Some people consider Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, and his concern for the environment to be unexpected or surprising. However, I think this is a mistake. The Catholic Church is the most obvious entity in European history to take up the cause of the environment. Environmental areas of concern are shared by Laudato Si’ and the progressive movement. Progressives should make themselves familiar with this document, discuss it, and build on it.
The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution
Our environmental problems are the result of 200 years of industrialization. The philosophical and technological developments that enabled the Industrial Revolution were made possible by the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was not only independent of the Catholic Church, it opposed the authority of the Church. Therefore, the Church is in a unique position to publish a document like Laudato Si’.
Supporters of Enlightenment ideals believed that progress and improvement of the human condition were more important than traditional institutions, and that these institutions could be discarded if necessary. The French Revolution was one result of this belief, while the Industrial Revolution was the result of the Enlightenment’s scientific advances.
Political Classes and the Environment
The liberal middle class benefited from the Industrial Revolution, and the political left survived it. Or rather, workers whose farmland had been ‘enclosed’ and who had been relocated to factory towns became the political left in the process of surviving the Industrial Revolution. The environmental question never came up.
The other political faction, conservatives, have changed their character so many times they are no longer recognizable. However, they have never focused on the environment.
It’s true that the Catholic Church has formed coalitions with conservative factions, but the Church has an identity that is separate from political conservatism. With the publication of Laudato Si’, it has become clear that the Church has more in common with the progressive movement than it does with modern conservatism.
I haven’t forgotten that the Church is a political entity as well as a religion. However, the liberals and the business class are also political entities who are determined to stay in control, and this determination requires them to ignore or downplay the environmental crisis.
But who are progressives? The 21st century progressive movement has been shaped not only by environmental concerns, but also by an interest in Agricultural Policy and Food Security.
Laudato Si’ and the Progressive Movement have much in common. But wherever your political sympathies lie, I think I have made my point that the Pope’s encyclical Laudato Si’, and his concern for the environment, is not unexpected or surprising. Now if an American liberal or conservative had written Laudato Si’, that would be surprising.
The following is from pages 6 and 7 of Laudato Si’.
In 1963, Pope John XXIII addressed the nuclear threat in Pacem in Terris;
Eight years later, in 1971, Pope Paul VI wrote about his ecological concerns and “the urgent need for a radical change in the conduct of humanity;”
In 2001, John Paul II called for a “global ecological conversion;”
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI proposed “eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy, and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment.”
…’the book of nature is one and indivisible,’ and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that ‘the deterioration of nature is closely connected to the culture which shaped human coexistence.’ ((On Care for Our common Home – Laudato Si’, Pope Francis, pp. 6-7))
For a leftist take on environmentalism see Alyssa Battistoni’s Review of Naomi Klein’s Book