POPE FRANCIS’ ENCYCLICAL IS MORE THAN JUST TREE-PLANTING!
-Fr.
Cedric Prakash sj*
At a recent meeting, the Pope’s latest Encyclical
‘Laudato Si’ on the ‘care of our
common home’ was being discussed by a group.
A senior and well-intentioned member suddenly suggested that in the
context of the Encyclical, we should encourage the children in our schools to
plant trees. Some certainly applauded
the suggestion; others retorted “we have
been doing so for the last several years” and at least one rather strongly
said that “the Pope’s Encyclical is not
about tree-planting!”
Tree-planting as such is not such a bad
idea at all; one can learn plenty: sensitivity to nature and how to nurture a
tender sapling from the very beginning.
So when one talks about the Pope’s
Encyclical and about tree-planting in the same breath, one is surely going to warm
the cockles of the heart of many across the board: of the rich and the famous;
of the powerful and other vested interests; of Governments and those in
authority; of those who plunder and destroy this earth because of their
rapacious greed and selfishness. “Wow”, they would say, “the Pope in ‘Laudato Si’ is speaking about tree-planting; we have nothing to
fear!” After all, one cannot deny
that some of the most luscious gardens, well-manicured lawns and even personal
forests belong to these very groups that are responsible for global warming,
climate change and for profiteering after ruining the fragile eco-systems,
which belong to all of us.
The truth is that relegating or equating
the Pope’s Encyclical to tree-planting is very unfortunate: either one does not
have the courage to read the Encyclical nor the openness to be able to accept
what the Pope is saying very directly and unequivocally.
In the opening chapter of the
Encyclical, the Pope invites every single citizen to listen to the groanings of
creation; “to become painfully aware, to
dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and
thus to discover what each of us can do about it. The chapter deals with several “aspects of
the present ecological crisis”:
pollution, waste and the throw-away culture; climate as a common good;
displacement and migration caused by environmental degradation; access to safe
drinking water as a basic and universal human right; loss of bio-diversity;
decline in the quality of human life and break-down of society; global
inequality. He has also denounced pesticides and genetically engineered (GE)
crops, declaring “the spread of these
crops destroys the complex web of eco-systems, decreases diversity in production
and affects the present and the future of regional economies”; well,
bio-tech companies across the world will surely not be happy with this
statement!
‘Laudato
Si’ focuses on human rights violations and injustices. Pope Francis does
not mince words when he says “injustices
abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and
considered expendable, committing oneself to the common good means to make
choices in solidarity based on a preferential option for the poorest of our
brothers and sisters.”
‘Laudato
Si’ is indeed path-breaking, radical in nature and which touches every
single dimension of our human existence.
The Pope invites all to an ecological
conversion, to change directions
so that we can truly care for our common
home; he challenges all “what kind of
world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now
growing up?” To rubbish this timely and important message or to relegate it
to tree-planting would certainly be a great disservice not to the Pope but to
Planet Earth!
4th
July, 2015
(* Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ is
the Director of PRASHANT, the
Ahmedabad-based Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.)
Address: ‘PRASHANT’,
Hill Nagar, Near Saffron Hotel, Drive-in Road, Ahmedabad - 380052
Phone:
(079) 27455913, 66522333 Fax:
(079) 27489018
Email: sjprashant@gmail.com www.humanrightsindia.in
Email: sjprashant@gmail.com www.humanrightsindia.in
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