The Emergence of Environmental Justice in Catholic Social Teaching
Excerpted from: Poverty & Environmental Justice in California's Great Central Valley
With his World Day of Peace Message about the environment in 1990, The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility, Pope John Paul II launched a flurry of interest in matters environmental among Catholic theologians. John Paul II rooted his environmental theology in the stewardship ethic of Genesis, and linked it with his vision for solidarity with the poorest on this planet. He carried forward a vision for distributive justice of the earth's resources for everyone, initiated by Pope Leo XII in Rerum Novarum and affirmed by the major statements of Catholic social teaching for the past century. More than anyone else, Pope John Paul II conferred legitimacy on Catholic concern for the environment.
The power of capitalism and technology has made unprecedented resource exploitation possible. In North America, conventional environmentalism and popular perceptions have posed environmental protection (especially wild areas and habitat) to be in tension with economic development. Media narratives and popular perception recount how resource exploitation and pollution are inevitable consequences of job creation and economic growth.
Over the past 20 years, however, an alternative approach has emerged, linking social justice and environmental protection. Its advocates carry forward a progressive agenda from the civil rights, labor rights, and community organizing movements. This approach critiques conventional environmentalism as reproducing the discrimination of broader US society, and failing to acknowledge the disproportionate impact of pollution on economically and politically marginalized communities. Frequently these are communities of color, already suffering from poor housing, failing schools, and inadequate job opportunities. A disproportionate burden of pollution adds further injury to the injustice they suffer. To emphasize the centrality of equity issues in this agenda, movement leaders named their approach Environmental Justice, or EJ.
The EJ movement grew out of these other historical social movements for justice, and its integrated vision grew as scholars began to describe the common patterns of injustice suffered by inner city African Americans, Native Americans on reservations, and rural Mexican Americans (especially farmworkers and rural communities). During the 1980s and 1990s, the EJ movement focused most of its efforts on local, urban initiatives to address toxic waste disposal and workplace hazards (including pesticides). Scholars played a critical role in framing these local initiatives as a national movement, and some Protestant churches conferred legitimacy, especially the United Church of Christ and African American congregations that had been active in civil rights efforts. By the mid-1990s, . Several scholars have subsequently expanded the EJ framework to an international scale.
Pope John Paul II's The Ecological Crisis was substantially echoed by the US Bishops' conference in 1991 with their Renewing the Earth: An Invitation to Reflection and Action on Environment in Light of Catholic Social Teaching. Coming just five years after their major economic justice pastoral letter, the US Bishops presented its vision of a distinctly Catholic contribution to environmental concerns. In keeping with John Paul's vision, it presents Biblical and sacramental visions of stewardship, reflecting a Biblical vision of justice. More than other statements, it emphasizes continuity between economic justice and environmental justice, meaning solidarity with the economically marginalized who suffer disproportionate environmental impacts. Renewing the Earth proposed a distinct Catholic environmental ethic, drawn from the Church's social teaching tradition. It lays out familiar social teaching themes from which to fashion an environmental ethic: a sacramental universe, a consistent respect for human life, common good, solidarity, universal purpose of created things, and an option for the poor. By 1996, forty eight conferences of bishops worldwide had written statements addressing specific, regional environmental problems from the perspective of Catholic theology, with a special emphasis on just distribution of resources for the poor.
At the national level, the US Bishops established an environmental justice program to assist parishes and dioceses who wanted to conduct education, outreach and advocacy about these issues. The most interesting and effective expressions of Catholic environmental justice concern have been regional initiatives. These have quite deliberately integrated economic development, distributive justice, and common good concerns. US Bishops do not want Catholic environmental concern to be perceived as distinct or deviating from their broader strategy of presenting social teaching to the faithful and society
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A Biblical vision of justice is much more comprehensive than civil equity; it encompasses right relationships between all members of God's creation. Likewise, St. Francis is patron saint of the poor and of ecology. There is no essential contradiction between care for the poor and care for the Earth in the Franciscan worldview; they are both expressions of God and God's love.
Environmental degradation is not distributed randomly or equitably across the planet. The poor suffer from barriers to economic justice, and the lack of resources and superabundance of pollution frequently contribute to their suffering. Environmental justice places the poor and vulnerable at the center of environmental protection initiatives, and thus is fully consistent with a Franciscan worldview. It assumes a systematic framework, but once one learns to look for patterns, they become readily apparent at the local, national, and international scale.
Many of the poorest rural communities in California have been explicitly targeted for disposing of hazardous waste. The Central Valley suffers from some of the worst air quality in the US, and the poor, migrants, and communities of color suffer disproportionately. Those without health care, especially children, suffer unjustly. The Diocese of Stockton is now educating its members about a Catholic vision of stewardship and environmental justice. They are framing the chronic problems of air pollution as a justice issue, and advocating for more responsive civic leadership by public officials. The Franciscan-inspired contribution of Santa Clara University faculty and interns, although small, demonstrates the possibility and importance of integrating education with advocacy, and care for the poor with care for the earth, in the Franciscan tradition.
Santa Clara University, California
Easter, 2006
For more information and to explore the Franciscan
approach to environmental justice visit the following sites:
To read the complete article, Poverty & Environmental Justice in California's Great Central Valley, click here.
Want to learn more about environmental justice in general? Visit Brother Keith Warner's web site at Santa Clara University for more information.
To learn more about the St. Francis approach to God's creation read Species Preservation Matters in the October 2007 edition of St. Anthony's Messenger.