By Father Casey
The death of Pope Francis has hit me hard this week. I never met him, and I’m obviously not a member of his flock, yet his death feels like a personal loss. Since his election as pope in 2013, I’ve paid careful attention to his words and witness, and experienced him as a source of great inspiration. In recent years, as the moral foundations of American Christianity erode, I’ve been encouraged by Francis’ witness to the gospel, and in particular his unflinching commitment to compassion and mercy. He always put the poor and vulnerable first, and used his influence to call the nations of the world to care for those they would much prefer to overlook, most notably refugees and migrants.
It’s strange to identify the head of a church of 1.3 billion people as “prophetic” – prophets typically resist the majority culture, not serve as its leader – but that’s what made Francis so significant. He has been a virtuous voice on the shoulder of the world, reminding us what is good and right, even as other voices have sat on the other shoulder, tempting us toward very different paths. Sadly, as one commentator put it this week, his voice has been “more applauded than followed.”
Nowhere is that more true than with regard to Francis’ teaching on the environment. In 2015 he published an encyclical titled Laudato Si. The title comes from his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who 800 years ago wrote a song in praise of creation that begins laudato si: “praise be to you.” Taking inspiration from that ancient canticle, the pope engaged deeply with the environmental crisis of our modern age. It’s a crisis that is most commonly discussed in political, scientific, and economic terms, but Francis carefully framed the issues from a Christian perspective. It is a wise, thoughtful, and challenging work that, like so many of his teachings, the world applauded and then quickly forgot.
Drawing on the first chapters of Genesis, Francis points out that the vocation of human beings is to “till and keep” the garden of the earth (Gen 2:15), but in our modern age we are doing far too much tilling and not nearly enough keeping. Our exploitation has led us into a dangerous global moment, when the wondrous creation given into our care by God has begun to look more and more like, in Francis’ vivid language, “an immense pile of filth.”
I cringe at that description, and yet I know it to be true. Our roadsides and rivers look like dumps. There is litter on the bottom of the deepest sea, and trash near the summit of our highest peak. Meanwhile, the great forests of the world are being bulldozed, our oceans are filling with plastics, and we carry on belching greenhouse gases into the air to sate our energy appetites. Worst of all, we’ve stopped being ashamed of what we’re doing. We’ve stopped resisting and become resigned.
I was in middle school when recycling became a widespread thing. I remember my school introducing specially marked bins, and students volunteering to sort cans and plastics to make sure everything that could be recycled was. I remember being taught to turn lights off when I left the room, and unplug chargers when I wasn’t using them. I remember my teachers and peers caring, and the popular pressure to do the right thing on environmental matters. Now, nearly 40 years later, I don’t sense any of that urgency or concern. It seems like we are sleepwalking through a catastrophe.
So this past week, as I pondered the death of a prophetic pope, and prayed on Earth Day in the midst of Easter Week, I could feel that virtuous voice on my soul’s shoulder telling me that it’s never too late to do the right thing. And the right thing, as Pope Francis said, is to both “till and keep” this precious world of ours, to enjoy and preserve it. We are stewards of this fragile earth, and those who come after us deserve to receive it as the extraordinary gift we did, not as an “immense pile of filth.”
Here at Transfiguration, I’m proud of some of the steps we’ve taken in recent years to demonstrate our creation care. We installed some solar panels, updated our energy management system to reduce waste, planted new gardens that will host more biodiversity, and renovated our kitchen so we can wash more dishes and generate less trash.
But each of these changes was only a beginning. We can’t pat ourselves on the back and keep on sleepwalking. For our solar panels generate only 5-10% of our campus energy needs, and our energy management system doesn’t relieve us of common sense behaviors like shutting doors and turning off lights. And while our kitchen may be updated, we continue to fill waste bins at every event with single-use plastics and trash. We are prioritizing ease and convenience over values and virtue.
In spite of the magnitude of the crisis he laments in Laudato Si, Francis was remarkably hopeful. He knew the power of faithful people to effectuate positive change in the world. He knew how great a force for good love can be, if that love moves from feeling into action. I share that hope, because I know how much love we have for God, for one another, and for this good earth. Now it’s time to put that love to work and do some tilling and keeping.
Fr. Casey