Austen Ivereigh
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

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Is Francis that “great man”? In his Mass of inauguration on the Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 2013, the new pope’s homily was precisely on this topic of authentic power as service, a power of nurture that can midwife a new social order.

It was a social order in which government had an important role, checking the forces of technocracy and protecting the various environments, human and biological, urban and rural, that are necessary for human flourishing. Just as Jacques Maritain’s “integral humanism” in the 1940s offered a postwar Catholic vision of a liberal European democracy open to God, in contrast to the prevailing liberal individualism and socialist collectivism, Francis’s “integral ecology” offers a vision of social and economic organization underpinned by the gift logic of the Christian tradition as an alternative to the dominant technocracy. It is integral because it respects the organic links of existence. In speaking of the “environment,” writes Francis in Laudato Si’,

What we really mean is a relationship existing between nature and the society which lives in it. Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it. Recognizing the reasons why a given area is polluted requires a study of the workings of society, its economy, its behavior patterns, and the ways it grasps reality. Given the scale of change, it is no longer possible to find a specific, discrete answer for each part of the problem. It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions that consider the interactions within natural systems themselves and with social systems. We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis that is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.24

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