‘Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature.”
When Pope Francis said this before the United Nations General Assembly, he was quoting Pope Benedict XVI. The quote is, in fact, also from a passage from his encyclical, Laudato Si’, in which he cites his predecessor.
At the U.N., he continued as he does in the letter: “Creation is compromised ‘where we ourselves have the final word. . . . The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any instance above ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves.’”
You see here, as in many other instances, that Laudato Si’ cannot be reduced to one policy debate; rather, it is about all of creation. He writes about an “integral ecology” — one in which stewardship demands for the good gifts God has given us are front and center, clear and urgent.
At a time when nearly everything is in question, Pope Francis reminds man and woman of their most fundamental identity as beings who are loved into creation and are complementary to one another. As he also said at the U.N.: “Consequently, the defense of the environment and the fight against exclusion demand that we recognize a moral law written into human nature itself, one which includes the natural difference between man and woman, and absolute respect for life in all its stages and dimensions.”
On September 1, Pope Francis celebrated a Day of Prayer for Creation at the Vatican. It was setting Laudato Si’ to a more dedicated public prayer: As we address and debate matters of marriage and family, let us continue to pray. The day was also an opportunity to hit a “reset” button on a topic where presumptions and distractions were rampant in reporting and commentary.
Pope Francis reminds man and woman of their most fundamental identity as beings who are loved into creation and are complementary to one another.
Many celebrate Laudato Si’ as an encyclical on climate change and air-conditioner regulations. Others dismiss it for the same reason. Either reception is a poverty. The encyclical is an opportunity for a new moral vocabulary, one that brings those who are looking for life to make some sense — who are looking for something better than what we often settle for — to come together, to learn together, to rebuild and revitalize civilization.
You see, Pope Francis’s September apostolic journey to the United States and his focus on creation represent our opportunity for a fresh start. They invite us to walk with Francis in such a way that we, too, are inviting new people into our conversations and debates about marriage and family. The “green” hipster next door might just want what’s most healthy for himself. That opens a new kind of conversation on contraception. That shows openness to something better than a throwaway culture that discards even human life.
Of course, we would not pay too much heed to what we’re doing to the earth if we have put ourselves in the roles of gods deciding who lives and dies, all the while masking what in abortion and assisted suicide, and even in the phenomena of “friends with benefits” and “hooking up,” is being done under the veil of words like “choice,” “freedom,” “mercy,” and “love.”
We are a compassionate people — but what does that mean? A compassionate person has the courage to look another in the eye and walk with him, not tell him he is better off dead or ignore his very humanity in his mother’s womb.
What do our lives mean? What does America mean? This was, in part, at the heart of Pope Francis’s visit. He, was, of course, here to be a father to his children; his homilies and other messages were meant for Catholics in a particularly urgent way. But he speaks with a moral authority that transcends religious lines and offers anyone open to it an opportunity for reflection.
In his address at Independence Hall, he talked about the importance of religion in our lives and in the public square: “Our various religious traditions serve society primarily by the message they proclaim. The call to conversion, reconciliation, concern for the future of society, self-sacrifice in the service of the common good, and compassion for those in need. At the heart of their spiritual mission is the proclamation of the truth and dignity of the human person and all human rights.”
He was quite clear about the public part: “Religious freedom certainly means the right to worship God, individually and in community, as our consciences dictate. But religious liberty, by its nature, transcends places of worship and the private sphere of individuals and families. Because religion itself, the religious dimension, is not a subculture; it is part of the culture of every people and every nation.”
That, as well as his visit, while in Washington, D.C., to the Little Sisters of the Poor, sent clear messages about where he stands when it comes to secular liberal intolerance of a robust religious life in America, a buttress for our civil society and even our politics.
In that same address, he said:
Our religious traditions remind us that, as human beings, we are called to acknowledge an Other, who reveals our relational identity in the face of every effort to impose “a uniformity to which the egotism of the powerful, the conformism of the weak, or the ideology of the utopian would seek to impose on us” (M. de Certeau).
In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis wrote:
For Christians, believing in one God who is trinitarian communion suggests that the Trinity has left its mark on all creation. Saint Bonaventure went so far as to say that human beings, before sin, were able to see how each creature “testifies that God is three.” The reflection of the Trinity was there to be recognized in nature “when that book was open to man and our eyes had not yet become darkened.” The Franciscan saint teaches us that each creature bears in itself a specifically Trinitarian structure, so real that it could be readily contemplated if only the human gaze were not so partial, dark and fragile. In this way, he points out to us the challenge of trying to read reality in a Trinitarian key.
He writes 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. This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfillment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others, and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.
This is what Laudato Si’ and the whole of Pope Francis’s visit to the United States were about: The gaze of Jesus in the light of the Trinity. Seeing yourself as loved into Creation. Seeing each person as he was created. Seeing the world as it was created! What love there is in that vision, because there is such love emanating from the Trinity, from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God gives us all we need and never leaves us alone. He made us for him. What “immensity” of love, as Pope Francis put it at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C.! And the family is very much a part of this picture, “a joyous confirmation of God’s blessing upon the masterpiece of creation.”
What gratitude it makes manifest. Which is why Pope Francis continued, in his address at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia:
For all the obstacles we see before us, gratitude and appreciation should prevail over concerns and complaints. The family is the fundamental locus of the covenant between the Church and God’s creation, with that creation which God blessed on the last day with a family. Without the family, not even the Church would exist. Nor could she be what she is called to be, namely [citing Lumen Gentium from Vatican Council II] “a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race.”
See what is Pope Francis trying to communicate to us? That if we live in gratitude, in the Trinity, we can change the face of the earth. We can bring people in instead of turn them off and away. We can be converted and be instruments of conversion. In encounter, in reconciliation, in generous, gratuitous love that is a participation in the love of God Himself, we can be that field hospital he’s talked about — people will see the Body of Christ, sinners in need of a Savior will encounter the one who has won victory over sin and death.
God has done great things for us, be filled with joy. “Praise be to you, my Lord,” as the encyclical quotes Saint Francis. Don’t be distracted by analysis of the Church or Pope Francis that would substitute ideology for radical love. Be a grateful steward of God’s creation, which includes each and every one of us and our neighbor.