~an excerpt from the Regional Sustainable Development Plan of Action by the Oregon Jesuits

Our Vision

We recognize the inherent tension between such a holistic, sacramental vision of sustainability and other existing models. However, a Jesuit, Catholic perspective assumes that God’s plan and God’s will are definitive in working out human destiny and that this destiny is inextricably linked with the interdependence of all creation. Thus individual persons and human communities as spiritual, religious entities serve God who is both transcendent and immanent when their cherishing and fostering of the material realm reflects the truth of the interdependence of all creation. This religious vision embodies four related factors: the cosmos as God’s creation and dwelling place, the individual human person, the community in which that person lives, and God as the originator, the facilitator, and the goal of all cosmic and human striving.

The Cosmos

The Cosmos is the creation of a God who loves it and dwells within it (Wis 11:24). The cosmos participates in the very being of God. In fact, Ignatius of Loyola asserts that God dwells in creatures and labors in them (Sp. Ex. §235-36). This indwelling, in turn, invites our reverence for the very being of the mineral, vegetative, and animal world in which God is present, not simply to be used but to be contemplated, cherished, and revered. God’s taking human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth further heightens this presence and sacralizes the whole cosmos by his body. The sacredness of the cosmos carries us beyond a narrowly anthropological view of nature as the outer layer of my skin, to a view of the sacramental presence of God in all creation that has been created through and for Christ.

Further, the trust God gives humans for the rest of creation (Gen 1:26)9 means they are to serve God’s harmony in the cosmos, not just for their own benefit, but also for the sustenance of the interrelationship of all creation. Sustainable development results from an attitude which both uses and treasures all elements of the cosmos as God’s presence.

Individual Persons

Individual Persons, uniquely made in God’s image, have a sacred trust to care for all God’s creation. Their very nature, spiritual and material, requires holistic development that sustains both material and spiritual human needs. Their role confers on them rights such as the right to religious freedom and the right to private property by which the world can be developed in an integral manner. But while these individual rights are sovereign, they are also conditioned by human nature as intrinsically social. All human persons come into being through a process of social loving and find their true perfection in helping that community grow. Every person is a product of society and a creative contributor to it. Consequently, everyone has a right to live in a freely chosen culture and to develop the authentic values and understandings of that culture.

This vision is grounded in persons, rather than individuals. Individual means that one is separated and achieves identity separate from others; while person means one is in relationship, achieves identity as being subject and object of knowing and loving relationships. This emphatic shift moves from “I” in a competing series of “I’s” to “We” in a collaborative enterprise which is one. Thus persons participate in developing self by developing the entire human community and the ecosphere in a sustainable fashion.

The Human Community

Although persons must seek their own individual goods, they must also realize their individual goods as perfected by participation in the common good. Sustainable development results from a willing retrenchment from superfluities in favor of those who lack necessities or will lack them in the future. Indeed, from a sacramental perspective, such altruism not only creates more opportunity for all but also increases the joy for those who simplify their lives.
Further, Catholic tradition, arising from as early as the 3rd century, understands the limited resources of the cosmos given by God to all. So the world’s resources are given for common use. While private property may be the best way for the universe to be developed, it may also force some to live in penury while others enjoy luxury. In that case, government may appropriate some private property and redistribute it in such a way as to promote jobs and reasonable self-sufficiency for all.
For these spiritually grounded reasons we could expect that, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,” namely the fruits of the Spirit, will be more present in communities successfully committed to sustainable development.
(cf. Galatians 5:22)

God

God created this world for harmonious development coupled with free human guidance. Besides pronouncing the world good, God revealed through the Ten Commandments that doing justice to one’s fellow human is being authentically religious. Jesus, drawing upon the Jewish tradition, teaches that love of one’s neighbor is integral to love of God as one’s final destiny. Sustainable development follows when humans use the environment sparingly so that its fruits endure and are available to others and to subsequent generations.
But God plays an even more integral part of sustainable development for God alone can satisfy the infinite desires of the human heart and spirit. “Thou hast formed us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

Relationship with God is thus the supreme enjoyment. In God, having what they need, all persons in the developed world can flourish personally, socially and spiritually on reduced consumption of resources which sustainable development will demand in the future. Ultimately, only those who have found a spiritual center, no matter how they identify their God, will have the wisdom and the freedom to make the sacrifices which make development sustainable.
These perspectives stand in contrast to most other regnant models of development which are too often governed by individualism, consumerism, materialism and secularism.

Read the entire statement.