Chapter V
Sustainability and the Recommendations of the Holy See to EU Member States
p. 101-110
Résumé
On 16 September 2015, Pope Francis addressed a speech to the environment ministers of the EU member states. Their meeting at the Vatican was important, it preceded the 21st Conference of the parties held in Paris in the autumn of 2015. Above all, it underlined the long-standing ecological tradition of ‘old Europe’, which has become a model, with the figure of Francis of Assisi, in response to many calls for the safeguarding of creation. This address, as well as other pontifical texts that have preceded and followed on the theme of environmental degradation, denounces the attacks on respect owed to nature, and the disorderly exploitation of its resources. In it, the Holy See affirms how urgent the challenges of sustainability have become, and recommends – on the behalf of European institutions – that fundamental principles be respected. The September 2015 speech proposes three principles: solidarity, which establishes the link between the ecological crisis, the poorest and future generations; justice, which also visits north-south relations, and the ecological debt that the Member States of the European Union must honour by setting a good example, especially in promoting sustainable development programmes; and finally, the principle of participation, which concerns the political decision-making processes. This speech of September 2015 will give rise to doctrinal comments situated between law and theology.
Texte intégral
I. Introduction
1On 16 September 2015, Pope Francis presented a brief speech to the environment ministers of the European Union, in which he welcomed the growing importance of their task in relation to the ‘ecological revolution’ that he is calling for.1 At this meeting in the Vatican, which preceded the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties, held in Paris in autumn of 2015, the Pope insisted on the newness of the challenges of sustainability. In this September 2015 speech, mention was made of the Encyclical Laudato si’, published a few weeks prior, on 18 June 2015,2 which has given rise to abundant and conflicting doctrinal comments lying between law and theology. On this theme of environmental degradation, other Bergoglian texts have denounced to the European institutions attacks on the respect owed to nature, and the disorderly exploitation of its resources. And, among the other interventions that preceded or followed this interview, we recall the message of 25 November 2014, delivered before the European Parliament,3 and subsequently the discourse of 6 May 2016 at the reception of the Charlemagne Prize.4 Above all, there is the speech of 24 March 2017 that the Pope has addressed to the Heads of State and Government of the European Union, meeting in Italy for the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.5 In these texts, a dual attitude towards Europe is adopted, made up of mistrust and trust, directed against a past that needs to be deconstructed, and the urge to move towards change. In his own words, Francis is a Pope from far away,6 the first non-European Pope since John V, and he revisits – through the prism of ‘safeguarding the common home’7 – the crises of the European tradition (I), which he wishes to remedy by promoting fundamental principles that support an integral ecology (II).
II. Against The Environmental Crises Of Europe, Memories And Dreams
A. Introduction
2The alarming description of Europe and ecology crises occupies a large space in the homilies of Pope Francis, unlike the Europhile writings of his predecessors.
3We remember that Pope John Paul II declared Francis of Assisi as Patronus apud Deum oecologiae cultorum in the Inter Sanctos bull of 29 November 1979. Also, on 3 December 2008, Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated a study day on the theme of Cultures and Religions in Dialogue, as part of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.8 He celebrated, above all, the luminous history of Europe, and presented the rich density of European contributions, in particular for environmental protection, as ‘a precious cloth whose fabric is woven from the principles and values spun from the Gospel, while the national cultures have been able to embroider it with an immense variety of perspectives that express the religious, intellectual, technical, scientific and artistic abilities of the Homo europeus’.9 And Benedict XVI glorified ‘this cultural influence on the human race, which makes Europe responsible not only for its own future, but also for the future of humanity as a whole’,10 and the environmental future is included in this responsibility of Europe.
B. Pontifical Discourses on Environmental Crises
4Pope Benedict XVI, the first to have been nicknamed ‘The Green Pope’, was aware of the ecological dramas he saw as arising from the moral and philosophical crises of the West. And he derived the external pollution from the internal pollution,11 the ecological crisis being only an epiphenomenon of ‘the dictatorship of relativism’.12 He recalled the imperative necessity of human ecology, because of the attachment between man and nature: ‘The way in which man treats the environment influences the way in which he treats himself, and vice versa’.13 However, in these relations and according to the anthropocentric vision that contains the integral humanism enshrined by the Encyclical Populorum Progressio of Paul VI, 26 March 1967, the primacy of human beings is emphasised. Benedict XVI explained: ‘man is first, and it is good to remember this; man, to whom God has entrusted the proper management of nature, cannot be dominated…, and become a subject’.14 But this human domination can become dangerous. Peril that the Pope expressed with the phrase: ‘Man can destroy the world, because at a moment in history man has acquired previously inconceivable power’.15
5Six years later, with the election of Jorge Bergoglio, the discourse changed tone – because environmental alarms are growing – with the criticism of the existential crisis that Europe is experiencing,16 especially environmental disaster. The vision given is different due to the alterations, and discerned from the external perspective supported by the background of Latin American culture made up of multicultural roots without clear references to the Christian roots of Europe. One can read a hammering of European failures, in particular an environmental fiasco. To a strongly heckled Eurocentrism and the necessary rootedness that opens to the universal, the Pope prefers what is now known as ‘a theology of migration or of migrants’,17 and therefore of uprooting, close to nomadism that is not without risk for the environment, joined to ‘a theology of ecology’. In 2014, Francis accumulated crisis formulas – including climate denunciations – before the Euro deputies, with rigorous clichés far from being compliments, directed against a Europe that ‘is now a grandmother, tired and aged, sterile and without vitality, no longer fertile and vibrant, where great ideals seemed to have lost their attractive force’.18 These harsh expressions about Europe’s sterility, which are repeated in the speeches that comment on Laudato si’, signal depleted soil and polluted water caused by the European materialistic choices applied to their lands or elsewhere. The Pope lists the reasons for this decline: in his view, they are linked to the loss of generative and creative capacity, to policies geared towards the domination of space and nature, and to the ideological economy of land grabbing that impact on environment. Pope Francis also delves further, he sees in the polluting act an ecological sin. To the old Europe, which has been so heckled by this literary stigma, the Argentinian Pope opposes the fertile figure of Mother Earth, which will be featured on the 10 euro coin minted by the Vatican City for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.19
C. An Ecological Conversion: Between Memories and Dreams
6Against the quasi-spiritual crises of ‘apathy’ and above all ‘the deficit of memory’, the Pontiff proposes solutions, to be sought only in Europe’s recent political past; to listen to the voice of our close ancestors.20 His messages invite the commemoration of the great figures of the founding fathers of Europe, above all Robert Schuman ‘close to the piety of St Francis of Assisi’,21 Alcide de Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, and the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Spaak. For, as the Pope says, ‘with time, even the most beautiful memories fade and are gradually forgotten’.22 The rhetoric of dreams that has often filled the air of crisis also runs through Pope Francis’s writing. For the Charlemagne Prize ceremony, and in an imitation of Martin Luther King’s speech, the Pope ‘dreams to create’. He catalogues nine dreams – as at the Lincoln Memorial on 28 April 1963 – that surround environmental policy with neo-civilisational tones. The fifth of these – ‘I dream of a Europe’ – addressed to young people, is – among spiritual resonances – connected with the European Green Deal towards future generations, so ‘that they breathe the pure air of honesty, love the beauty of culture and a simple life, unpolluted by the infinite needs of consumerism’.23
III. Three Principles to Serve ‘the European Green Deal’
A. Introduction
7The messages of Pope Francis reveal the environmental dimension of the expression ‘[the] idea of Europe’24 borrowed from the work of the Jesuit Erich Przywara, ‘the great master – explains the Pontiff – of Romano Guardini and of Hans Urs von Balthasar’,25 and who had an important influence on the Pope’s theology.26 The September 2015 conference preceding COP21 advocates the triptych of sustainable development, based on three principles that are moral and abstract, i.e. sometimes unrelated to reality, but also legal and technical: solidarity, justice and participation, which return as leitmotifs in the Pope’s various writings.27 These principles are connected to the objectives of the EU’s environmental policy presented in Article 191 of the TFEU.
B. Solidarity and Justice
8Solidarity first, because the ecological crisis reveals the links that are forged between the poorest and future generations. In his theology, Pope Francis establishes a binary and simplified confrontation, pitting the weak (and nature is part of this) against the strong, in a confrontation that resonates with ‘the cry of the earth and the poor’.28 In order to fight exclusion, the Pope is taking into consideration the creation of inclusion processes towards a global citizenship, and which would extend throughout the earth via theology as the link and the ‘us’. Pope Francis thus takes over the often weakened model of ‘de facto solidarity’ promoted by the Declaration of 9 May 1950 in the Salon de l’Horloge in Paris,29 and after with the Lisbon Treaty, which reinforces and better defines the objective of sustainable development in its solidarity aspect.30 The Pope associates solidarity with the notion of justice; sustainability must respond to these two principles because ‘it is unfair to impose irreversible and overly heavy burdens on young people and poor’.31
9And so comes justice, which must, above all, irrigate intergenerational relations and those between North and South. The principle of justice is seen from the point of view of the debt that creates a gap between strong and weak, rich and poor countries: ‘we must honour this debt’, which is due, as Francis comments, for relations to trade imbalances and to the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries’. Reference is made to the justice of distribution, according to Aristotelian philosophy, and the suum cuique tribuere or suum cuique reddere of the Romans. Moreover, the Pope refers to Roman law: ‘Do not be afraid of the thirst for justice that developed from Roman law’.32 The solutions are to be found in the realm of politics, and do not necessarily concern the sphere of religion, as Paul VI had recognised. On the occasion of his very brief speech in 1964 to the Assembly of the Western European Union, he explained that he was speaking ‘without leaving the domain which is Ours to encroach upon your competence or taking political positions which would not be appropriate to the office which We exercise’.33 In 2015, Pope Francis gave advice on the regulated consumption of non-renewable energy, on adequate forest management systems, on transportation, on the fight against waste and, above all, food waste, on new behaviours and new lifestyles, on a model of circular economy so difficult to define and implement because of the vast range of different approaches and the very high cost of recycling.34
C. The Principle of Participation
10Last of all, the principle of participation, which is essential to a democratic process’,35 concerns overall the political decision-making and the regular protection of the rule of law. This political notion is considered both as a duty and a right ‘embedded in the Treaty and the EU environmental acquis’.36 For Europe, ‘public participation is one among [the] main principles of sustainable development’.37 Here again, the Pope, at the crossroads of the political and spiritual spheres, encourages dialogue requiring the involvement of all parties concerned, not only of citizens, even of those who often remain at the margins of the power of decision. According to the speech of 24 March 2017, for the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, ‘this requires opening the doors to a dialogue’.38 In an optimistic smoothing of the difficulties that the EU institutions have never envisaged, the Pope recommends this effective participation at all levels, from the Member States, institutions, as well as the citizens, above all to the many migrants who land on the shores of the European Union.39
Notes de bas de page
1 Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Environment Ministers of the European Union, 16 September 2015, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150916_ministri-ambiente-unione-europea.html.
2 Encyclical letter Laudato si’ of the Holy Father Francis on care for our common home, Rome, 24 May 2015, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.
3 Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to the European Parliament and to the Council of Europe, Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, 25 November 2014, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/september/documents/papa-francesco_20150916_ministri-ambiente-unione-europea.html.
4 Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, 6 May 2016, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/may/documents/papa-francesco_20160506_premio-carlo-magno.html.
5 Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Heads of State and Government of the European Union in Italy for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Ttreaty of Rome, 24 March 2017, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/march/documents/papa-francesco_20170324_capi-unione-europea.html.
6 Academic Act for the Institution of the study cycle on ‘care for our common home and safeguarding of creation’ and of the Unesco Chair ‘On Futures of Education for sustainability’, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, 17 October 2021, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/october/documents/20211007-istituzione-ciclostudi.html.
7 The Academic Act for the Institution of the study cycle on ‘care for our common home and safeguarding of creation’, and of the Unesco Chair ‘On Futures of Education for sustainability’, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, 17 October 2021, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/october/documents/20211007-istituzione-ciclostudi.html.
8 Letter of His Holiness Benedict XVI on the Occasion of the Study Day Organized By The Pontifical Councils For Interreligious Dialogue And For Culture On The Theme ‘Culture And Religions In Dialogue, to Cardinal Tauran…, 3 December 2008, Dicastery for Communication, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/messages/pont-messages/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20081203_culture-religioni.html.
9 Ibid., ‘It is deeply rooted in the large and ancient patrimony of Athens and Rome and in the fertile terrain of Christianity, which proved capable of creating new cultural heritages while at the same time receiving the original contribution of every civilization. The new humanism that emerged from the dissemination of the Gospel message exalts all the elements worthy of the human person and of his transcendent vocation, purifying them from the dross that obscures the authentic face of man created in the image and likeness of God.’ ‘In this sense, we may affirm that Europe has had and still has a cultural influence on the entire human race.’
10 Ibid., ‘In this sense, we may affirm that Europe has had and still has a cultural influence on the entire human race’.
11 Benoît XVI, Pour une écologie de l’homme (Paris, Paroles et Silence, 2012).
12 ‘Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice’, Homily of His Eminence Card. Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals Mass, Monday 18 April 2005: www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html.
13 E. Lothes, ‘Trois questions qui expliquent pourquoi Benoît XVI est le pape vert’, 10 January 2023: https://laudatosimovement.org/fr/news/trois-questions-qui-expliquent-pourquoi-benoit-xvi-est-le-pape-vert/.
14 Ibid.
15 Apostolic journey to Germany, 22–25 September 2011, visit to the Bundestag, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Reichstag Building, Berlin, 22 September 2011: www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2011/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20110922_reichstag-berlin.html.
16 The Academic Act for the Institution of the study cycle on ‘care for our common home and safeguarding of creation’, and of the Unesco Chair ‘On Futures of Education for sustainability’, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, 17 October 2021.
17 P. C. Phan, Christian theology in the age of migration: implications for world Christianity (London, Lexington books, 2020); M. Bellerose, ‘Théologie de la migration’ (2017) 25(2) Revue Théologiques.
18 Visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to the European Parliament and to the Council of Europe, Address of Pope Francis to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, 25 November 2014.
20 Apostolic Journey of the Holy Father Francis to Budapest, Holy Mass at the End of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress – and to Slovakia [12–15 September 2021], the Holy Father’s press conference on the return flight, Papal Flight Wednesday: www.vatican.va/content/francesco/fr/speeches/2021/september/documents/20210915-bratislava-volo-ritorno.html.
21 M.-P. Chellini, ‘Robert Schuman et l’idée européenne (1886–1963)’, Fondation Robert Schuman: www.robert-schuman.eu/fr/robert-schuman-et-l-idee-europeene.
22 Letter of the Holy Father to the Secretary of State on the 40th anniversary of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the European Union, and the 50th anniversary of the presence of the Holy See as Permanent Observer at the Council of Europe, 27.10.2020: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/10/27/201027b.html.
23 Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, 6 May 2016: ‘I dream of a new European humanism, one that involves “a constant work of humanization” and calls for “memory, courage, [and] a sound and humane utopian vision”. I dream of a Europe that is young, still capable of being a mother: a mother who has life because she respects life and offers hope for life. I dream of a Europe that cares for children, that offers fraternal help to the poor and those newcomers seeking acceptance because they have lost everything and need shelter. I dream of a Europe that is attentive to and concerned for the infirm and the elderly, lest they be simply set aside as useless. I dream of a Europe where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being. I dream of a Europe where young people breathe the pure air of honesty, where they love the beauty of a culture and a simple life undefiled by the insatiable needs of consumerism, where getting married and having children is a responsibility and a great joy, not a problem due to the lack of stable employment. I dream of a Europe of families, with truly effective policies concentrated on faces rather than numbers, on birth rates more than rates of consumption. I dream of a Europe that promotes and protects the rights of everyone, without neglecting its duties towards all. I dream of a Europe of which it will not be said that its commitment to human rights was its last utopia.’
24 Ibid., ‘Erich Przywara, in his splendid work Idee Europa [The Idea of Europe], challenges us to think of the city as a place where various instances and levels coexist. He was familiar with the reductionist tendency inherent in every attempt to rethink the social fabric. Many of our cities are remarkably beautiful precisely because they have managed to preserve over time traces of different ages, nations, styles and visions,’ J Betz, ‘Pope Francis, Erich Przywara and the idea of Europe’ (2016) First Things: www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/05/pope-francis-erich-przywara-and-the-idea-of-europe.
25 M. Borghesi, The mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Maria Bergoglio’s intellectual journey (Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2018).
26 J. Betz, ‘Pope Francis, Erich Przywara and the idea of Europe’ (2016) First Things.
27 Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Environment Ministers of the European Union, 16 September 2015: ‘I would like to focus on three principles. First of all, the principle of solidarity, a word that is sometimes forgotten and at other times misused in a sterile manner. … Second, the principle of justice. In Laudato Si’, I spoke of “ecological debt”, especially between the North and South, connected to trade imbalances with consequences in the context of ecology... Thirdly, the principle of participation, which requires the involvement of all stakeholders, even of those who often remain at the margins of decision-making.’
28 Ibid.
29 Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, 6 May 2016: ‘Robert Schuman, at the very birth of the first European community, stated that “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”. Today, in our own world, marked by so much conflict and suffering, there is a need to return to the same de facto solidarity and concrete generosity that followed the Second World War.’
30 ‘Explaining the Treaty of Lisbon – European Commission’, Brussels, 1 December 2009: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/de/MEMO_09_53.
31 ‘Pope: social security must be fair and sustainable for future generations’, Vatican News, 3 April 2023: www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-04/pope-social-security-must-be-fair-and-sustainable.html.
32 Letter of the Holy Father to the Secretary of State on the 40th anniversary of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the European Union, and the 50th anniversary of the presence of the Holy See as Permanent Observer at the Council of Europe, 27.10.2020.
33 Address by Pope Paul VI to the participants in the 10th ordinary session of the assembly of the Western European Union (W.E.U.), 23 June 1964: www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/fr/speeches/1964/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19640623_ueo.html.
34 Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Environment Ministers of the European Union, 16 September 2015, H. Lehmann, Ch. Hinske, V. de Margerie and A. Slaveikova Nikolova, The Impossibilities of the Circular Economy: Separating Aspirations from Reality (Routledge, Oxon, 2022).
35 C. Armeni, ‘Participation and the EU climate transition: A rule of law question’, Blog : Climate change and the rule of law, 13 December 2021, Centre for law and environment, Université libre de Bruxelles: www.ucl.ac.uk/law-environment/blog-climate-change-and-rule-law/participation-and-eu-climate-transition-rule-law-question.
36 Ibid.
37 A. Jociuté, ‘An expression of participation principle in sustainable development: the example from the European healthy cities project’ (2012) 1(6) Sustainable development strategy and practise,‘One essential prerequisite of the sustainable development is the full-scale participation of citizens in decision-making processes. Participation is important in decreasing social inequities and social exclusion’: https://ojs.mruni.eu/ojs/sustainable-development-strategy/login.
38 Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Heads of State and Government of the European Union in Italy for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, 24 March 2017.
39 Ibid.
Auteur
-
Christine Mengès-Le-Pape
Professor, Toulouse Capitole University, France
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