AN EXPLORATION OF THE INTEGRAL ECOLOGY OF LAUDATO SI AND ITS INTERFACE WITH THE ECOLOGICAL COSMOLOGY OF THOMAS BERRY AND LEONARDO BOFF

STB Dissertation, Heythrop College (University of London), May 2016
Henry Longbottom, SJ 1
REDEFINING THE COMMON GOOD: AN EXPLORATION OF THE INTEGRAL
ECOLOGY OF LAUDATO SI AND ITS INTERFACE WITH THE ECOLOGICAL
COSMOLOGY OF THOMAS BERRY AND LEONARDO BOFF
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 2
Chapter 1 Papal Ecological Thinking before Francis 5
Chapter 2 The notion of ‘Care for Creation’ 11
Chapter 3 The implications of Integral Ecology 15
Chapter 4 A new Cosmology? 21
Chapter 5 A Panentheistic Turn? 27
Chapter 6 A Call for Ecological Conversion 40
Concluding Remarks 43
Bibliography 45

INTRODUCTION
On 24 May 2015, Pope Francis promulgated an encyclical letter entitled ‘On Care
for Our Common Home, Laudato Si’’ (‘LS’).1 The subject of the encyclical is the
relationship between humanity and the rest of creation. The document
addresses issues such as climate change, destruction of biodiversity and the
impact of environmental degradation on the poor. In assembling his encyclical,
it is clear that Pope Francis drew heavily on his papal predecessors. The
document is shot through with references to the ecological and social teaching of
John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It also often refers to statements made by various
Bishops’ Conferences from around the world. LS consolidates existing Catholic
Social Teaching (‘CST’) on care for creation. At the same time, it constitutes a
major advance in the Catholic Church’s approach towards the environment.
A distinctive feature, what we might describe as the ‘ingenuity’ of LS is an
emphasis on the inherent worth of all creatures, and the way the encyclical seeks
to extend the CST principle of the ‘common good’ to include the interests of not
merely humans, but all created entities. The central LS notion of ‘integral
ecology’ conveys a sense that the inter‑relationship between human and non‑
human interests means that they share a common good. As such, LS points us
towards a notion of the ‘cosmic common good’, a term that characterises
humans as constituent of a ‘wider whole’. Within this ‘wider whole’, all elements
of the non‑human world possess not simply an instrumental value, but an
intrinsic value too.2
Which sources of catholic social thinking did Pope Francis draw on to develop
these innovative aspects of LS? The document itself does not provide many
clues. The only ‘recent’ i.e. twentieth century theologians referred to in the
1 Pope Francis I, ‘Laudato Si ‑ Encyclical on Care for Our Common Home’, 2015
(hereafter 'LS').
2 The notion of the ‘cosmic common good’ is elucidated by Daniel P. Scheid, The
Cosmic Common Good: Religious Grounds for Ecological Ethics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015). Scheid’s work appeared shortly after the promulgation
of LS, and this paper will show that many of the themes developed by Scheid are
realised in LS.

encyclical (excluding popes and other church leaders) are Romano Guardini
(1885‑1968) and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881‑1955).3 These two names
are highly significant, and especially for the purposes of this paper, Teilhard. It
will be argued that the notion of the ‘cosmic common good’ in LS has strong
parallels with, and may have been influenced by two recent theologians who are
regarded as heirs to the cosmology of Teilhard: the cultural historian and
Passionist priest, Thomas Berry CP (1914‑2009), and the liberation theologian,
and former Franciscan Friar, Leonardo Boff (b. 1938). It will also be argued that
LS’s call for a practical response to its articulation of a widened definition of the
common good, the call for ‘ecological conversion’ contains strong echoes in
Berry and Boff. In particular, the concept of ‘conversion’ in a spiritual, socio‑
economic, and ecological sense is inherent in Berry’s characterisation of the
‘Great Work’ confronting humanity in the twenty first century, and Boff’s
articulation of the need for a social and ecological ‘liberation’. It shall be
concluded that the international and UNESCO‑ratified Earth Charter declaration
referred to in LS represents a vision of the type of integrated ecological
approach to the common good advocated by Pope Francis, Berry and Boff.
In arriving at the thesis that LS redefines the CST principle of the common good
in order to better respond to ecological issues, this paper will utilise a
comparative methodology. It will initially examine the similarities and points of
departure between Pope Francis in LS and the work of John Paul II and Benedict
XVI. It will then explore possible theological influences on Pope Francis, in
particular the writings of Berry and Boff, which it shall be argued, might explain
LS’s ‘ingenuity’. The limits of the extent to which it is possible to draw on the
ideas of these two creative theologians, whilst at the same remaining faithful to a
traditional Catholic theological and social teaching perspective, will be
discussed. The paper shall be premised on a distinction between CST, and
catholic social thought, the former comprises official magisterial teaching of the
3 References to Guardini are made in LS, § 105, §108, §115, §203, §219 and to
Teilhard in LS, §84.

Catholic Church, whilst the latter embraces the work of Catholic scholars such as
Teilhard, Berry and Boff.4
In sum, the overarching aim of this study is to provide an insight into the
possible sources and influences behind LS to provide the reader with a better
understanding of the ecological theological ethic proposed by Pope Francis.
Chapter 1 ‘sets the scene’ for an analysis of how LS extends the principle of the
common good to include all creatures by examining the way Francis’ papal
predecessors approached the issues of ecology and humanity’s response to
environmental degradation. Chapter 2 looks at how Francis achieves this
expanded notion of the common good by means of a focus on reciprocal
relationships between all things and a virtue‑based approach to ‘care’ for the
natural world. With reference to synergies with Berry and Boff, Chapter 3
explores the meaning of the LS principle of ‘integral ecology’. Chapter 4 focuses
on the cosmological dimensions of LS’s integral ecological approach to the
common good. Chapter 5 looks at how LS approaches the notion of the intrinsic
value of non‑human entities, and considers whether LS lends itself to a
‘panentheistic’ interpretation. Lastly, Chapter 6 analyses LS’s concept of
‘ecological conversion’ and how this provides a platform for supporting the
principles contained in the Earth Charter.
4 See Thomas Massaro, Living Justice: Catholic Social Teaching in Action,
Classroom Edition (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011), p. 39.

CHAPTER 1
PAPAL ECOLOGICAL THINKING BEFORE FRANCIS
Widening the scope of the common good: the ‘nuanced anthropocentricity’ by
John Paul II and Benedict XVI
This chapter will explore the CST concept of the ‘common good’. It will show
how, prior to Pope Francis, the common good was gradually expanded to
become a global principle, concerned with promoting the interests of all
humanity, and that under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, it became increasingly
linked to protection of the natural environment. It will demonstrate that the
anthropological positions of John Paul II and Benedict XVI placed a limit on the
extent to which non‑human entities could be brought within the orbit of the
common good. It short, it will be argued that these two popes developed what
Donal Dorr has termed a ‘nuanced anthropology’ because whilst opposed to a
human ‘dominance’ over nature approach, they stopped short of promoting an
idea of the natural world possessing an intrinsic value.5 Ultimately, they
asserted that the common good is confined to the good of humans. This chapter
will therefore prepare the ground for an analysis of how LS extends the principle
of the common good to include all creatures, thus formulating a ‘cosmic common
good’.
What does CST mean by the ‘common good’? A foundational definition is
provided by Gaudium et Spes, which states that the common good is ‘the sum of
those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual
members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment’.6 Thus
according to Gaudium et Spes, the common good is achieved when the
community as a whole, and all its members are capable of flourishing. Hence the
CST notion of the common good is fundamentally opposed to a philosophical
5 Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor and the Earth: Catholic Social Teaching
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), p. 430.
6 ‘Gaudium et Spes: The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World’, para. 26.

Utilitarian inspired notion of attaining the highest good for the majority of
people. Instead, pursuing the CST conception of the common good aims to
protect the greatest possible good of ‘all’, not simply the greatest ‘number’ of
people. At its heart is concern for the dignity of the human person, and for this
reason, the common good is often seen as a subsidiary principle flowing from
the cornerstone CST concept of human dignity. The Compendium of the Social
Doctrine of the Church provides that ‘the whole of the Church’s social doctrine,
in fact, develops from the principle that affirms the inviolable dignity of the
human person’.7
Who then is the ‘community’ for whom the principle of the common good exists,
and, which organisational entity promotes the common good? With the passage
of time, we can observe a gradual extension with respect to the remit and
application in the principle of the common good. The first modern version of the
common good emerged in response to the social upheaval of the industrial
revolution. In Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII defined the operative community for
which the common good exists as the State.8 John XXIII extended this
community to the ‘entire human family’ in Pacem in Terris.9 His reasoning is set
out in Mater et Magistra: ‘one of the principal characteristics which seem to be
typical of our age is an increase in social relationships, in those mutual ties, that
is, which grow daily more numerous …’.10 This approach is endorsed by
Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate when he states that ‘in an increasingly
globalized society, the common good and the effort to obtain it cannot fail to
assume the dimensions of the whole human family, that is to say, the community
of peoples and nations’.11 Furthermore, Benedict XVI acknowledges that the
7 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, ed. by Social Compendium:
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (Vatican City: Libreria editrice Vaticana,
2004), para. 107.
8 Pope Leo XIII, ‘Rerum Novarum ‑ Encyclical on Capital and Labour’, 1891, para.
34.
9 John XXIII, ‘Pacem in Terris: On Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice,
Charity, and Liberty’, 1963, para. 98.
10 John XXIII, ‘Mater Et Magistra: Encyclical on Christianity and Social Progress’,
1961, para. 59.
11 Benedict XVI, ‘Caritas in Veritate ‑ Encyclical on Charity in Truth’, 2009, para.
7.

increasing interdependence between people resulting from globalisation has an
environmental, and not simply a socio‑economic dimension. He cites the
concrete example of the international energy crisis as constituting an instance of
this, asserting that ‘the international community has an urgent duty to find
institutional means of regulating the exploitation of non‑renewable resources’.12
In so doing, Benedict XVI recognised that in an increasingly globalised world, the
promoter of the common good is the international community, especially in
matters concerning environmental degradation, which are often of a
transnational character.
Given this emerging meta‑ethical framework, what then are the practical
contents of the common good? Again we can see a parallel development
towards a more inclusive approach. Gaudium et Spes makes it clear that
‘conditions of social life’ include the right of individuals to certain private goods
such as food, clothing and housing, as well as public goods, such as education.13
Later CST statements have emphasized that the common good should include
public goods of a physical and environmental nature. Hence Caritas in Veritate
speaks of the need to protect the world’s water and air since they are ‘gifts of
creation that belong to everyone’.14
Whilst we can see a development in CST as increasingly concerned with the
global community (and not just individuals within nation states) as the subject
of the common good, and at the same time an incorporation of the natural
environment within the remit of ‘goods’ to be protected, prior to Pope Francis,
12 Benedict XVI, ‘Caritas in Veritate ‑ Encyclical on Charity in Truth’, para. 49.
13 David Hollenbach argues that the public aspect of the common good is
analogous to the concept of ‘public goods’ within an economic theory context.
Public goods are ‘non‑rivalrous in consumption’ because ‘the enjoyment of this
good by some people does not mean that it cannot be enjoyed by others’. David
Hollenbach, The Common Good and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), p. 8.
51. On the premise supplied by Benedict XVI, Pope Francis speaks of the climate
as a common good ‘belonging to all and meant for all’ (LS, §23), and he highlights
the need to safeguard it for the sake of intergenerational justice: ‘the notion of
the common good also extends to future generations’ (LS, §159).

the common good is still conceived as a principle to serve human beings. As
such, it is fundamentally anthropocentric.
In order to appreciate this position, we must briefly examine the anthropological
premises of Pope Francis’ predecessors, in particular John Paul II and Benedict
XVI.
In his treatment of the role of humans in relation to their environment, John Paul
II sought to balance a traditional ‘dominion’ model with a notion of humanity’s
‘stewardship’ of the natural world. His most distinctive contribution is the
concept of ‘human ecology’, namely those conditions he believed were required
for people to flourish. The expression ‘human ecology’ first appeared in
Centesimus Annus in which John Paul II insists that man must ‘preserve the
natural and moral structure with which he has been endowed'.15 In other works,
John Paul II is keen to emphasise the way in which harm to the natural
environment goes hand in hand with other social harms such as war, abortion or
careless use of technologies.
In Evangelium Vitae John Paul II goes further in his paralleling of natural and
moral law, citing God’s forbidding Adam from eating from fruit of the tree as
emblematic of the way in which ‘when it comes to the natural world, we are
subject not only to biological laws but also to moral ones’.16 In Redemptor
Hominis, John Paul II makes a careful analysis of the theology of dominion,
stating that it implies careful stewardship, never ‘domination’, and should
always be interpreted against the backdrop of Christ’s ultimate kingship.17 The
theme of unity between human and natural ecology is revisited in Laborem
Excercens in which John Paul conveys his belief that humans are ‘co‑creators’
with God.18 In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, humans are presented as gardeners who
15 John Paul II, ‘Centesimus Annus ‑ Encyclical Letter on 100th Anniversary of
Rerum Novarum’, 1991, para. 38.
16 John Paul II, ‘Evangelium Vitae ‑ The Gospel of Life’, 1995, para. 42.
17 John Paul II, ‘Redemptor Hominis ‑ The Redeemer of Man’, 1979, para. 15.
18 John Paul II, ‘Laborem Excercens ‑ Encyclical on 90th Anniversary of Rerum
Novarum’, 1981.

must befriend the rest of creation: ‘When man disobeys God and refuses to
submit to his rule, nature rebels against him and no longer recognises him as its
"master," for he has tarnished the divine image in himself’.19
Building on the work of John Paul with respect to environmental stewardship,
Benedict XVI develops the notion of ‘human ecology’, and states in Caritas in
Veritate that ‘the way humanity treats the environment influences the way it
treats itself, and vice versa […] the deterioration of nature is in fact closely
connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence’.20 In this way, as
Maura Ryan observes, Benedict XVI ‘grounds ecological responsibility in a thick
theology of creation, and extends the moral and epistemological relationship
between “physical ecology” and “human ecology” to encompass a host of social
issues’.21 Benedict XVI also spoke of the need to respect the ‘grammar of nature’.
Hence he writes ‘… the natural environment is more than raw material to be
manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a
'grammar,' which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless
exploitation’.22
Notwithstanding the development of thinking around the interdependence
between humans and the environmental, the idea of stewardship presented by
John Paul II and Benedict XVI is premised on a sharp ‘separation’ between
humans from the non‑human world and is strongly anthropocentric. Whilst the
notions of good stewardship, co‑creation and the grammar of nature all
represent a shift away from viewing nature as existing purely to serve man’s
needs, the two popes nevertheless retain a sense that the common good can only
ever be viewed in human terms. Benedict XVI, in particular, is reluctant to make
any claims that imply non‑human entities possess an intrinsic value, arguably
19 John Paul II, ‘Sollicitudo Rei Socialis ‑ Encyclical on 20th Anniversary of
Populorum Progressio’, 1987, para. 30.
21 Maura A. Ryan, ‘A New Shade of Green? Nature, Freedom, and Sexual
Difference in Caritas in Veritate’, Theological Studies, 71 (2010), 335–49 (p. 336).
48.

due to his fear that such statements might give credence to pantheistic beliefs
that God is somehow confined to the totality of creation.
The following chapters will show how Pope Francis, on the other hand, can be
seen as opening the door to viewing the subject of the common good as
including all creatures, in other words he presents a ‘cosmic common good’.
The opening paragraph in LS is a dramatic signal that Pope Francis wishes CST
to move in this direction. Pope Francis draws on his namesake’s Canticle of the
Creatures to express that the earth is not simply a resource but a common home,
and moreover like ‘a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother
who opens her arms to embrace us’ (LS, §1). He later emphasizes that humans
‘are not disconnected from the rest of creatures’ (LS, §220) but are joined by
‘unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime
communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate, and humble respect’ (LS,
§89). Most importantly, as shall be examined in Chapter 5 of this paper, Pope
Francis emphasizes the intrinsic value of creatures. At LS, §115 he even refers to
the intrinsic dignity of the world. Prior to LS, CST has only used the term
‘dignity’ in relation to human beings. Thus, in ascribing an inherent dignity to
other aspects of creation, Pope Francis has widened the concept of the common
good and modified the notion that the common good is a branch of the central
CST concept of human dignity, as proposed by the existing version of the
Compendium.23
23 Social Compendium: Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, para. 107.

CHAPTER 2
THE NOTION OF ‘CARE FOR CREATION’
From ‘stewardship’ to ‘care for creation’: LS’s characterisation of the
common good as reciprocal relationships between all things
Commenting in 2006 on the characterisation of humanity’s fraternal
relationship with the rest of creation in the Canticle of the Sun, John Hart opined
that ‘despite Church leaders’ admiration for the life and teachings of Saint
Francis, the twofold doctrine that all people’s needs should be met and that
other creatures exist primarily to meet those needs remained the limiting
foundations for Catholic Church environmental teachings until the late
Twentieth Century’.24 This chapter will demonstrate how, building on the
foundation laid by his two predecessors, Pope Francis firmly dispenses with
such a ‘twofold doctrine’ of instrumentalisation of the non‑human world,
identified by Hart. In contrast to his papal predecessors, Pope Francis is not
anxious to ascribe to non‑human entities a role and value that is tightly bound to
humans. The LS vision of integral ecology represents an expansion of the CST
principle of the common good as encompassing not simply the human good, but
as the common good of the cosmos containing humans and other beings alike.
In continuity with his papal predecessors, although characteristically with less
hesitancy, Pope Francis firmly banishes the idea from CST that human
‘dominion’ over the earth amounts to domination. Two passages make this
particularly clear. Firstly LS, §66 indicates that sin is manifested in the ruptured
relations between humans and other creatures due to a distortion of the
mandate to ‘have dominion’ over the earth granted in Genesis 1:28. Thus Pope
Francis characterizes an equation of dominion as domination as a manifestation
of humanity’s fallen nature. Secondly, in LS, §67 Pope Francis forthrightly
asserts that ‘nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being
24 John Hart, ‘Catholicism’, in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, ed. by
Roger S. Gottlieb (Oxford University Press, USA, 2006), pp. 65–91 (p. 70).

created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute
domination over other creatures’.
Furthermore, LS places an emphasis on the reciprocal relationship between
humans and nature as forming part of a single interdependent life system. The
title of the encyclical testifies to this. The planet is a ‘common home’, a place
inhabited by humans and other creatures alike. As Pope Francis puts it ‘the
universe as a whole, in all its manifold relationships, shows forth the
inexhaustible riches of God’ (LS, §86). There is an exchange between the
encyclical’s discussion about role of humans and the role of other creatures.
Thus LS, §84 provides that: ‘our insistence that each human being is an image of
God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own
purpose. None is superfluous. The entire material universe speaks of God’s love,
his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains, everything is, as it were, a
caress of God’. The Encyclical also speaks of the dynamic relationship between
all living entities: ‘the ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in
us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a
common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the
risen Christ embraces and illumines all things’ (LS, §83).
Of great significance is the way that LS moves environment‑focused CST away
from the essentially anthropocentric model of stewardship. It is significant that
the term ‘stewardship’ is used just twice in the Encyclical’s approximately
42,000 words. Instead the idea of stewardship as a guiding ethical principle has
been replaced by an emphasis on care for creation model of integral ecology.
Explaining the absence of stewardship terminology in favour of language about
‘care’, one of the key architects behind LS, Cardinal Turkson, has stated that
‘when one cares for something it is something one does with passion and love’
rather than out of a sense of duty.25 On another occasion, Turkson explained
that ‘care goes further than “stewardship”. Good stewards take responsibility
25 Naomi Klein, ‘A Radical Vatican?’, The New Yorker, 7 October 2015
<http://www.newyorker.com/news/news‑desk/a‑visit‑to‑the‑vatican>
[accessed 30 November 2015].

and fulfill their obligations to manage and to render an account. But one can be
a good steward without feeling connected. If one cares, however, one is
connected. To care is to allow oneself to be affected by another, so much so that
one's path and priorities change’.26
The paradigmatic shift in LS away from a duty‑based stewardship approach
towards one that puts the notion of ‘care’ at its centre is manifested in LS’s
special emphasis on virtues. Thus Francis speaks of the need for wisdom and
generosity (LS, §47, §209), solidarity and care (LS, §58), tenderness, compassion
and concern (LS, §91), and simplicity, sobriety and humility (LS, §222‑224). An
emphasis on the virtues is a characteristic of Francis’ statements. Most recently,
in Amoris Lætitia, he recommends that the Year of Mercy is an opportunity for
families ‘to persevere in a love strengthened by the virtues of generosity,
commitment, fidelity and patience’.27
It is interesting to note that the shortcomings in the doctrine of stewardship and
the attractiveness of a more ‘affective’ virtue‑based model of care for creation
were identified by Berry as far back as 1989. In a short essay, Berry wrote that
the stewardship model ‘may be too extrinsic a mode of relating’ since it does not
‘provide us with the feeling qualities needed to alter the destruction presently
taking place throughout the planet’.28 As he explains, ‘stewardship does not
recognise that nature has a prior stewardship over us as surely as we have a
stewardship over nature, however different the implications of these modes of
stewardship. It does not enable us to overcome our autism at its deepest level’.29
26 Peter Turkson, ‘Care for Our Common Home in the Context of Large Scale
Investments in Mining and Agriculture’ (presented at the Popularisation of
Laudato si’, Lusaka, Zambia, 2016) <http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/
2016/04/25/cardinal_turkson_pope_francis_is_not_anti‑business/1225335>
[accessed 29 April 2016].
27 Pope Francis I, ‘Post‑Synodal Apostolic Exhortation: Amoris Lætitia’, 2016,
para. 5.
28 Thomas Berry, ‘The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth (1989)’, in The
Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth ‑ A Collection of Essays by Thomas
Berry, ed. by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,
2009), p. 41.
29 Berry, ‘The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth (1989)’, p. 41.

To illustrate his point, Berry points out that the destruction of rainforests ‑‑ a
natural feature that has taken approximately sixty million years to come into
existence ‑‑ at the rate of fifty acres every minute of the day, demands a type of
human response that stewardship cannot provide. As he puts it, ‘more profound
developments in our sense of relatedness to the natural world are demanded’.30
The emphasis in LS on humanity’s interconnectedness with the rest of the
natural world is therefore premised on a model for a more affective, virtue‑
based model in respect of our relationship with the environment. This model, in
turn supports a form of the common good, which is cosmic in scope.
Furthermore, as we have seen, it is a model that is present in alternative streams
of catholic social thought, in Berry and Boff.
To these two theologians we now turn.
30 Berry, ‘The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth (1989)’, p. 45. In a
similar vein, Elizabeth Johnson argues for the need to transition from a
stewardship to a care for creation paradigm since the stewardship model is
susceptible to ‘a vertical top‑down relationship [making] the natural world a
passive recipient of our management’. Elizabeth A. Johnson, Ask the Beasts:
Darwin and the God of Love (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2014), p. 266.

CHAPTER 3
THE IMPLICATIONS OF INTEGRAL ECOLOGY
From human ecology to integral ecology: Synergies between LS and Berry
and Boff
This chapter will explore the meaning of the LS principle of ‘integral ecology’ in
terms of its relationship with care for creation and the revised notion of the
cosmic common good presented by LS. The task will be undertaken with
reference to the works of Berry and Boff with the intention of identifying
synergies with Pope Francis.
As identified above, a predecessor to integral ecology in catholic magisterial
teaching is the notion of ‘human ecology’ first coined by John Paul II. As
discussed, the idea of ‘human ecology’ opened the door within CST to seeing
environmental destruction as emanating from the same alienation from creation
as other social evils such as war, disregard for the unborn and disabled or
misuse of modern technologies. As Ryan observes it gave rise to what has been
dubbed as Benedict XVI’s ‘pro‑life environmentalism’.31 These aspects of human
ecology are advocated by Pope Francis in his defence for the integrity of
sexuality: ‘valuing one’s own body in its femininity or its masculinity is
necessary if I am going to be able to recognise myself in an encounter with
someone who is different’ (LS, §139). Pope Francis is also strongly influenced by
Benedict XVI’s linking of the term ‘human ecology’ with the concept of ‘authentic
integral human development’.32 Pope Francis’ continuity with Benedict is visible
in his statements indicating that environmental and economic problems are
inseparable: ‘We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and
the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and
environmental’ (LS, §139).
31 Ryan, p. 339.

But why has Pope Francis chosen the term integral ecology rather than human
ecology? On one level, given his introductory proposal that the encyclical’s aim
is to provide ‘an approach to ecology which respects our unique place as human
beings in this world and our relationship to our surroundings’ (LS, §15), it would
appear that the term ‘human ecology’ would have sufficed. The answer is that
‘human ecology’ does not capture the truly dynamic nature of the relationship
between humans and the rest of the world, which LS seeks to convey. Integral
ecology on the other hand contains a sense that human ecology should be
understood within a wider cosmic common good. As Sam Mickey observes,
‘Deriving from the Latin word for a ‘whole’ or ‘complete entity’ (integer), the
word integral bears connotations of unity or wholeness … becoming integral
with the Earth community suggests that humans would understand themselves
as members of one single yet multiform community that includes all of the
planets, habitats and inhabitants, ideas and societies, humans and nonhuman’.33
LS also uses the term integral ecology to express such a boundary‑crossing
approach. The full title of the encyclical ‘on care for our common home’ suggests
an expansive meaning of ‘ecology’ in the sense that there is more to ecology than
biology. Carroll notes the word ‘ecology’ derives from oikos and ‘reminds us that
the cosmos is a home and shared by many existents’ whilst the logos part
reminds us that the discipline entails critical thought, and that as such ‘ecology
opens on to the ethical, political and religious dimensions of life’.34
Comparison with how Berry and Boff use the notion of ‘integral ecology’ can
shed further light on its meaning in LS.
33 Sam Mickey, On the Verge of a Planetary Civilization: A Philosophy of Integral
Ecology (London ; New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2014), pp. 16–
17. Mickey observes that the term was first used by the marine biologist Hilary
Moore in 1958 when he proposed that studies of ecologies should be augmented
by an ‘integral ecology’ that reconnects ecosystems and their components into a
whole. Hilary B. Moore, Marine Ecology (Wiley, 1958), p. 7. Cited in Mickey, p.
16.
34 Denis Carroll, Towards a Story of the Earth: Essays in the Theology of Creation
(Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1987), p. 161.

Berry speaks of integral ecology and integral cosmology in the context of his
belief that contemporary environmental and social breakdown can be attributed
to mindsets and behavior that divorce humans from the natural world, and a
failure to participate in ‘a single integral community of the earth’.35 For Berry,
the challenge for present‑day humans is to remodel our cultural, religious and
scientific traditions in order to re‑integrate into what he terms the ‘earth
community’. He calls this challenge ‘Our Great Work’.
Just as the outcome of this Great Work is an appreciation of the multi‑layered
character of the universe community, so its achievement will only come about by
drawing on a variety of sources of wisdom, including contemporary sciences,
myriad religious traditions, and female perspectives.36 Berry posits that
indigenous people are especially sensitive to the sacred nature of the earth since
they are often aware of ‘numinous powers … expressed through natural
phenomena’.37 He argues that among some of the world’s indigenous peoples
are to be found the last examples of intact coherent communities. These
communities ‘preserve religious imagination in which intimacy with local
bioregions and biodiversity frame the sacred in a seamless continuity with all of
life’s demands’.38 This continuity is expressed in rituals that uphold a sense of
relationship between individuals, the community, and the larger universe. For
example in the liturgies of North American Omaha tribal peoples celebrating the
birth of a child, the newborn infant is taken out and presented to the various
elements of cosmos – the sky, hills, rivers and trees.39
Boff expresses similar ideas when he identifies the basic question in ecology as
‘to what extent do this or that science, technology, institutional or personal
35 Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, Reprint edition (New
York: Broadway Books, 2000), p. 4.
36 Berry, The Great Work, p. 159.
38 Thomas Berry, ‘The Wisdom of the Cross (1994)’, in The Christian Future and
the Fate of the Earth ‑ A Collection of Essays by Thomas Berry, ed. by Mary Evelyn
Tucker and John Grim (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2009), p. 84.
39 Thomas Berry, ‘The Universe as Cosmic Liturgy (2000)’, in The Christian
Future and the Fate of the Earth ‑ A Collection of Essays by Thomas Berry, ed. by
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2009), p. 97.

activity, ideology or religion help either to support or to fracture the dynamic
equilibrium that exists in the overall system?’40 Boff sees in the word 'ecology' a
description of 'the inter‑related processes that must be brought into play to
restore health to our common home, the Earth'.41 Boff advocates an urgent
paradigm shift in our mind‑sets; a ‘reinvention’ of how we conceive of the
human species. This reinvention amounts to 'liberation' in the liberation
theological tradition of a twofold personal spiritual enlightenment and a
collective process of freedom from oppression. Boff widens the liberationist
definition to include a cosmological dimension, arguing that liberation is 'the
process of moving toward a world where all human beings can live in harmony
with a great community of beings who make up Gaia, the living earth'.42
Such a move towards relatedness involves a paradigm shift in the way we view
self. As Boff puts it, instead of ‘seeing the separative self as ‘normative’ we could
seek instead to value and nurture […] the relational self’.43
Boff notes Berry’s observations with regard to the animistic cosmology of
aboriginal cultures, and agrees that such a worldview is conducive to the sense
of an ‘intimate rapport’ with the surrounding universe undergirded by a
‘maternal source from whence humans come into being and are sustained into
40 Leonardo Boff and Virgilio Elizondo, ‘Ecology and Poverty: Cry of the Earth,
Cry of the Poor’, Concilium: International Journal of Theology, 5 (1995), pp. ix–x.
41 Leonardo Boff and Mark Hathaway, The Tao of Liberation: Exploring the
Ecology of Transformation (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 2009), p. 11.
References to Boff include his joint authorship with Mark Hathaway in respect of
this work.
42 Boff and Hathaway, p. xxv. The Gaia thesis, largely developed by James
Lovelock, is neatly summarized by Lovelock himself as positing that ‘the entire
range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, and from oaks to algae,
could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of manipulating
the Earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and
powers far beyond those of constituent parts’. James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look
at Life on Earth, New Ed edition (Oxford ; New York: OUP Oxford, 2000), p. 9.
43 Boff and Hathaway, p. 114. This thinking arguably corresponds to those
following Arne Næss’ belief that psychological maturation entails a widening of
the circle to include identification with others within the Earth community. See
for example Anita Barrows, ‘The Ecopsychology of Child Development’, in
Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, ed. by Theodore Roszak
(San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995).

existence’.44 Boff contends that this rapport has been lost in industrialised
societies because ‘spirit has effectively been exorcised from matter, which is
now conceived as simply ‘dead stuff’ to be consumed’.45 Furthermore, this has
entailed a progressive process of ‘disenchantment’ whereby subject and object
become separated, thus denying ‘a sense of real participation in the unfolding
cosmic story’.46
These ideas of Berry and Boff bear immediate likeness to many of the themes of
Pope Francis. Of particular relevance is the statement in LS, §63 that ‘given the
complexity of the ecological crisis and its multiple causes, we need to realise that
the solutions will not emerge from just one way of interpreting and
transforming reality. Respect must also be shown for the various cultural riches
of different peoples, their art and poetry, their interior life and spirituality. If we
are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we
have done, no branch of the sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out, and
that includes religion and the language particular to it’. Similarly LS affirms the
significance of indigenous spirituality which Berry and Boff draw on: ‘In this
sense, it is essential to show special care for indigenous communities and their
cultural traditions … For them, land is not a commodity but rather a gift from
God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they
need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values’ (LS, §146). In
this way, LS reacts against a certain stream of modern rationalistic thought,
which as James Lovelock observes, is prevalent in capitalist economic and global
governance thinking that assumes indigenous people are devoid of ‘rationality’
and therefore a voice with regard to decision‑making.47
That said, although LS appeals to a wider frame of reference for ways to
understand the cosmic common good, it does not do so from an overtly
pluralistic standpoint. In contrast, a principal feature of Berry’s approach is its
45 Boff and Hathaway, p. 135.
47 James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, New Ed edition (Oxford ;
New York: OUP Oxford, 2000), p. 9.

religious syncretism. He describes the need for an activation of the ‘macrophase’
of religious traditions whereby there is an appreciation that each religious and
spiritual tradition in the world has meaning not simply for the community in
which it originated, but for the whole of humanity.48 Indeed Berry’s religious
pluralism is revealed by his belief that ‘all human traditions are dimensions of
each other’ and that the success of human development rests on each religious
tradition accepting this notion.49 As he puts it ‘when religious traditions are
seen in their relations to each other, the full tapestry of the revelatory
experience can be observed’.50 For this reason, he asserts that the Second
Vatican Council document on revelation should have been entitled ‘on Christian
revelation’.51
Such pluralistic syncretism is not present in LS. Instead, in the spirit of the
encyclical being addressed to ‘every person living on this planet’ (owing to the
global nature of the subject tackled in the document), LS respectfully draws on
non‑Christian religious traditions as part of a dialogical approach. Thus, for
example, the last section of Chapter Five (LS, §199‑201) discusses the topic of
‘religions in dialogue with science’ without specifying any particular religion.
Another example is the reference to the ninth century Muslim poet Ali al‑
Khawas in a footnote to LS, §233. Such references are made without committing
to a relativist or pluralist position.
48 Thomas Berry, ‘Spiritual Traditions and the Human Community (1987)’, in
The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth ‑ A Collection of Essays by Thomas
2009), p. 4.
49 Berry, ‘Spiritual Traditions and the Human Community (1987)’, p. 5.
50 Thomas Berry, ‘The Catholic Church & the Religions of the World (1985)’, in
2009), p. 18.
51 Berry, ‘The Catholic Church & the Religions of the World (1985)’, p. 21.

CHAPTER 4
A NEW COSMOLOGY?
The longer view: The cosmological dimensions of LS’s integral ecological
approach to the common good
This chapter will examine the cosmological context for the notion of integral
ecology in LS, Berry and Boff, paying particular attention to the possible
influences of Teilhard. It will look at the way in which a de‑anthropocentrised
vision of cosmology in the work of Berry and Boff is influenced by their
appropriation of biological evolution and leads to a reassessment of traditional
creation accounts. The continuities and discontinuities with LS in this regard
shall be assessed. It concludes that although LS invites a reinterpretation of
existing theological traditions, the encyclical does not offer a radically
alternative cosmological vision as proposed by Berry and Boff.
Both Berry and Boff place emphasis on the way religious cosmologies bind
peoples, biodiversity, and place together. In particular, Berry insists that
societies require cosmological accounts embedded into their stories about the
universe because they represent a ‘primary source of intelligibility and value’.52
A central aspect of the cosmological projects of Berry and Boff is their
incorporation of biological evolution into our self‑understanding and notion of
what constitutes the cosmic common good. Berry makes the observation that
part of the problem of the ecological crisis and indeed spiritual desolation of the
modern era has its roots in scientific findings about the origins of life:
‘Discoveries of how the universe, the planet Earth, and we ourselves have come
into being have so challenged our Christian understanding that we are unable,
intellectually or emotionally, to feel at home in this context’.53 And yet both
thinkers maintain that the theory of evolutionary development should be seized
52 Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books,
1990), p. xi.
53 Berry, ‘The Wisdom of the Cross (1994)’, p. 83.

on its potential for the formulation of a new cosmological understanding of
humanity. They argue for an account that presents an evolutionary cosmic story
or ‘narrative’ in which every creature contributes to the common good. This in
turn draws on the thinking of Teilhard.
For Teilhard, evolution is not simply a biological fact but a condition for human
self‑understanding. Teilhard rejected both materialism and dualism. In his
schema, whilst the spiritual dimension of any created entity is its most
fundamental aspect, its spirit (the entity’s soul) is inseparable from its matter.
This is borne out in Teihard’s understanding of the role of evolution. As Sutton
points out, Teilhard equated an animal’s physical evolution with increased
physic development and believed that the growth in complexity of an organism
was accompanied by enhanced spirituality and consciousness’.54 As creatures
journey towards the Omega Point through evolution, they become increasing
spiritual. Thus evolution is a process of ‘spiritualisation’ that entails
‘irreversible advance toward a higher psyche’ and not random selection and
variation.55
Inspired by Teilhard and ‘process theology’ Berry believes that an evolutionary
understanding of the world produces a new ‘creation dynamic’ that should
pervade our thinking and behaving.56 He argues that a new ‘cosmological story’
is needed to express the story not just of humans, but the whole of the universe
journeying together:
54 Agneta Sutton, ‘Teilhard de Chardin’s Christocentric Trinitarianism’, New
Blackfriars, 92.1037 (2011), 90–103 (p. 94). Citing Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
The Human Phenomenon, trans. by Sarah Appleton‑Weber (Brighton: Sussex
Academic Press, 2003), pp. 101–102.
55 Teilhard de Chardin, The Human Phenomenon, p. 97. Cited in Sutton, p. 94.
56 According to the process theologians, ‘rather than stand over and against
creation, God enters it, is part of it, draws it upwards and forwards. All things
have their inner (conative) and their outer (quantitative) aspects. They retain
their freedom and their purposiveness even in their relation to God. God is the
one in whom all things cohere’. This model therefore views nature as not
something to battled against and conquered. Carroll, p. 168.

The natural world is the fundamental locus for the meeting of the divine
and the human. We need to look up at the stars at night and recover the
primordial wonder that awakened in our souls when first we saw the
stars ablaze in the heavens against the dark mystery of the night. We
need to hear the song of the mockingbird thrown out to the universe
from the topmost branch of the highest tree in the meadow. We need to
experience the sweetness of the honeysuckle pervading the lowlands in
the late evening’.57
As Berry explains ‘in all of these experiences communion takes place between
ourselves and that numinous reality whence the universe came into being and
by which it is sustained in its immense journey’.58
Boff’s cosmology is similarly influenced by a Teilhardian appropriation of
evolution. Boff argues for an integral ecology that will promote the ‘socio‑
cosmic well‑being, and maintenance of conditions that will allow evolution to
continue on the course it has now been following for some fifteen thousand
million years’.59 Boff contends that a feature of advanced evolution within a
system is self‑sufficiency in terms of its consumption of materials. As such, the
wastefulness associated with modern globalised societies represents a step
backwards in evolutionary succession, and he terms this ‘biocide’.60 This
resonates with LS, §22 that observes ‘it is hard for us to accept that the way
natural ecosystems work is exemplary […] we have not yet managed to adopt a
circular model of production capable of preserving resources for present and
future generations’.
In its presentation of a dynamic and ‘relational’ view of the world, LS has a
cosmological vision that could be described as Teilhardian. Indeed in the
paragraph where Teilhard is referenced, it speaks of the ‘ultimate destiny of the
universe is in the fullness of God’ and emphasises that ‘the ultimate purpose of
57 Thomas Berry, ‘The Role of the Church in the Twenty‑First Century (1995)’, in
2009), p. 49.
58 Berry, ‘The Role of the Church in the Twenty‑First Century (1995)’, p. 49.
59 Boff and Elizondo, pp. ix–x. In the same vein, Johnson speaks of evolution as
forging a ‘community of descent’ among all beings. Johnson.
60 Boff and Hathaway, p. 290. Citing Berry, The Great Work, p. 104.

other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward
with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that
transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things’
(LS, §83).
However the encyclical does not explicitly draw on the particular evolutionary
theories of Teilhard in the way that Berry or Boff do. Indeed the few references
to evolution seem to indicate a tendency to emphasise the distinctive role of
humans and their unique relationship with God, which stands outside
evolutionary processes. Hence LS, § 81 states that ‘human beings, even if we
postulate a process of evolution, also possess a uniqueness which cannot be fully
explained by the evolution of other open systems. Each of us has his or her own
personal identity and is capable of entering into dialogue with others and with
God himself … The sheer novelty involved in the emergence of a personal being
within a material universe presupposes a direct action of God and a particular
call to life and to relationship …’.
Another area of disagreement between LS and Berry and Boff regards the two
theologians’ assessment that the traditional ‘origin’ stories (in particular biblical
accounts) are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ because they have led to insatiable
desires for technology and progress and ideas about humanity’s superiority that
have resulted in the current earth crisis.61
Berry in particular believes in a radical overhaul of what he regards the
‘temporal salvific’ traditions that have become part of Western religious mind‑
set. He argues that ‘what is needed is a capacity to see the spiritual dynamics of
61 Berry and Boff implicitly agree with Lynn White’s view that a form of
anthropocentricism. White alleges to be inherent in Western Christianity is
partly to blame for the ecological crisis. ‘Christianity is the most anthropocentric
religion the world has seen. … Man shares, in great measure, God’s
transcendence of nature. Christianity … not only established a dualism of man
and nature, but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his
proper ends’. Lynn White, ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’, Science,
155 (1967), 1203–7 (p. 1205).

the cosmic processes within the context of developmental time’.62 He believes
that a grasp of this will herald a new spiritual age. According to Berry, this
cosmic vision has been hampered by spiritualties that focus solely on the soul,
and the ‘inner life’ of individuals. These have led to a notion of salvation in a
‘trans‑earthly realm’ in which the ‘natural world in all its grandeur’ played little
or no part.63 A very specific example he highlights, is the Post Communion
prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent in which we ask the Lord to help us
‘judge wisely the things of earth and hold firm to the things of heaven’. As Berry
observes, ‘to judge wisely of the things of Earth means to keep a detached stance
in order to avoid being emotionally bonded to the magnificent and ‘seductive’
aspects of the planet’. Thus embedded within Catholic liturgies is the notion that
‘the presence of the divine in the natural world is obscured or diminished in our
consciousness’.64
Berry’s hope is that the Church ‘could be a powerful force in bringing about
healing of a distraught Earth’ by ‘integrating reinterpretation of our New Story
of the universe’. To achieve this, Berry notes that a new understanding will need
to pervade ‘almost every aspect of belief, discipline, and worship’.65
It cannot be said that LS moves in the direction of requiring a ‘New Story’ of the
universe to be told along the lines which Berry and Boff suggest.
Notwithstanding the encyclical being addressed to all ‘people of good will’ (LS,
62), the message of LS is based on a traditional theistic cosmological premise.
For this reason a long section of LS, Chapter Two is dedicated to a survey the
‘wisdom of biblical accounts’. Affirming a traditional understanding of the place
of humanity in the universe, LS, §75 asserts that ‘the best way to restore men
and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute
dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who
creates and who alone owns the world’.
63 Berry, ‘The Role of the Church in the Twenty‑First Century (1995)’, pp. 57–8.

An area where Berry, Boff and Pope Francis converge however is with respect to
the Trinity. Each seeks to reinterpret the traditional doctrine to provide a
template for the cosmic common good. For example, in addition to the
Augustinian psychological model, and recent social approaches to understanding
the relationship between the three divine persons, Berry posits that a further
can be added: seeing the Father as the principle of differentiation, the Son as the
principle of inner articulation and the Holy Spirit as the binding force that holds
everything together in a ‘creative and compassionate embrace’.66 LS moves in a
similar direction. Thus LS, §240 states that ‘the divine Persons are subsistent
relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of
relationships. Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every
living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we
can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships […]
Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that
global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity’.
This idea of the Trinity as a model for interpreting an integral ecology of
interdependence existing between all creatures ‑‑ thus providing a window onto
the cosmic nature of the common good ‑‑ also points to the intrinsic value of all
created entities that have life in the Trinitarian Godhead. The notion of all
creatures possessing intrinsic value is the subject of our next chapter, to which
we now turn.

CHAPTER 5
A PANENTHEISTIC TURN?
Understanding the intrinsic value of all things: the panentheistic turn of LS?
This chapter will focus on Pope Francis’s statements regarding the intrinsic
value of non‑human entities, and consider whether they lend themselves to a
‘panentheistic’ interpretation, that is an understanding of the world existing
within God and God existing within the world. It will demonstrate that Francis
steers a middle path between ‘deep ecology’ or ‘thick panentheism’ on the one
hand, and extreme anthropocentrism, on the other. There shall be an
examination of how Berry and Boff’s belief in the intrinsic value of all creatures
is based on a scheme positing that all creatures share a threefold nature of
differentiation or complexity, subjectivity or interiority, and communion or
connectedness, a scheme that has its roots in Teilhard and also echoes the ‘three
ecologies’ of Felix Guattari.67 The points of contact and departure between each
of these three aspects of this scheme with the theological outlook of LS will be
assessed. It be will observed that strong parallels exist in each of these areas,
particularly in relation to differentiation and communion or connectedness.
However, it will be argued that there are major differences with regard to
attributing a subjectivity or interiority to all entities. Moreover, it will be
contended that although LS may be interpreted as sympathetic to a weak or
‘thin’ version of panentheism, its theology is essentially Pauline and thus
67 Felix Guattari, The Three Ecologies, trans. by Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton
(London: Ahtlone Press, 2000). According to Guattari, there exist three
interconnected networks or ‘ecologies’ at the level of mind, society and
environment. In his poststructuralist critique capitalism, Guattari states that
‘Now more than ever, nature cannot be separated from culture; in order to
comprehend the interactions between ecosystems, the mecanosphere and the
social and individual Universes of reference, we must learn to think
‘transversally’. Guattari, p. 43. As Mickey observes, it is apparent that Boff
draws on Guattari’s concept of ‘transversality’ when he uses the term to describe
the overlap of various cross‑disciplinary forms of knowledge which is a ‘peculiar
feature of ecological knowledge’. Mickey, p. 22. Citing Leonardo Boff, Cry of the
Earth, Cry of the Poor (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1997), p. 4.

incompatible with the strong or ‘thick’ versions of panentheism advocated by
Berry and Boff, since such versions are based on the notion of all entities
possessing a self‑generating principle, and ultimately break down the distinction
between creator and creation.
Without doubt, one of the most striking features of LS is its emphasis on all
creatures (not just humans) possessing intrinsic value. Every creature has
‘worth’ independent to the value given by humans. Thus LS, §33 asserts ‘it is not
enough, however, to think of different species merely as potential “resources” to
be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves’.
Similarly LS, §69 states that ‘together with our obligation to use the earth’s
goods responsibly, we are called to recognise that other living beings have a
value of their own in God’s eyes’. Again, LS, §84 points out that ‘our insistence
that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact
that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous’. The encyclical’s
general concern for the loss of biodiversity and species is also relevant to the
question of the intrinsic value of all living entities.
How then do these statements in LS compare to Berry and Boff’s theory of the
threefold nature of entities? Let us examine what these authors mean by the
terms ‘differentiation’, ‘subjectivity’, and ‘communion’ and then consider how
they relate to the contents of LS.
By differentiation, Berry refers to the way reality is not some ‘homogeneous
smudge’ but that every being enjoys uniqueness in the sense that it is
irreplaceable at whatever level, from subatomic to the galactic’.68 Preferring the
term complexity to describe this concept, Boff relates it to evolutionary theory,
arguing that ‘from its very beginning, evolutionary cosmogenesis has produced
ever richer complexities, from the first two particles interacting one with
another to the complexity of life’.69 Thus we can speak in terms of
differentiation as a ‘cosmic drive towards breadth – an expansiveness not of
68 Berry, The Dream of the Earth, p. 106.
69 Boff, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, p. 150.

quantity but of multiplicity’.70 Furthermore, in the concept of differentiation,
we uncover the uniqueness of each entity, a factor corroborated by scientific
developments: ‘science simultaneously deepens our understanding of a thing’s
structure and its ineffable uniqueness’.71 Berry draws on the Thomistic
principle that the perfection of the universe is composed of the multiplicity of
creatures. Indeed Aquinas holds that ‘although an angel taken absolutely may be
better than a rock, still both natures taken together (utraque natura) are better
than either one alone.’72 Following in the footsteps of Aquinas, according to
Berry, each creature is, at it were, an icon into the divine life.73 In other words,
the greater the diversity of creatures, the greater is our ability to understand the
Creator, who expresses himself through creation. This finds an echo in LS, §85
which draws on the Japanese bishops’ statement that: “To sense each creature
singing the hymn of its existence is to live joyfully in God’s love and hope”’.74
Boff points out that ‘the drive towards diversity and differentiation seems to be
in stark contrast to the monoculture mentality that undergirds the imperial
enterprise of modern industrial capitalism’.75 He points out that this process of
standardisation permeates not just ecological systems (for example the
imposition of agricultural monoculture) but economic and social modes. Thus
the imposition of ‘a single political and economic model for the world … runs
counter to the path of cosmic evolution’.76 This is a subject brought out in LS,
§144 which takes up a Guadinian position in its assertion that ‘consumerist
71 Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, The Universe Story : From the Primordial
Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era‑‑A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos
(San Francisco, Calif.: HarperOne, 1994), p. 74.
72 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, 44,1,2 and 6. Cited in Oliva
Blanchette, The Perfection of the Universe According to Aquinas: A Teleological
Cosmology, First Edition (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1992), pp. 126–7. Citing ST I: q. 47, a. 1.
73 See Willis Jenkins who makes a similar point. Willis Jenkins, ‘Biodiversity and
Salvation: Thomistic Roots for Environmental Ethics’, The Journal of Religion, 83
(2003), 401–20 (p. 408).
74 Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan, Reverence for Life. A Message for the
Twenty‑First Century (1 January 2000), 89.
76 Berry and Swimme, p. 283.

vision of human beings, encouraged by the mechanisms of today’s globalised
economy, has a levelling effect on cultures, diminishing the immense variety
which is the heritage of all humanity. Attempts to resolve all problems through
uniform regulations or technical interventions can lead to overlooking the
complexities of local problems which demand the active participation of all
members of the community’ (LS, §144).
By subjectivity, Berry imputes an ability to ‘participate directly in the cosmos‑
creating endeavour’, to every being, including non‑sentient entities.77 Berry
identifies this subjectivity as possessing a sacred quality, which may not be
accessible to human reason. Using the term ‘interiority’, to express an
equivalent idea, Boff explains ‘each being has its own uniqueness, its own entry
on stage, and its own way of making its presence felt’. Furthermore, such
‘interiority’ is the means by which the cosmos drives ‘towards greater depth,
including the drive towards increasing mindfulness, and consciousness’.78 The
concept is connected to differentiation because in the process of becoming
increasingly distinct from each other, a being’s identity as a separate individual
becomes clearer.79 In developing the notion of subjectivity and interiority, Berry
and Boff draw on Teilhard's belief that through evolutionary forces, all beings
are propelled by life's ‘zest’. As Teilhard put it, ‘A zest for living … would appear
to be the fundamental driving force which impels and directs the universe along
its main axis of complexity‑consciousness …’.80 Such a ‘zest’ is interpreted by
Boff as manifesting itself in the creativity and ‘play’ of creatures, observing that
as species become more complex, there is an increase in whimsical playfulness:
‘much of mammalian behaviour seems to exude a kind of joyful freedom that is
not directly related to survival’.81
77 Berry, The Great Work, p. 163.Berry and Swimme, p. 75.
80 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy, trans. by René Hague (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc, 1970).

Pope Francis alludes to the idea of an internal principle existing in all life forms
when he states that ‘the Spirit of God has filled the universe with possibilities
and therefore, from the very heart of things, something new can always emerge’
(LS, §80). Similarly, the encyclical speaks of the life of all things as possessing an
internal dynamic existing so that ‘the ultimate purpose of other creatures is not
to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through
us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent
fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things’ (LS, §83).
Furthermore, in common with Berry and Boff, Pope Francis sees this internal
principle as a source of the ethical obligation to respect the life of non‑human
entities. For Berry, entering into an integral relationship with the earth entails a
respect for the subjectivity of all entities. As Mickey summarises Berry’s belief,
‘our Great Work is to learn how to touch the beings in our planetary home in
ways that leave their forms of subjectivity intact … that does not reduce touching
subjects to mere objects but participates in the complex relationality’.82 There
are strong resonances here with the way Pope Francis draws on the work of
Romano Guardini to warn against the instrumentalisation of nature. As LS, §115
puts it ‘modern anthropocentrism has paradoxically ended up prizing technical
thought over reality, since “the technological mind sees nature as an insensate
order, as a cold body of facts, as a mere ‘given’, as an object of utility, as raw
material to be hammered into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a
mere ‘space’ into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference”. The
intrinsic dignity of the world is thus compromised’.83
An area of Berry and Boff’s principle of ‘subjectivity’ that is completely absent
from the theology of LS relates to self‑generation. Both Berry and Boff use the
term ‘autopoiesis’ (self‑organisation) to describe a process of self‑creation
whereby each entity contains within itself the capacity to organise itself. Berry
thus speaks of all beings having the ability to ‘participate directly in the cosmos‑
82 Mickey, p. 18.
83 LS, §115, citing Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World: A Search for
Orientation (London: Sheed & Ward, 1957), p. 55.

creating endeavor’.84 In a similar vein, Boff argues that the principle of
autopoiesis is ‘continually at work within the universe, driving evolution and the
emergence of all beings’.85 Boff goes even further, proposing that the mindful
activity of humanity can be understood as a ‘part of the deepening consciousness
of the universe itself, and perhaps as a manifestation of ‘God‑in‑the‑making’, or
to put it in terms that draws on the thinking of the Meister Eckhart, giving birth
to God in our own times.86
At this point we can detect in Berry and Boff a strong form of panentheism. Boff
speaks of creation as sacramental and says the divine ‘Spirit’ is immanent in all
beings. For Boff, ‘God is in everything … God flows through all things; God is
present in everything and makes of all reality a temple … the world is … the
place where we meet God’.87 He appeals to the concept of perichoresis as an
example of strain of classical theological reflection that is imbued with a
panentheist understanding of God being present in the cosmos and the cosmos
being present in God.88 He also appeals to the way in which Teilhard
characterised the incarnation as a manifestation of the transparency, or
diaphaneity of the immanent God.89 He insists that his position is panentheist
rather than pantheist because it maintains that not everything is God.90
However, of significance to us is that a panentheist position generally rejects, or
at least displays an agnostic attitude towards the principle of creation ex nihilo.
Instead, it places emphasis on God as being co‑extensive in time and space
84 Berry and Swimme, pp. 75–6.
87 Leonardo Boff, Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm, trans. by Jum
Cumming (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1995), p. 51.
89 Boff and Hathaway, p. 325. For example, Teilhard de Chardin said that ‘the
great mystery of Christianity is not exactly the appearance, but the transparency,
of God in the universe. Yes, Lord, not only the ray that strikes the surface, but the
ray that penetrates. Not only your epiphany, Jesus, but your diaphany’. Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin: An Essay on the Interior Life (London:
Collins Fontana Books, 1964), p. 127.
90 To say that everything is identical to God offends common sense and ethics
Boff maintains. Boff and Hathaway, p. 324.

within the reality of the universe. As Mellert explains, in common with process
thinkers like Alfred Whitehead, for panentheists, ‘whether there was a first such
entity and how it originated cannot be solved by pushing things back to the
beginning, because the beginning of reality is ultimately unexplainable. The only
explanation available to us comes from looking at the nature of process as a
whole’.91 This account of reality impacts on the panentheist anthropology and in
turn their view of salvation. Because all reality is valued by, and is indeed
constituent of, God, everything is ultimately brought to perfection. For Teilhard,
such perfection is characterised as a ‘culminative’ event, which he describes as
the Omega Point, a point at which everything that emanates from God will return
to God’s perfection.92 For panentheists, nature and grace are a ‘seamless whole’.
As Berry states ‘the spiritual and the physical are two dimensions of the single
reality that is the universe itself.93
The danger of this ‘thick’ version of panentheism is that the universe is collapsed
into a single reality, or at least the distinction between God and the works of God
are broken down and confused. This is at odds with the traditional Catholic
(Thomistic) understanding of a clear distinction between creator and creation.
Teilhard’s theology arguably maintains this distinction because he developed a
notion of the indispensability of Christ as an external animating force in the rise
of consciousness.94 Indeed Teilhard draws on Pauline passages such as
Colossians 1:19 which speaks of Christ as ‘being before all things, and in him all
things hold together’ to insist that ‘Christ is the one whose spiritual and unifying
force sustains and guides the evolution of creation seen as a pilgrimage to a
91 Robert B. Mellert, What Is Process Theology? (New York: Paulist Press, 1975).
92 There is a parallel here with Origen’s understanding of eternal life as
comprising the redeemed as pure intelligent beings who obtain insight into the
true nature of things, which are presently ineffable. As with Cardin’s
‘culminative’ event, Origen conceives of the end as a return to the beginning.
Such a vision is not pantheistic since a distinction between God and created
spirits is preserved. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 5th Edition (London:
A&C Black, 1997), p. 486.
93 Berry, The Great Work, pp. 49–50.
94 As he states, it is Christ who is ‘directing, and superanimating the general rise
of consciousness […] by a perennial act of communion and sublimation he is
aggregating the entire psyche [all souls] of the Earth to himself’. Teilhard de
Chardin, The Human Phenomenon, p. 211.

destination willed by God’.95 For Teilhard, we should love the materiality of our
world because of its sacred origin ‘but also because at its heart, drawing it
forward beyond itself, is the creative love of God’. Christ is the originator,
animator, reconciler and goal of the world in a way that ‘can accommodate the
infinitely small and the infinitely great’.96
However, lacking the strongly Christocentric principle of Teilhard, the theology
of Berry and Boff do not preserve a distinction between God and the works of
God.
How does this relate to LS? The encyclical certainly contains elements that
could be interpreted in a panentheistic fashion. Two statements stand out.
Firstly, ‘the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a
mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a
poor person’s face’ (LS, §233). Secondly, ‘the bishops of Brazil have pointed out
that nature as a whole not only manifests God but is also a locus of his presence.
The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us to enter into
relationship with him’ (LS, §89).97
Yet even these statements preserve an understanding of the divine as ultimately
transcendent. Pope Francis puts it quite forcefully in LS, §75 ‘A spirituality
which forgets God as all‑powerful and Creator is not acceptable’. Indeed Pope
Francis arguably explicitly outlaws any ‘thick’ pantheistic interpretations in LS,
§90 when he states that the reality of God joining humans closely to the world
around us ‘is not to put all living beings on the same level nor to deprive human
beings of their unique worth and the tremendous responsibility it entails. Nor
does it imply a divinisation of the earth which would prevent us from working
on it and protecting it in its fragility’. Instead, Francis’ ‘thin’ version of
panentheism is, following Teilhard, essentially Pauline, describing all creatures
as ‘moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival,
95 Sutton, p. 93.
96 Carroll, p. 170.
97 Cf. National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil, A Igreja e a Questão Ecológica,
1992, 53‑54.

which is God’ LS, §83), a description recalling Romans 8:19. Likewise the
reference in LS, §99 to the ‘destiny of all creation’ being ‘bound up with the
mystery of Christ, present from the beginning’ is reminiscent of
Teilhard’s notion of the Omega Point, and is firmly anchored in Colossians 1:16.
Pope Francis’ reference to humans’ ‘unique worth’ in LS, §90 is another
important instance of the way the theology of LS and that of Berry and Boff
differ. Both Berry and Boff subscribe to a ‘deep ecology’ philosophical
understanding, which not only recognises the intrinsic value of non‑human
entities, but also undermines the notion that human beings have a privileged
position within creation.98 For Berry and Boff, humans cannot be seen to have
such a uniquely salvific role. Instead, their uniqueness derives from their being
the only consciously self‑aware creature, and that the specific role of humans is
that they are ‘that being in whom the universe celebrates itself’.99 Such a view
based on ‘deep ecology’ presumptions is not supported by LS. As LS, §83 states,
humans have a role in ‘shepherding’ creatures to their creator: ‘Human beings,
endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are
called to lead all creatures back to their Creator’. Furthermore, LS, §119 affirms
that ‘Christian thought sees human beings as possessing a particular dignity
above other creatures’.
By communion and connectedness, Berry and Boff posit that every creature exists
in a relationship of mutuality and reciprocity.100 Berry succinctly asserts that
‘the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects’.101 As
Scheid summarises, for Berry ‘the universe is constructed as a differentiated
whole, and no creature can truly extricate itself from the interlocking web of
creation’.102 Likewise, anticipating a constant refrain in LS, Boff states that
101 Thomas Berry, Evening Thoughts, ed. by Mary Evelyn Tucker (San Francisco:
Counterpoint, 2006), p. 17.
102 Scheid.

‘everything is interconnected’.103 Going further, Boff opines that ‘beings listen to
one another’s voice and can hear the story that each other can tell in its process
spanning billions of years’.104 Boff seeks to undergird this opinion with a
scientific understanding, arguing that cosmic communion is ‘manifest in part
through the phenomenon of quantum entanglement which mysteriously
connects every wave/particle in the universe with every one reaching back to
the first moment when all was one’.105 Likewise, Berry states that ‘in the very
first instant when the primitive particles rushed forth, every one of them was
connected to every other one in the entire universe. At no time in the future
existence of the universe will they ever arrive at a point of disconnection’.106
In a move similar to LS’s use of St. Francis’ Canticle of the Sun, Boff highlights
that the process of deepening of communion entails an affective conversion:
‘moving toward more complex relationships and broadening our sense of
identification with other beings [involves] widening the circles of our
compassion’.107
It is indeed significant that Boff draws on the mystical Sufi tradition, which
expresses relationality between living things in terms of an intimate dynamic
attraction or Ishq ‘a deep, divine love that acts as a kind of cosmic glue, binding
all together’.108 Pope Francis likewise appeals to this strain of Islamic thinking
when dealing with the immanence of the divine in creation and the way God is
present in the unfolding of the universe. In particular, the footnote to LS, §233
refers to the ninth century Muslim poet Ali al‑Khawas, pointing out that he
‘stresses from his own experience the need not to put too much distance
between the creatures of the world and the interior experience of God’.

There is a further parallel between the theme of communion and
interconnectedness within Berry and Boff and LS, §76 when Pope Francis
distinguishes between nature and creation: ‘in the Judaeo‑Christian tradition, the
word “creation” has a broader meaning than “nature”, for it has to do with God’s
loving plan in which every creature has its own value and significance. Nature is
usually seen as a system which can be studied, understood and controlled,
whereas creation can only be understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of
the Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which calls us together
into universal communion’. Similarly, in LS, §89, Pope Francis states that ‘the
created things of this world are … [all] … linked by unseen bonds and together
form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a
sacred, affectionate and humble respect’. Then quoting Evangelii Gaudium, Pope
Francis asserts that “God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we
can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the
extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement”’.109
Referring to inherent communion, Berry identifies the way people suffer a
breakdown in relationship between each other, and from the earth in terms of
‘alienation’. He argues that the lack of a sacred context of existence causes
people to feel antagonistic towards the natural environment viewing it as a
collection of natural resources to be exploited or simply the ‘setting’ for
humans.110 He contends that this is a fundamentally modern phenomenon that
does not reflect the true state of affairs. As Berry puts it ‘Alienation is an
impossibility, a cosmological impossibility. We can feel alienated, but we can
never be alienated’.111 In a similar vein, LS identifies such alienation as a
byproduct of the technocratic lifestyle and way of thinking that has permeated
modern thought: ‘the specialization, which belongs to technology makes it
difficult to see the larger picture. The fragmentation of knowledge proves
109 Pope Francis I, ‘Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November
2013), 215: AAS 105 (2013)’, para. 1109.
111 Thomas Berry and Thomas Clarke, Befriending the Earth: A Theology of
Reconciliation Between Humans and the Earth (Mystic, Conn: Twenty Third
Pubications, 1991), p. 14.

helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation
for the whole, for the relationships between things, and for the broader horizon,
which then becomes irrelevant’ (LS, §110). This echoes Boff’s characterisation
of the modern city as a metaphor for alienation since it gives us ‘body armour’
that immunises us from the natural world. Boff repeats Lovelock’s question
‘how can we wonder about God and the Universe if we never see the stars
because of the city lights?’ to express his fear that we have become trapped in a
human‑created reality.112
As with the notions of subjectivity and interiority, there are profound limits on
the synergies between Berry and Boff and Pope Francis’s understanding of
communion and interconnectedness. Again this is due to the two theologians’
appropriation of process thinking and deep ecology. Berry and Boff push the
notion of communion to such an extent that they collapse the distinction
between creator and creation. As we saw above in Chapter 4, underlying their
thinking is the Gaia theory. As Boff states ‘this communion is so strong that [all
organisms] form a single entity – Gaia – that transcends the mere sum of the
parts’.113 In this vein, they point to an understanding of humans as ‘one
expression of the emergent mind of the process’ and that the universe as an
emerging cosmic mind ‘is not so much a place as a process’.114 As such, the
imperative to have compassion on the fate of non‑human elements of this
universe is therefore driven not by a sense of our God‑given role as unique
shepherds of creation, but that we are connected to other species and systems
that, like us, have ‘emerged into thinking’.115
By way of conclusion to the subject of the intrinsic value and panentheism, we
can say that LS extends the ‘nuanced anthropocentrism’ of his immediate papal
predecessors without adopting a ‘deep ecology’ or thick version of panentheism
of Berry and Boff. Instead, Pope Francis alights on the notion of ‘integral
112 James Lovelock, Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth (New York: W
W Norton & Co Inc, 1988), p. 197. Cited in Boff and Hathaway, p. 111.

ecology’ as a means of conveying the threefold communion existing between
God and creation, God and humanity and humanity and the rest of creation. In
so doing, LS has parallels with Berry and Boff’s beliefs regarding the capacity of
relatedness present in all creature, but is firmly anchored in existing Christian
traditions. As LS, §216 articulates: ‘admittedly, Christians have not always ap‑
propriated and developed the spiritual treasures bestowed by God upon the
Church, where the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body or from
nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with
all that surrounds us’.

CHAPTER 6
A CALL FOR ECOLOGICAL CONVERSION
The task ahead: LS’s call for ‘ecological conversion’, Berry’s ‘Great Work’, and
Boff’s ‘liberation’ of the earth community
This final chapter will examine what could be regarded as a crystallisation of all
of the major themes in LS into a call for action, namely Pope Francis’ appeal for
the whole of humanity to undergo an ‘ecological conversion’. It will be argued
that ‘ecological conversion’ can be compared with the notions of the ‘Great
Work’ and the need for ‘liberation’ respectively articulated by Berry and Boff,
and that such a comparison illumines the message of LS. These observations
will serve as a transition to a proposal that the Earth Charter referred to in LS,
and of which Boff was involved in drafting, represents a concretely applied
vision of the type of integrated ecological cosmic common good advocated by
Pope Francis, Berry and Boff. 116 The Earth Charter comprises four pillars, each
setting out four key principles designed to set out a vision for a sustainable
global society. These pillars are ‘Respect and Care for the Community of Life’,
‘Ecological Integrity’, ‘Social and Economic Justice’ and ‘Democracy, Nonviolence,
and Peace’. The dialogical manner in which it was drafted was perhaps a model
that Pope Francis admired and sought to emulate in his drafting of LS, especially
through his drawing on the statements of various bishops’ conferences from
around the world.
What then does ecological conversion mean for Pope Francis?
In summary it can be interpreted as the juncture where the theological, political,
and personal aspects of responses to care for our common home converge. As
he puts it in LS, §218, ‘in calling to mind the figure of Saint Francis of Assisi, we
116 The Earth Charter was drafted by a team of political and religious leaders and
scholars (including Boff) and sets out a vision for a sustainable global society.
UNESCO ratified it on 12 March 2000. For a copy, see ‘Earth Charter’, Earth
Charter <http://earthcharter.org/> [accessed 13 April 2016].

come to realise that a healthy relationship with creation is one dimension of
overall personal conversion’. Therefore only a conversion can bring about new
attitudes and ways of thinking required to avoid environmental disaster and
attendant social, economic, and moral breakdown. LS, §111 further elucidates
this point: ‘There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of
thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which
together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm.
Otherwise, even the best ecological initiatives can find themselves caught up in
the same globalised logic. To seek only a technical remedy to each
environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality
interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system’.
Likewise in LS, §211, there is an emphasis on the need for the cultivation of new
habits and virtues: ‘an awareness of the gravity of today’s cultural and ecological
crisis must be translated into new habits. Many people know that our current
progress and the mere amassing of things and pleasures are not enough to give
meaning and joy to the human heart, yet they feel unable to give up what the
market sets before them’.
Reminiscent of a theme in Boff, Pope Francis recognises that social and
ecological concerns are intertwined. Thus he says that ‘a true ecological
approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of
justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and
the cry of the poor’ (LS, §49).
Berry and Boff share Pope Francis’ belief that the environmental crisis is
symptomatic of a profound spiritual crisis facing humanity today and cannot be
averted through use of technological solutions or adjustments to existing
economic, political and social structures. Rather, the task ahead is to discover
(or re‑discover) a sense of the cosmic common good.
Thus for Berry, humans are called on to participate in the ‘Great Work’ that
involves in developing ‘new ecological economics, new educational and political

systems, and new religious and spiritual communities that are aligned with
Earth's capacities and limits’.117 The ‘Great Work’ is not a purely intellectual
activity but a spiritual one – an activity whereby ‘human consciousness awakens
to the grandeur and sacred quality of Earth’s process. Such an awakening is our
human participation in the dream of Earth...’.118 Elsewhere Berry opines that
‘our mistake has been to think that we humans have liberated ourselves from
both earthly and spiritual dimensions of our surroundings. The ideal ecological
process, on the other hand, must be a complete process, one that includes the
physical and spiritual as well as the human dimensions of reality’.119
Boff on the other hand builds into Berry’s earth consciousness a dimension of
liberation. Boff draws a parallel between ‘social sin’, the rupture of social
relations, and ecological sin, the rupture of relations between humankind and
the environment.120 For Boff, ‘the common good is not exclusively human; it is
the common good of all nature’. As such, ‘all beings in nature are citizens, have
rights, and deserve respect and reverence’. Thus social and environmental
injustice is in effect two aspects of the same reality. For this reason, Boff speaks
of not only an integral ecology, but also an integral liberation for humanity and
ecology alike.121 His use of the phrase the Tao of liberation to describe the
paradigm shift required attempts to articulate this since ‘Tao’ means 'the way' in
both an individual spiritual sense, as well as the way of the world. As Boff
explains, Taoist spiritual enlightenment comes about when we harmonise with
nature.
117 Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, ‘Integrating Ecology and Justice: The New
Papal Encyclical’, Solutions, 6.4 (2015), 38–43.
118 Thomas Berry, The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth ‑ A Collection of
Essays by Thomas Berry, ed. by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2009), p. 123.
120 Boff, Ecology and Liberation, p. 27.
121 Boff and Hathaway, p. xxv.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Earth Charter – A model for the cosmic common good grounded in an
integral ecological ethic?
This paper has explored the way in which LS can be read as reconfiguring CST to
include all creatures and not simply humans within the orbit of the common
good. We have seen how this is achieved through its focus on the intrinsic value
and ‘dignity’ of every creature, the inter‑relationality or ‘integral ecology’ within
the created world, and the need for an ‘ecological conversion’ that seeks to foster
a greater sense of communion between individual humans and the rest of planet.
We have also seen how this new cosmological vision for the common good has
strong parallels in the works of Berry and Boff, who are in turn are influenced by
Chardin.
By way of a concluding remark, it could be argued that a concrete political
application of LS’s renewed version of the cosmic common good is to some
extent realised in Earth Charter. The themes present in ‘ecological conversion’
(LS), the ‘Great Work’ (Berry) and ‘integral liberation’ (Boff) converge and are to
some extent, embodied, within the Earth Charter.
As one of its authors, Boff contends that ‘the Charter does not understand
ecology in a reductionalist way – that is, as the administration of scarce natural
resources – but rather as a new paradigm of relationship with nature in which
all beings are connected, forming an immense, complex system’.122 Indicating
that the Earth Charter is paradigmatic of integral ecology, Boff maintains that
since it ‘springs forth from a holistic, integral vision’ and that in setting out a
path for a ‘sustainable way of life’, the Earth Charter ‘presupposes a
consciousness that human beings and the Earth have the same destiny and that
their fates are inseparably intertwined’.123
123 Boff and Hathaway, p. 300 and 301.

Likewise, in LS, §207, Pope Francis cites the Earth Charter as a ‘courageous
challenge’ to be ‘remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life’, and
highlights the way the Charter calls for an appreciation for the intrinsic value of
the non‑human world: ‘We are always capable of going out of ourselves towards
the other. Unless we do this, other creatures will not be recognised for their true
worth; we are unconcerned about caring for things for the sake of others; we fail
to set limits on ourselves in order to avoid the suffering of others or the
deterioration of our surroundings’ (LS, §208).
To conclude then, we can say that the Earth Charter embodies the proposed
praxis of the cosmic common good grounded in an integral ecological ethic. This
praxis is proposed, albeit via different avenues, and through the use of varying
and sometimes opposing, philosophical traditions, by Berry, Boff and Pope
Francis. For Pope Francis, we must appreciate that humans whose dignity,
although unique, nonetheless stands alongside and intersects with that of the
rest of creation and are constituent of a ‘wider whole’. Such an ecological
conversion will open up a reconfigured notion of the common good. It is by
means of such a reconfigured version of the common good ‑‑ adapted to the
current challenges facing our ‘common home’ ‑‑ that the plea of the Earth
Charter will be achieved:
‘Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for
life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle
for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life’.124
124 Earth Charter, The Hague (29 June 2000). Cited in LS, §207.

AN EXPLORATION OF THE INTEGRAL ECOLOGY OF LAUDATO SI AND ITS INTERFACE WITH THE ECOLOGICAL COSMOLOGY OF THOMAS BERRY AND LEONARDO BOFF

AN EXPLORATION OF THE INTEGRAL ECOLOGY OF LAUDATO SI AND ITS INTERFACE WITH THE ECOLOGICAL COSMOLOGY OF THOMAS BERRY AND LEONARDO BOFF

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