Will Catholic Universities Respond?

By Kevin M. Clarke

SAN MARCOS, California, FEB. 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- In April 2008, Benedict XVI summed up the task ahead for the reform of Catholic higher education in America with two words: “intellectual charity.”

During his apostolic visit to the United States, Benedict XVI issued a strong call to the heads of Catholic institutions in America. In his diagnosis of the crises facing Catholic religious education in America, the Pope made it abundantly clear that failing to orient the whole curriculum toward Christ, and indeed the whole life of the university, “weakens Catholic identity” and “inevitably leads to confusion.” He spoke compassionately, kindly; he spoke with authority.

His words certainly will be reexamined this fall by America’s Catholic colleges and universities as they question the place of Catholic mission and identity on their campuses this year. What is worth noting here is how well these two words — “intellectual charity” — encapsulate the fullness of the Pontiff’s teaching on the nature of Catholic education, especially considering charity’s intrinsic link with truth in the Holy Father’s magisterium.

So will universities respond with the type of charity for which Benedict XVI has called? That question may actually be more complex than at first sight.

Two conceptions of academic freedom

In addition to the Pope’s words to educators, Catholic higher education officials will also revisit two Church documents of the past century — one originating in the United States, and one issued by the Vatican. And yet one more document, which seems to have become established as authoritative itself, looms in the background.

In 1967, many leaders in Catholic higher education gathered in Wisconsin to speak on the notion of the modern Catholic university. What followed was the Land O’Lakes Statement on the Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University, signed by 26 presidents, theologians, and other higher education officials.

In word, the Land O’Lakes document may not have seemed an outright rejection of the role of the Church in academia, but many have observed that in action the statement has become a veritable carte blanche for academic license. The Land O’Lakes authors wrote, “To perform its teaching and research functions effectively, the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.”

And so, indeed, a great chasm has opened between Catholic theology and the type of theology, or religious studies, at today’s Catholic colleges and universities. The transference of Catholic schools’ authority to governing boards, many of whom are comprised of non-Catholics, may further hinder progress toward a renewal of Catholic academia.

In 1990, Pope John Paul II signed off on the apostolic constitution “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.” In the constitution, the exercise of academic freedom was linked inextricably with the quest for truth (cf. “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” 1, 4). The themes of truth and fidelity to the Church — absent from Land O’Lakes — weave throughout the Papal text, describing not only the need for the university’s institutional commitment to truth itself, but also its courageous zeal to “speak uncomfortable truths” (“Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” 32).

Moreover, many Catholic colleges and universities have for years neglected to implement the canonical norms called for in “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.” What had become apparent to the Church in the decades following the 1960s was that the severance of educational inquiry from apostolic authority had distanced academia from its primary task: that of uniting “two orders of reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though they were antithetical: the search for truth, and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth” (“Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” 1).

In 2001, a document from the U.S. bishops, “The Application of ‘Ex Corde Ecclesiae’ for the United States,” went into effect for Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. The document was meant to implement “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” but many question the eagerness of academia to embrace these documents.

In a Washington Times article last May, Msgr. David O’Connell, the outgoing president of the Catholic University of America, expressed frustration that so many Catholic institutions were clinging to Land O’Lakes as “an alternative” to “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.” He stated that Land O’Lakes had “introduced confusion into the Catholic higher education community.”

The respective impacts these three documents — the Land O’Lakes Statement, “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” and “The Application of ‘Ex Corde Ecclesiae’ for the United States” — will have on the future of Catholic education will determine whether Catholic institutions turn toward a renewal of catholicity or continue on a path of increased secularization.

A Justification, a betrayal

Benedict XVI told Catholic educators, in an address at the Catholic University of America during his 2008 visit to the United States, that “any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university’s identity and mission; a mission at the heart of the Church’s ‘munus docendi’ [task of teaching] and not somehow autonomous or independent of it.”

Many academics invoke “academic freedom” over and against questions of Church Tradition and even Christian ethics. On the other hand, the words above, give insight into the Pope’s thought on the nature of the Catholic university. He taught that “intellectual charity” illumines instruction and helps maintain the unity of knowledge, avoiding the “fragmentation” that occurs within the disciplines when reason and the drive for truth depart from the same course.

In the academic world filled with all its research grants, distinguishing titles, honors and glory, what is often lost is the dignity of the student and his or her right to be led not to what is merely novel or popular but to truth in all things. Through intellectual charity the young can experience the “deep satisfaction” of freedom lived in relation to truth.

In a September 2009 address to educators in Prague, the Pontiff spoke again of many similar themes. The fragmentation of knowledge leads reason far from truth, he explained. “The relativism that ensues provides a dense camouflage behind which new threats to the autonomy of academic institutions can lurk.” Ironically, the very “freedoms” for which many academics clamor are the very means by which freedom is lost.

This thought is not something new for the Pontiff. In “Nature and Mission of Theology” (Ignatius, 1995), he treated the topic of academic freedom: “‘Academic’ freedom is freedom for the truth, and its justification is simply to exist for the sake of the truth, without having to look back toward the objectives it has reached” (37). Freedom is united with truth, which then leads to reverence of truth, or worship.

Many Catholic institutions have made the case that in order to keep with the times and compete with secular and other private institutions they must remain unchecked by ecclesiastical authorities and Church Tradition. Academic inquiry and the vast possibilities of the student life must be up to speed with the competition, after all.

Yet before becoming Pope, he wrote that the choice of modern times is between freedom of production and freedom of the truth: “But the freedom to produce, unchecked by truth, means the dictatorship of ends in a world devoid of truth and thus enslaves man while appearing to set him free. Only when truth has value in itself and a glimpse of it outweighs every success, only then are we free; and this is why the only authentic freedom is the freedom of the truth” (Nature and Mission, 37).

He echoed these words in his address to educators at the Catholic University of America: “A university or school’s Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction — do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear? (cf. “Gaudium et Spes,” No. 22) Are we ready to commit our entire self — intellect and will, mind and heart — to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools?”

Identity Crisis and Wisdom

These questions present a real examination of conscience for the nation’s Catholic institutions. Controversies have been no less common since the Pope’s apostolic visit. The renewal of Catholic higher education has yet to be fully actualized as shown by a somewhat slowing stream of pro-abortion lecturers, honorees, and commencement speakers across the nation; the federal government’s January finding that Manhattan College (a New York Catholic institution) has a secular, nonreligious purpose; and the presence of institution-approved student groups contrary to the Catholic faith at many schools.
The above can hardly be pinned upon those well-intentioned authors of the Land O’Lakes Statement. Nevertheless, Land O’Lakes is a necessary cause for much of the distress afflicting many Catholic institutions today. In other words, although Land O’Lakes does not necessarily lead to anti-Catholic theatrical productions such as “The Vagina Monologues” at Catholic institutions, there would be no such performances at Catholic institutions without a Land O’Lakes.

And so each of the nation’s Catholic colleges and universities face a question by which its very identity is inextricably bound: Land O’Lakes or “Ex Corde Ecclesiae”? Because of the inner disharmony between the two, to choose one is to reject the other. Furthermore, will the institutions themselves cleave to Land O’Lakes and its notion of academic freedom, or will they find the pearl of great price that is the Pope’s April 2008 address?

There may be those in the academic community who — “in the face of authority of whatever kind” — will resist the Pope’s words as “external.” But would they not in professional deference consider words from an eminently accomplished academic? He is, after all, “the theologian pope,” an academic through and through.

No one should forget that these words “intellectual charity” come from one who has himself been a lifelong professor. For this expert member of the academic community, intellectual charity is the very exercise of academic freedom.

* * *

Kevin M. Clarke has a master’s degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, and teaches religion at St. Joseph Academy in San Marcos, California. He is the author of a chapter on Benedict XVI’s Mariology in “De Maria Numquam Satis: The Significance of the Catholic Doctrines on the Blessed Virgin Mary for All People” (University Press of America, 2009), and is a recent contributor to the New Catholic Encyclopedia.

Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Afternoon!

[Introduction]

Allow me, first of all, to congratulate the organizers who offered us two phrases as theme of this year’s national convention: “A Heart for Eden” and “A Hand at Ecology” – the first one biblically poetic and the other modern scientific.

I understand it was your purpose to provide an avenue for CEAP member­ schools to share their best practices in integrating the concepts and principles of Education for Sustainable Development in all aspects.

It was also your aim to determine effective ways by which CEAP and member­ schools can critically engage government, business and civil society in pursuit of a genuine national reform agenda for the country’s environment and natural resources.

This is all so laudable particularly in the wake of a growing consensus that education for the 21st Century should, indeed, be education for sustainability. In very simple terms education, especially Catholic education, should become a system of teaching and learning that helps our people understand how to live well in the world.

In the early years of human civilization, education was mainly about teaching and learning the three or four R’s. Lately it came to a point when it was mainly about competition, or how to get our people and our nation to catch up with those in other countries for a better position in the global economy.

Or it was narrowly about careerism, that is, it was about preparing students to successfully enter consumer society—to be “upwardly mobile” by being equipped with better and more marketable skills. This educational system fragmented the world into artificial chunks of biology, history, geography, math, etc.-  and prevented students from seeing larger patterns and unified wholes.

For such grave myopia “A Hand at Ecology” would certainly be a remedy, in the sense of offering both ecological literacy and evolutionary literacy or cosmology. CEAP is quite on target if it believes that education reform is not just about how we teach our students but, more importantly, about what we teach them in the first place. I will expand on all of these points a little later.

[A Heart for Eden]

For now we have to ask, why “A Heart for Eden”? Would this not mean an understanding of the Genesis creation narrative or the theodicy of the Abrahamic religions – namely, of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? I am tempted to recite to you in Hebrew right now at least a few lines of the first chapter of that book.

Let me sum up for you, however, what contemporary Christian social teaching makes of the Genesis narrative, particularly the reference to “The Garden of Eden” – a garden watered by four rivers, two of which are well known, the Tigris and the Euphrates, better and more proverbially known as the waters of civilization, while the other two – the Pishon and the Gihon – are still the subject of much research as to exactly where they would have been because they can no longer be seen except with the help at one time of satellite photos that showed that before 4,000 BCE there was a river that drained into the Persian gulf leading some experts to believe that the Garden of Eden lies in that vicinity,– experts who further posit that the story of Adam and Eve in-and especially out-of the Garden is a highly condensed and evocative account of the shift from hunting-gathering to agriculture in the long evolutionary journey of the human species.

Be that as it may, from the perspective of the Church’s faith-vision, the garden is not so much that particular geographic place in the Middle East that has been the subject of much research by historians, archaeologists and geologists. Rather, the Garden of Eden is nature, the cosmos, the world, the environment – the garden from which God fashioned the human being, and which God gave as gift to man and woman to keep and till (cf. Gen 2: 15). It is the place and plan for which man and woman, who were made “in his own image” (Gen 1, 27) are to feel truly responsible. 

The garden, nature is not an adversary to be destroyed or an evil from which one needs to be freed. It is, rather, the gift itself of God, the work of God’s creative action.

Patently the Creator willed the human to evolve more and more into a gardener, a co-creator, not an exterminator, though this latter role is what we’ve seen humans often choose to play.

God made all things, and with regard to each created reality “saw that it was good” (cf. Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) moving the Psalmist to pray: “O Lord, how manifold your work! In wisdom you created them all” (Ps 104:24).

And, with the evolution of the co-creator, creation continued. Creation, indeed, is not finished for the human person was called to evolve into a partner in dialogue with the Creator and all creation on the level of both word and deed.

[Evolutionary View]

More than 40 years ago, following key insights from St. Paul through St. Augustine to Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Vatican II endorsed the concept of an evolutionary development of reality, stating that “the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one” ( Gaudium et Spes 5).

“I create new heavens and a new earth” (Is 65:17), says the Lord through the prophet. In it “the wilderness becomes a fruitful field … and righteousness [will] abide in the fruitful field … [where] people will abide in peaceful habitation” (Is 32:1518).

This dialogue reaches its peak of manifestation with the entrance of Jesus Christ into history. And it turns out that not only is Jesus a knowledgeable interpreter of nature, speaking of it in images and parables, but he also manages it masterfully, as in the episode of the calming of the storm (Mt 14:22-33; Mk 6:45-52; Lc 8:22-25; Jn 6:16-21) – quite masterfully, indeed, in the style of miracles.

Then he urges us all to look at things, at the seasons and at people, with the trust of children who know that they will never be abandoned by a provident and almighty Father (cf. Lk 11:11-13).

He asks us not to be enslaved by things in the world but, rather, to learn to manage the things of the world in the service of sharing (koinonia) and brotherhood (cf. Lk 16:9-13), following his example.

He inaugurates a new garden, a new world in which he creates anew those relationships of order and harmony that sin had destroyed. “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17).

I see “A Heart for Eden” then as a call not merely to keep recalling a “paradise lost” but to looking eagerly toward a new paradise where humans can live together with all nature and each other in a mutually enhancing presence.

[A Hand at Ecology]

The second phrase of our theme is modern-scientific, “A Hand at Ecology”.

I mentioned Ecological Literacy as being as much a must as the 3 R’s. The idea is for us to understand and appreciate the interweaving of Earth’s natural systems and the human role in those systems. This cannot be treated as an esoteric or optional subject but as mandatory for all, a must for all people. We must all learn and feel that we are a part of and not apart from nature.

Closely linked to it is Evolutionary Literacy. Whereas ecoliteracy focuses on connections and energy flow within the temporal snapshots of ecological systems, evoliteracy inserts the vertical dimension of deep time from the beginnings of the universe to the present day, as delivered by science. Evoliteracy is Deep Ecology or the New Cosmology that makes us realize that we are not so much in a cosmos as in a cosmogenesis.

There is a “New Story” in our world today, a “Great Story” which is really the “New Universe Story” or the “New Story of Creation”.

What is this New Story? On July 2004 then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, put it this way, in cut-and-dried summary form: “According to the widely accepted scientific account, the universe erupted 14 billion years ago in an explosion called the ‘Big Bang’ and has been expanding and cooling ever since. Later there gradually emerged the conditions necessary for the formation of atoms, still later the condensation of galaxies and stars, and about 10 billion years later the formation of planets.

“In our own solar system and on Earth (formed about 4.5 billion years ago), the conditions have been favorable to the emergence of life. While there is little consensus among scientists about how the origin of this first microscopic life is to be explained, there is general agreement among them that the first organism dwelt on this planet about 3.5 – 4 billion years ago.

“Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have descended from this first organism.” (Paragraph 63, from “Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God,” plenary sessions held in Rome 2000-2002, published July 2004)

In a very literal, physical, material sense, then, the spiritual leader of Christendom scientifically accepts and theologically asserts the brotherhood and sisterhood and the profound oneness of all living existents. It is the scientific consensus reached only in recent years that we are all related genetically, in energy, in the material elements that compose us, all of which started many long years ago, long before we were “born”, thirteen billion seven hundred million years ago to  be precise: itself a calculation that is a feat of modern-day science.

But this, too, long ago, was the very heart of the Church’s social teaching on the environment. All beings are interdependent in the universal order established by the Creator. “One must take into account the nature of each being and of its mutual connection in an ordered system, which is precisely the ‘cosmos’” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 34).

At one time almost all scientists thought that the universe was infinite in age and constant in its general appearance. This all changed with Einstein and Relativity, with Hubble and with Pere George Lemaitre.

The known Universe is a 100,000 billion, billion miles in diameter. Its sheer size is just too much. Our little galaxy, the Milky Way, is so wide that light, traveling at 300,000 kilometers a second, takes 100,000 years to cross it. And, wherever you look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us, showing that the universe is expanding.

Light from distant galaxies takes millions of years to reach us. When we look at the universe tonight, we are looking at the past. We look at the cosmos and see that it is not finished. What we see is a cosmogenesis – a universe in progress. Already, there is some 100,000 million galaxies observable, each with around a 100 million stars.

George Lemaitre – a Belgian priest-scholar   first proposed in the mid-1920s what came to be known as the Big Bang theory to describe the beginning of material reality or the cosmos or the universe – all that is.

The universe, whose vastness we have just seen in part, is expanding, had a point of departure. It was not always there. It had a beginning – from nothing, or almost nothing. If vastness can boggle our minds, smallness may even be harder. For instance, no matter how hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny a proton is. Even a thousandth part of a speck of dust can hold something in the region of 500,000,000,000 of these protons!

Now shrink one of those 500 billion to a billionth its normal size – if you can imagine the unimaginable – and squeeze into it the vastness of the cosmos as we’ve just seen it in part-and we’re ready to understand a bit how the Big Bang or the Great Flaring Forth started – at a moment known to scientists as a singularity of no space-time or in their language: “t = 0”.

When Einstein heard the Belgian priest-scientist explain his theory that the universe came to birth by an explosion of a “primeval atom”, and the universe has not since stopped expanding, and that the universe will continue expanding at variable speed unless gravitation eventually overcomes the propelling power of the Big Bang, he (Einstein) jumped to his feet and applauded. “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation which I have ever listened to”, Einstein said.

This is the “Great Story” that is capable of offering a critical dose of meaning and purpose to our lives. Far from the random, meaningless place so often portrayed in textbooks and the popular media, our universe is a stunningly creative place that brought us out through a long series of transformations, beginning with simple hydrogen atoms.

It is not that Earth was assembled and we were added on to it. No, the scientific observation is that we grew out of Earth.  It’s only now we are beginning to realize that we are cosmological beings – belonging to and essentially part of an evolving cosmos. We could not have known from empirical observation or scientific conclusions till only recently – what perhaps the major living faiths have taught all along – that all of us  humans and non-humans alike are the Universe in various forms. Yes, “in the past Earth was molten rock; now it sings operas.”

Seeing ourselves as players in this 14 billion year old drama and recognizing that our decisions will impact the next 14 billion years, may just be an essential element in achieving anything worthy of the title “sustainable.” Yet, at present, the Great Story is virtually absent from all levels of education, and is communicated, if at all, only as a series of fragments rather than a unified whole. CEAP will have to do something about this – very fast.

[Human genius and a planetary crisis]

The Second Vatican Council affirmed that human beings are right when they think that by their spirit they transcend the material universe, for they “share in the light of the divine mind” [Gaudium et Spes, 15]. Recognizing the progress made by the tireless application of human genius down the centuries  in the empirical sciences, the technological disciplines and the liberal arts [GS, 15] the Council observed that “especially with the help of science and technology, man has extended his mastery over nearly the whole of nature and continues to do so”[GS 33].

Not all is good news, however, for today a planetary crisis affects all existents on Earth due to the fact that, instead of increasingly becoming co-creators in the on-going multi-billion-year story of creation, humans became more and more like “exterminators.”

They became the one main cause of the massive extinction of plant and animal species by the way they chose to produce and reproduce their means of life and livelihood. You see, they had chosen mainly an extractive rather than an organic way of undertaking economic actions.

Down the centuries, they had labored “to better the circumstances of their lives through a monumental amount of individual and collective effort. … [T]his human activity accords with God’s will” [GS 34]. And “far from thinking that works produced by man’s own talent and energy are in opposition to God’s power, … Christians [should be] convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God’s grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design”[GS 34].

In a certain analogous sense, they continue the management of nature in the style of miracles inaugurated by Jesus Christ.

But now we also see that modern technologies and the industrial establishment went into the unqualified human conquest of the forces of nature. The integral functioning of Earth’s life systems that had been going on for 4.6 billion years came under the assault of humans determined to use and absolutely own Earth’s resources regardless of the consequences for the natural systems of the planet or the integrity of creation.

The words of counsel came late: “one must take into account the nature of each being and of its mutual connection in an ordered system” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 34), although much, much earlier the same thought, long since forgotten, was often discussed by early Christian philosophers known as the Church Fathers.

Humans first embraced the organic economy – which by its nature is an ever-renewing economy, living within the bounty of the seasonal renewing productions of Earth’s biosystems, making it capable of continuing into the indefinite future.

Later, however, humans got into an extractive economy, which by its nature is a terminal or biologically disruptive economy, dependent on extracting non-renewing substances from Earth, surviving only so long as these very finite resources endured.

The Church, for her part, cautioned  that the human being must not “make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray” (Centesimus Annus, 37). When the human being forgets this, he “ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him” (CA 37).

Thus, “it is now clear that [many discoveries and technologies] in the fields of industry and agriculture have produced harmful long-term effects.” We cannot, for instance, “interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention both to the consequences of such interference in other areas and to the well-being of future generations” (1990 World Day of Peace, 6).

Humans, of course, may intervene in nature without abusing it or damaging it; then, they would intervene “not in order to modify nature but to foster its development in its own life, that of the creation that God intended” (JP II, at the World Medical Association, 1983).

[Features of the extractive economy]

The Church’s Social Teaching rejects the Extractive Economy because it disturbs the chemical composition of Earth’s air, water and soil affecting the entire network of organic life on the planet; it weakened the ozone layer that protects life on Earth from the ultraviolet rays of the Sun; it destroys tropical rain forests and Earth’s biodiversity on a massive scale; it brings about an excessive amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by its burning of fossil fuels, causing disastrous changes in the global climate, which is why, in 200 years or less, a level of species extinction was reached that is unprecedented in the past 65 million years.

It has brought about processes giving off toxic residues for which there are, at present, no adequate methods of disposal, especially in products from metals and petroleum for the making of fuel and plastics and the consequent dispersal of contaminants and toxic residue throughout Earth’s air, water and soil.

It has used engineering technologies to turn even renewing resources into non-renewing resources!  For example: exploiting the soils of Earth through chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to a degree that it has exhausted these soils and made them toxic; for another example: in the fishing industry, through electronic instruments and draft nets, factory fishing vessels so exhaust the resources of the seas and rivers of the world that their capacity for self-renewal is terminated.

[Species extinction]

Today, ironically due to human civilization and human activity, it is estimated that more than a hundred plant and animal species go extinct daily. There are about 10-12 million species of plants and animals, of which around 2 million have been identified and named.  Extinction means the disappearance of an entire species, with no possibility of replication or regeneration. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

In the 1800’s the rate of extinction was one species a month.  Currently it is estimated to be one every 15 minutes, or a hundred a day since the past twenty years or so.  Many scientists use the word bluntly: an on-going mass extinction! 

The last mass extinction happened about 65 million years ago, with the demise of the dinosaurs, which are included among the 75% of all species that became extinct. 

A mass extinction signals the end of an era, hence, the end of the Mesozoic Era after about 200 million years. It was the fifth mass extinction that the Earth had seen.

In any case, the past 500 million years of life – and humans have not been around more than a hundred thousand years – have been divided by scientists into three ages: the Paleozoic, or the age of fishes; the Mesozoic, or the age of dinosaurs; and the Cenozoic, or the age of Mammals.

The age of Dinosaurs came to an end because of an asteroid crashing to Earth.

The age of Mammals is coming to an end because of human activity. Incredibly, yes, this is the big problem: humans do not know that they have become such a planetary power, for better or for worse. To date, it has been greatly for worse.

But, starting immediately, they can usher in a new age and call it the Ecozoic era, as modern prophets have suggested. The word “Ecozoic” or ecological living refers to an era where humans will be able to live with the planetary community in a mutually enhancing manner, as Earth’s heart and voice, and as protector of Earth’s living existents rather than their destroyer.

Down the millennia, we have become the most powerful Earthlings of all but have forgotten that we are made out of Earth’s air, water and soil. Thus, the Church feels obliged to remind us once a year at Ash Wednesday to reflect “that you are dust, and unto dust you will return.” We did not merely come into this world, we grew out from it. Earth is not our surroundings; in great part, it’s our source. Earth is the larger body of which we are an organic, but by no means indispensable, part. You and I are not entities apart from but more accurately a part of Earth.

Down the years we cut down trees and constructed buildings everywhere. We figured out how to power cars and planes by burning ancient fossil fuels. We learned to make plastic and molded it into a zillion things. We discovered the use of chemicals to grow more food. We acted as though we owned everything absolutely to use as we wish. We didn’t realize we were poisoning Earth’s lungs, veins and skin – yes, Earth’s, of which we are a living part.

[The new consciousness: human and non-human rights equally]

Fortunately, through the efforts of modern prophets from Teilhard de Chardin to Thomas Berry, a growing number of humans now see Earth no longer as a mere rock with enough gravity to keep Earthlings from falling off and out to wherever in space imagination will throw them. That is not Earth.

Earth, rather, from both a scientific and religious viewpoint, is a single integral community of life manifesting itself in different modes – as tree, as insect, as river, as mountain, as human, as a whole diversity of many other kinds, human and non-human – who live in relationship with all others, each being having its own role to play and fulfill, its own dignity, its inner spontaneity, its own rights – yes, the Church’s social teaching recognizes not only human rights but, equally and differently, also non-human rights like tree rights, insect rights, – all limited and relative to each other in a continuity of being. “With the progress of science and technology, questions as to their meaning increase and give rise to an ever greater need to respect the transcendent dimension of the human person and creation itself”  (Gratissimam Sane, 17).

Responsibility for the environment extends not only to present needs, needless to say, but also to those of the future. “We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries: for this reason we have obligations towards all, and we cannot refuse to interest ourselves in those who will come after us…” (Populorum Progressio, 17) This is a responsibility that present generations have towards those of the future (Centesimus Annus, 37). 

[Features of the organic economy]

To usher in the Ecozoic era, we must promote the organic economy that recognizes the environment – the universe or the cosmos, the solar system, Earth – as the primary given in the material human order, the primary source of existence. Therefore, whatever we think or do must be done, planned, and looked at as by people who are part of and not apart from the universe.

Second, the universe, which is one, exists as highly differentiated forms. For example, the one Earth is a highly differentiated complex of life systems. As soon as its diversity diminishes, the security for each life form is also weakened. Nothing exists in isolation: the honeybee and the flower, the tree and the soil.

Third is the fact of absolute interdependence. No living being nourishes itself. Animal forms depend on plant forms that alone can transform the energy of the Sun and the minerals of Earth into the living substance needed for life nourishment by animal and human alike. Therefore, the organic economy recognizes that the well-being of soil and plants must be a primary concern for humans.

Finally, the organic economy must establish our basic source of food and energy in the Sun, which supplies the energy for the transformation of inanimate matter into living substance capable of nourishing the larger biosystems of Earth. It must shun monoculture in agriculture and excessive uniformity in industry because it is closer to nature to produce diversity.

[The Great Work of Our Time – a Challenge to the CEAP]

Given all this information from Science and the perspectives of our living Faith, can there be any doubt as to the main thrust Catholic Education should be undertaking today? It will have to be nothing less than the teaching and learning of the Great Work challenge. This is the specific character of Education for Sustainability in our time. The modern prophets Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, are some of the many who have articulated the meaning of the Great Work in our era, not to mention the collective work of Vatican II.

The Great Work before humans today is the task of moving modern industrial civilization from its present devastating actions on Earth to a new era where humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.

In each historical epoch, people are given a “Great Work” to do—in one age, the settling of new lands, in another the building of great cathedrals, in still another the creation of artistic, philosophical, religious or scientific works, or the shaping of political structures and ideas.

The Great Works of prior periods are seen in such things as the movement of the first people out of Africa in the Paleolithic Period; the creation of language, rituals and social structures in hunter-gatherer communities; the establishment of agriculture communities in the Neolithic Period; the development of the great classical civilizations; and, in the modern period, advances in technology, urban civilization, new ideals of government and human rights, the modern business enterprise and globalism.

Our great work is a role given to us, beyond any consultation with ourselves. We were thrown into existence with a challenge and a role that is beyond any personal choice. But the nobility of our lives depends upon the manner in which we come to understand and fulfill our assigned role. It is not a role that we have chosen, for we did not choose the moment of our birth and our particular culture or the historical moment when we would be born together with the cultural, political and economic conditions that would be the context of our lives.

As we already saw, a planetary crisis is presently affecting all existents on Earth. The crisis developed due to the fact that, instead of increasingly becoming co-creators in the on-going multi-billion-year story of creation, humans became more and more like “exterminators.”

The Great Work then arises from the Great Story – the new universe story, of which we are a part: a true story that, in fact, had a beginning, is continuing right now, and is challenging us humans to see our role in the whole magnificent process. Science has started a massive revolution in human consciousness, that what we are started 13.7 billion years ago.

We are the universe in human form. We are part of the universe’s wild and dazzling dream: every cell in our body is packed with hydrogen, made when the universe was born; our bones are hardened with calcium made by stars, long ago, before even Earth was; our backbone was fashioned by fish; the deepest part of our brain was built by reptiles; the love we feel for another deepened inside the very first mammals; our awe-filled wonder began on starry nights around campfires long, long ago…in a long evolutionary journey that has brought us where we are now.

Well could Pope John Paul II say: “In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, ….Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.” (October 22,1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences)

Evolution is a manifestation of God’s creative power. The creature reacts to the environment and evolves into a higher being: it “dies” to its present self, in order to attain a “higher” self. “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24-25,)

And yet, even in natural selection, says Benedict XVI: “We are not some casual and meaningless product … Each of us is the result of a thought of God.” In fact, the Creator God is the dynamic power which enables evolutionary change to occur. The pressure of the Divine acts upon creation from within.

One great aspect of the Universe is its obviously ever-renewing sequence of seasonal cycles. What is not as easily obvious but should be is its developmental sequence of irreversible transformations…which, fortunately, we are beginning to see now.

The human represents creation most of all because the human is the Cosmos come unto consciousness. Karl Rahner, the greatest theologian of the 20^th century, once said that God has made matter in such a way that it becomes self-aware and capable of entering into a free and personal relationship with the Divine.

As a result of thirteen thousand seven hundred million years of cosmogenesis, the cosmos has become conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. For now it may be only in a few of us human beings, a tiny fragment of the universe, where this cosmic self-awareness is being realized.

But, perhaps, too it has been realized elsewhere in the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. Some scientists belonging to my congregation, the Society of the Divine Word, used to speculate that, yes, maybe so. Maybe. We do not know for sure. But on this our planet, it has never happened before.

One great aspect of the Universe is its obviously ever-renewing sequence of seasonal cycles. What is not as easily obvious but should be is its developmental sequence of irreversible transformations…which, fortunately, we are beginning to see now.

We are the life that knows how it came to be, that can contemplate its future. We are the universe become conscious of itself. This little beautiful planet Earth has done it – it has produced us. We cannot produce ourselves. That is why we must value the system that has. For one, it took a very long time to produce something like us as we already saw.

St. Paul’s viewpoint: “All creation is eagerly waiting for God to show…Creation is confused but not because it wants to be confused…all creation is still groaning and is in pain, like a woman about to give birth” (Romans, 8).

Everyone and everything, at its interior, is filled with the self-communicating Trinity, through the uncreated energies. God permanently fills the universe with His loving Self. His uncreated energies swirl through and fill all creatures with His living, creative presence.

John Brewer said it in 2004: “Our true ancestry is the emergent creativity of the universe:… the great inventors who ‘learned’ how to coalesce hydrogen and helium into stars, to form planets, to sustain life first from mineral nutrients in the sea and later to capture delicious photons, to exploit oxygen for energy rather than be exterminated by it, to diversify via sexual reproduction, to form social groups for greater security and protection of        offspring. We are the beneficiaries (and, admittedly, also the victims) of this narrative of emergence…These progenitors… are family. From them we have inherited our corporeal shapes and movements, our body chemistry, and even some of our behavioral agendas.”

Humans have lived in harmony with creation for eons. We were, as we still are, part of a journey that is so much more than we can even imagine. It is a journey that is profoundly inclusive – everyone and everything is in a continuity of relationship with each other. Let us overcome our discontinuity with the universe and rejoin the great community of life. That is the Great Work before us pithily summing up the Church’s social teaching on the environment. It is the story of the Creator Spirit reminding us humans to rise to the challenge of becoming co-creators. It is an exciting challenge we and all of CEAP must take up anew. That is why we are all here today – to show a Heart for Eden and a Hand at Ecology.

Thank you very much and good day.

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Acknowledgments:

The Documents of Vatican II

Compendium of the Church’s Social Teaching

Works of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme

Works of Pere Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Works of Jennifer Morgan

Works of Charles Avila

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Defends Religious Education in

Ecuador‘s Schools

The Pope said this today upon receiving in audience Luis Dositeo Latorre Tapia, the new ambassador of  Ecuador to the Holy See, who was presenting his letters of credence. In his message to the envoy, the Holy Father defended the right to religious teaching in public schools in Ecuador, and called for respect for the identity and autonomy of Catholic educational institutions.
 
“Parents must count on liberty of education being promoted also in state educational institutions, where legislation will continue to ensure religious teaching in schools in the corresponding curricular framework to the ends proper to the school as such,” he said.
 
The Pontiff also pointed out that “the public authority must guarantee the right that helps parents, both to form their children according to their own religious convictions and ethical criteria, as well as to found and support educational institutions.”
 
“In this way,” he added, “it is also important that the public authority respect the specific identity and autonomy of educational institutions and of the

As soon as I entered the gates of Divine Word College of Vigan and as I attended my very first class, I asked myself, “What in the world am I doing here?”

            From my freshman year up to my junior year, that question played around in my head like a drifting child because honestly, I did not plan nor intend to study in this institution. When I graduated in high school, I was getting ready for an exciting college life in another place—a place far away from home—far from the setting I was used to. Fortunately, my plan did not work out. And yes, I enrolled in a school totally different from what I wanted—not only that it is so close to our home but that I am already accustomed to its scenario.

            “What am I doing here?”

            For four long yet swift years, I tried to fathom that query. I searched for an answer within the walls of this school, with the people I met along the way and with the experiences I had gathered.

            Giving an answer to that question is like entering a labyrinth of irony. I had to picture the other side to appreciate where I was in. Surprisingly, I did not only get an answer but loads of them. Indeed, they were just at my feet—trying so hard to catch my attention and show up to me.

            If I did not become a part of this institution, I would not have experienced how it is to be at the top and at the same time to fall, to succeed and to fail, to savor every moment of triumph and to accept every torment of failure. Being at the top is not always as enticing as it may seem. It requires a lot of your attention, loads of hardwork and patience and even a huge amount of your time. Sometimes, you just have to give up what you want just to accomplish more things. The difficult part is, most of the time, you find yourself in a dilemma of how to divide ten hours of your working time just to finish multitudes of tasks.

            Also, being at the top lures expectations. Imagine how Atlas endured to carry the whole world on his shoulders and you just got a taste of how it is like to have people expect a lot from you because you are seated at that zenith. Yes, expectations were one of the challenges I had to face. Dealing with it is like enrolling Education degrees as a course—that no matter how people discourage you and look down on you, you still go on because you know deep in your heart that someday, they would take back all that they have said and look up to you. Frankly, right now, I am thinking how I was able to take in all those expectations and how I successfully completed those humungous duties. A small voice inside me shouts, “Hey, that’s precisely why you are here.” Indeed, I am here in Divine Word College of Vigan to prove that I am not just a nobody—that I am that somebody who can do something for everybody.

            If I did not become a part of this school, I would not have met people who have created a great impact to me and consequently, whom I have considered as a part of my family. Believe it or not, it is only in my college life that I got to look at teamwork in its broader sense. When I was in high school, I was frequently exposed to group works. Ironically, I also developed the habit of independence. In high school, you finish your work as a group yet you strive to be recognized alone for the sake of competition. In college, you finish your work as a group and treasure every moment of laughter, friendship and attachment because you do not care about competition. You may not realize it, but you start to care for each other as brothers and sisters and not as mere classmates anymore.

            As I look back at the memories that I had with those people, I have opened the box that contain the second answer to my query. I am here in Divine Word College of Vigan to see and to feel that nothing compares to the sanctity of your bond with your family, your friends, your teachers, your org-mates and even your enemies. Could you see those benches at the left part of our auditorium? How many jokes were cracked and how many times was laughter heard by those benches? How many gossips did they hear? How many secrets have they shared with excited ladies and guys? I would definitely miss those moments—during our vacant time when we don’t do anything but just sit there for even two hours and chat about anything under the sun; those times when we sit there and scrutinize all students, even teachers who pass by; that particular moment when we were not able to control our boisterous laughter and be scolded by a teacher who was having his class; and those moments when we sit there just to wait for 5:00 o’clock to come.

            Impersonations. Who would not forget how some of us impersonate almost all of our faculty members? From the groovy dance moves of Ma’am Macel, to the lullaby-like voice of Ma’am Pipo, the highly-famous expressions of Sir Asuncion, the bubon, bubon, bubon of Sir Clark, the forbidden yet funny words of Sir Rocky, the brain-cracking scientific terms of Ma’am Nikki and even to the signature gestures of Ma’am Binibini. Name a teacher and we have it. For those whose names were not mentioned, don’t be relaxed because you were just saved by the time.

            Kidding aside, our mentors have played the largest role in shaping us to who we are now. Madams and Sirs, you served as our personalized magnets. You pulled us towards the forces that would bring good to us. You allowed us to be in perfect harmony despite the fact that we belong to varying and contradicting poles. You seeped our abilities and drew us to share it and bring glory and honor to this institution. Though there may be instances when you also show that you are not perfect, our trust and respect remain the same. Your imperfections do not lead us to look down on you or to despise you; instead, these open an avenue for us to increase our understanding and to be open-minded.

            This, my fellow graduates, is the third answer to my query. I am here in Divine Word College of Vigan to understand that even the greatest person in the world has his own limitations and imperfections. No one could ever achieve all the happiness in the world. A lot of people make an impact to our lives yet some of them have to leave for the satisfaction of other individuals. A few of the most significant persons in our lives have to make great sacrifices just to bring happiness and peace to us. Indeed, tertiary life taught me the value of selfless sacrifice.

            To our mentors, staff and administration, thank you for sharing a large chunk of your time and your wisdom. I have achieved a lot because of your utmost guidance, warm support and indefinable confidence in my abilities. Thank you so much for believing in me and for having so much faith in me. You gave me that assurance that I am not just a mere student; that even in my own ways, I can bring honor and triumph to our humble institution.

            To my classmates/co-staffers/fellow officers/friends, I would definitely miss you. After this remarkable event, I would look forward to each day hoping that we would laugh together again. We may have had a limited time with each other yet every second and every minute of it was treasured and well-kept. Thank you for making me a part of your life and for accepting me for who I am. If I caused you any pain or hurt you in any way, I’m sorry. You and our blissful memories will forever be engraved in my heart.

            To my bros, thank you for always making me laugh and for serving as my buddies slash brothers. You have opened my eyes to things I could not see before and made me appreciate even the simplest things in life. Thank you for those bonding moments and for being a part of my life. I would never ever forget you.

            To my relatives, I have never said it before but I really am overwhelmed with your love, care and support. I know deep within me that I would not accomplish many tasks of mine if not for your help. I am very grateful that I belong to such a loving family.

            Honestly, this graduation is not complete for me because one of the most important people in my life is not here. A few years ago, he died at a very young age. How I wish he were still here right now to see me in my graduation. “A”, thank you for looking over us. I miss you so much ading.

            To my parents, words could never enunciate how grateful I am for having found each other and for bringing me into this world. Even if I do not meet your expectations sometimes, I used it as my motivation to strive harder and to excel more. I may not bluntly tell it to you always but I want you to know how thankful I am for having you as my parents. If I would be given another life, I would still choose you as my parents. You are the best in the world and you deserve these more than I do. I love you so much, but permit me to say this. Mang, Pang, you do not know how happy I am seeing the both of you together again. All these awards are nothing to me. What I really wish for is our happiness as a complete family.

            Now, I can say that I already know what I am doing here. I know that some, if not most of you have also asked that question at one point in your life. I hope that like me, you have also found answers to your query. My fellow graduates, this is it; however, our journey is not just an ‘it’, for we would still embark on more “if’s”.

            Sa pagtatapos ng okasyong ito, ang bawat isa sa atin ay may kany-kanyang daang tatahakin. Kalakip ng pagtanggap ng ating diploma ay ang sagot sa iisang katanungan: patuloy ba nating lilinangin ang ating kaisipan at magtutungo sa rurok ng tagumpay o mananatili na lamang ba tayo sa ating nakasanayan at magsisi balang araw?

Mga kapita-pitagang pinuno ng ating paaralan, mga minamahal naming guro, mga kapwa ko gradweyts, at sa lahat ng ating panauhin, isang maaliwalas na tanghali sa inyong lahat.

FAREWELL ADDRESS by MS KATRINA JOY NAVAL, BSED

During the 64^th COLLEGIATE COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES

Last 15 March 2010

@ St. Arnold Janssen Auditorium

Vocations promotion is a year-round activity. Due to the shortage of personnel, there is only one confrere managing the two ministries. We still get a good number of recruits for the seminary from different parts of Northern Luzon.