Catholic News Service
Concern for the environment now occupies a prominent place in Catholic teaching. Pope Benedict XVI spoke out frequently about our need to care for the earth, and Pope Francis, in “Laudato Si'” and elsewhere, emphasizes creation care as an integral part of Catholic teaching along with other social justice and respect for life issues.
But environmental concern is not exclusively a recent issue; its basis can be found in the Bible.
Psalm 104 is a lengthy hymn of praise to God as Creator: “How varied are your works, Lord! … The earth is full of your creatures.” Best known for its reference to God’s Spirit renewing the face of the earth, this psalm praises God for holding the world and all its creatures in existence, providing water to drink and “food in due time.”
Some of the loveliest references to the beauty of creation are those that depict the natural world worshipping God with human gestures. “Let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains shout with them for joy” (Ps 98) and “let all the trees of the forest rejoice before the Lord who comes” (Ps 96). Some of these passages, referring to the Lord’s coming, appear in our Advent liturgies.
Nature is also used to personify God’s attributes. In Psalm 61, the psalmist wants to “take refuge in the shelter of your wings,” thus emphasizing God’s protectiveness. Psalm 144 extols God as a reliable source of strength: “Blessed be the Lord, my rock.”
Psalm 148 and the great canticle in the Book of Daniel call upon angels and humans as well as the natural world to praise the Lord: “Angels … mountains and all hills … animals wild and tame … all peoples … let them all praise the Lord’s name.” This has important implications for our stewardship of the earth’s resources.
The creation account in the first chapter of Genesis repeats the refrain, “God saw that it was good.” God delights in his work and invites humans to enjoy it and care for it, giving us not “domination” but “dominion” over the rest of creation.
The original Hebrew word suggests stewardship, not power. Genesis 2:15, similarly, says that God “took (Adam) and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.”
In Leviticus, God enjoins the people to observe a sabbath for the land, letting it lie fallow every seven years (25:4). This is not ritual for its own sake: Giving the land a rest will increase its future fertility.
In the Old Testament, God frequently says he desires mercy and justice, not burnt offerings of animals. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews echoes this by pointing out how Jesus, as high priest offering himself as victim, did away with animal sacrifices.
Just think: When we admire the beauty of fall foliage or the majesty of a mountain, when we recycle, when we contact government representatives about environmental legislation, we are participating in something whose roots lie thousands of years back in our Jewish and Christian traditions!
(De Flon is an editor at Paulist Press and the author of “The Joy of Praying the Psalms.”)
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Pope Francis isn’t the only pope who has proposed care of creation as a Catholic, moral issue.
In his 2008 World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict XVI stated that “respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man.
“Rather, it means not selfishly considering nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests, for future generations also have the right to reap its benefits and to exhibit toward nature the same responsible freedom that we claim for ourselves.”
St. John Paul II, in his encyclical “Centesimus Annus,” voiced his concern for the “ecological question” and the “senseless destruction of the natural environment.”
Man should remember, said St. John Paul, that his “capacity to transform and … create the world through his own work” is “always based on God’s prior and original gift of the things that are.”
“Another name for peace is development,” St. John Paul said, quoting Blessed Paul VI, and part of this development means changing lifestyles to “limit the waste of environmental and human resources, thus enabling every individual and all peoples of the earth to have a sufficient share of those resources.”
