What are the links between the Spiritual Exercises and ecological conversion, as defined in Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’?[1] This is a field to be explored. Perhaps the plural “explorations” would be more appropriate. There is not a long-established tradition or much experience in this field. We find ourselves before new doors and new fields, some of which may seem mistakes. In some cases, exploring them will need time to be more deeply experienced, understood and finally developed enough, perhaps, to be shared and adopted by others. So, in this “exploration mode,” it would seem very useful to express our common horizon or our common underlying world vision.
What is this common paradigm? It is clearly the “integral ecology” offered to us by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, particularly in chapter 4. As integral ecology may appear to be a vague concept, and as there are different ways to define it, I will first propose a definition of integral ecology as a relational paradigm. Then, I will try to give an example of how this world vision can apply to the ecological and social crisis of our time, which has been named “Anthropocene.”[2]
Integral Ecology: a relational paradigm
Indeed, when we look at the world in the Anthropocene crisis, the times may seem harsh and dark, or at least unstable and insecure, as in the Contemplation of the Incarnation in the Spiritual Exercises (SE 101-109). Awareness of this can lead to despair, cynicism or anger, but we know that this leads us to death, at least to spiritual death. We should not start from here, or at least not dwell here.
Let us make the exercise of imagining a place on earth we know and love. It is a precious gift to identify a natural place on earth that gives us life, peace, hope. Most of us have a “sacred place,” a place within creation where we feel welcomed and at home. When we are tempted to despair, we may come back interiorly to this sacred place. It is a sound spiritual exercise of integral ecology, as this evocation of a life-giving relationship with creation helps us nurture relationships with ourselves, with other humans and with God.
How should we define integral ecology conceptually? We know that there are various ways of presenting it in Laudato Si’. I will develop one of them. Integral ecology is a way to look at the world, and so a way to situate ourselves in this world. Briefly, integral ecology sees the world as involving four main relationships: “relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world” (LS 237). Faith makes us affirm that the relationship with God is the source, the support and the end of all the other three relationships.
Changing in depth the way we look at the world around is, indeed, a “conversion.” Thus, to take up the call of Laudato Si’ means adopting a perspective consonant with the Spiritual Exercises, which can be called “a school of conversion.” If we need a conversion to integral ecology and its relational world-view, it means that we must convert from something else, from another world view. Pope Francis calls this other vision “the technocratic paradigm” (LS 106-114). During the past three centuries, we have developed a vision of the world as a big machine. This vision has allowed us to develop science as we had never done before. It has given us what we call “progress.” At least during two centuries, it has brought “progress” to the Western world as it was mostly a Western vision of the world. But after World War Two, we can say it has spread all over the world, and it is now the dominant world paradigm.
With “progress,” this machine paradigm has brought us remarkable benefits. Some of us would not be alive without modern medical science. And the advantage of medical science is that it has considered the human body as a machine, and it has developed tools and techniques to analyze it more thoroughly in greater detail, dividing it into ever smaller pieces. This is what is called the reductionist methodology. One body has become a group of members, one member has become a group of cells, one cell has become a group of cellular organisms. As we have come to understand better how the body-machine works, we have been able to repair it much more efficiently. This has brought us health, and the end of much suffering. For this, we must be grateful to modern medical science, reductionism, progress and the “machine paradigm” that has allowed us to situate ourselves in this machine-dominated world and to act in it more and more efficiently.
However, the ecological and social crisis of our world today involves “both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS 49) and it should make us understand that this paradigm has come to an end, and that a good part of its outcomes are now more damaging to the earth and to us than its advantages. Unfortunately, the system does not change. This is because of inertia, and we all have our responsibility in this, but also because powerful people and countries do not want change. That is why Pope Francis does not hesitate to challenge them in Laudate Deum (LD): “To the powerful, I can only repeat this question: ‘What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power, only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?’” (LD 60). This is one more challenging call to conversion.
To understand better this machine paradigm and the need of conversion to the integral ecology paradigm, let us take an example. Plastics. Plastics come from the oil industry. It is a product coming from our reductionist approach and the identification of different molecules in oil. It is a product of our technologies that have allowed us to refine the oil and break it into different molecules. Based on this knowledge and capacities, a complete industry has developed. It has offered the world cheap, light, flexible and quite resistant material, plastics. It has brought us “progress” in terms of safety, easier and safer work, easier packaging and transport. It has also brought us comfort, and even fashion.
To Realise the Need to Change
But this positive aspect is today put into question. Single-use plastic is everywhere: in our fridges, our garbage, our rivers, our oceans. It has formed “the 7th continent,” an island of plastice waste that is three times the size of Italy. But worse than that, it degrades into microplastics and microplastics are everywhere. They follow the water cycle. Thus you can find them in the deep ice of the Arctic, in the “virgin” parts of Amazonia, in your body – each European eats more or less four grams of plastic every week, the equivalent of one bankcard! It is in the milk of pregnant mothers and even in the umbilical cord blood of babies!
Should we call this “progress”? Clearly no. So why can’t we stop? In the light of the machine paradigm, we now understand that plastics are destroying the machine. Yet, we can’t stop. It looks like the strength of the habits and the comfort given to us by the machine are too hard to get rid of. This is true for everyone. But perhaps even more for the rich and powerful people making money in the plastic business. The reductionist methodology of science clearly explains that we are putting ourselves in danger. But the even more reductionist approach of the financial world is preventing us from any significant change.
This is where we can feel we need something deeper than a minor technical change of the machine paradigm. We may need recycling innovations, biodegradable plastics and so forth. But we should realize that this is not going to be enough. We need to change at a deeper level. This is because the plastics problem is not isolated. It is linked to the fossil fuel problem, to the marine biodiversity problem, to the poverty problem. A reductionist approach isolating single points is not going to succeed. A relational paradigm, like the one used by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’, is a real alternative. Integral ecology in Laudato Si’ can be summarized as “everything is interconnected” (LS 240). With this lens, we can change our vision of the world, of plastics. We can understand better how plastic is linked to microplastic, how microplastic is linked to ecosystems and humans’ health, how health is more valuable than money and how it should be obvious that “money” should serve the goal which is “one health” for all, humans and ecosystems. As John Henry Newman used to say, we need to begin to “understand” what it means: we must go beyond a theoretical or intellectual understanding, and acquire an existential conviction.
So here we are with our compass, our new vision of the world, the integral ecology paradigm. As mentioned, the world is a fabric of four vital relationships (cf. LS 217) and we should care for each one of them and all of them together.
But changing an established world vision has consequences. Let us take some images. First, let us take a cow. We imagine a farm animal, but if we look at it from a relational point of view, most of us have been in relationship with this animal under a specific form, which includes a steak something to eat. In our urban lives, we may not have seen a cow for the last month or perhaps even longer, but many of us have eaten beef during the last few weeks. This is because our digestive systems and our urban lives lead us to do so. But at a deeper level, it is also because we have a carnivorous vision of the world. So we don’t “see” any problem in eating this zebu or buffalo. But let’s imagine we are in India. In this country, more than 80 percent of the population is Hindu. Their religion shapes their deep vision of the world. And in this vision, this cow is a sacred animal. So you may admire it, you may pray when you see it, you may wish it moves out of the road because you’re late. But you don’t “see” it as a walking steak. This is a very good example of how two visions of the world lead to two different ways of being in relationship with another living being.
Let’s now envision a little pine tree in the snow. We may think that of Christmas. Here a Christian vision of the world emerges, even for those who are no longer Christian. But our culture has deep roots in this religion and you end associating snow and pine trees with Christmas. But you still have only one word for “snow.” If you say this word to an Inuit woman from Northern Canada, she would look at you with strange eyes. For her, this word “snow” does not mean anything. The Inuit live surrounded by snow and ice most of the year. So their vision of this white world we call “snow” is much more developed. They have many words for “snow.” For example, one of them describes the iced snow, the snow that retains no trace of animal tracks. And so you should not go out hunting during these periods because it will be useless, and you would put not only yourself in danger, but also your family and your tribe. Here, through language, we can come to understand another vision of the “snow world.” This vision of the world has direct consequences for the type of relationships that Inuit develop with the ecosystems around them.
These examples show that a vision of the world can really have an impact on our relationships with other humans, other living beings, and even with inorganic elements. So when Pope Francis writes that we must convert and change our paradigm from the technocratic paradigm to the relational vision of the world of integral ecology and this change will have significant consequences for how we live in this world.
I would like to underline one last point about this relational paradigm. By adopting it, Christian integral ecology can easily engage with other ecological convictions. In other words, a relational world vision puts us in relationship with others. And this is very good news. Today we can say, at least in Europe, that on many social questions the Church is at odds with society, for good or not so good reasons. Dialogue is not so easy and Church discourse is often marginalized. So listening to the Good News of the Spirit working around us may be difficult. In addition, sharing the Gospel around us is not so easy. But around the social and ecological crisis, with integral ecology and its relational paradigm, the Church suddenly finds open ears and hearts. We can find allies. We can engage in dialogue.
Let’s take two examples in the French context. Firstly, 103-year old French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin, who is sometimes better known outside France than in his home country. He studies complexity and his mantra is “connect, connect, connect.” This former Communist, combatant during World War Two, and avowed atheist is not a natural pillar of the Church. However, after reading Laudato Si’, he didn’t hesitate and called it publicly “providential.” This was not because he was converted to a divine providential reading of history, but because “we are living in a time when thinking is fragmented, when the parties that claim to be ecologists have no real vision of the scale and complexity of the problem, when they lose sight of the importance of what Pope Francis, in a wonderful phrase taken from Gorbachev, calls ‘the common home’.”[3] So here we have an atheist French philosopher applauding a Catholic Pope and his vision of complexity through the relational paradigm of integral ecology. This is not usual at all! But we may say: “Well, he is a philosopher and an old man. He is wise and he is able to think out of the box and leave behind even his ‘natural’ tribe to find allies.” This is partly true.
Let’s take another example. Delphine Batho is 51. She is an eco-socialist politician. She is a member of Parliament and has been a minister in the Socialist government of Jean-Marc Ayrault (2012). Once again, in the French political landscape, this does not make her a natural ally of the Catholic Church. However, in 2019, four years after Laudato Si’, she published a political manifesto Integral Ecology, the manifesto[4] where she makes her stand for a radical, new approach to ecology in the political field, outside of the classical left-right system, as it is for her the main challenge of our epoch and a trans-partisan question. In her writing she clearly advocates for a relational vision of the world. Here we have a mature political woman, non-Christian, from a political party that is not a natural ally of the Catholic Church in France, defending the concept of integral ecology and its relational paradigm. This is unusual enough to be underlined and we should rejoice over such openings for dialogue.
Of course, in both cases, there is a major difference. Morin and Batho developed for themselves the relational paradigm, as Pope Francis does in Laudato Si’. But – and it is a major “but” – they do not adopt the complete vision of Laudato Si’. Indeed, they do speak of relationship with oneself, with other humans and with nature, but they do not name the relationship with God. So there is an obvious difference. But there is also significant common ground. Therefore, because of this common ground and this deep difference, there can be dialogue.
Let’s end with this word “dialogue.” It’s not only a word, it is a methodology. It is the methodology Pope Francis advocates for in Laudato Si’, in order that we, as humans, can overcome the huge challenges of the ecological and social transitions we need.[5] But Pope Francis not only advocates for dialogue. He has built the encyclical as a dialogue. Indeed, if you look chapter by chapter at the structure of Laudato Si’, you may recognize the classical “See-Judge-Act” approach of Catholic Social Teaching. Chapters 1 and 2: See; chapters 3 and 4: Judge; chapters 5 and 6: Act. But if you look at it from a dialogical point of view, you may realize that Pope Francis starts each step (See-Judge-Act) by listening to the “world” (chapters 1, 3, 5) and then by offering an echo from the Christian faith perspective (chapter 2, 4, 6).
Listening and sharing wisdom; this constitutes a true dialogue. So Pope Francis not only advocates for dialogue, he builds dialogue. He does not only speak but walks the talk. In this sense, he invites us to join him in incarnating the vision formulated, on 6 August 1964, by Pope Paul VI in Ecclesiam Suam (ES): “The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make” (ES 67). This last point about dialogue as an incarnation of the relational paradigm of integral ecology brings us to another question: how do the Spiritual Exercises promote dialogue? What kind(s) of dialogue(s) do we experience and offer in an Ignatian retreat?
Six Ways to Enter a Conversion Process
Let’s move to a more lay discourse. There are different ways of entering the conversion experience of integral ecology. To explore this, there is an interesting guide by the FORTES research group and the Campus de la Transition team that defines six gateways to explore the ecological and social transition.[6] You can travel through the six gateways in the order you want. The first gateway is called Oikos: it is based on the way we know, inhabit and care for our common home. It is based on the natural and physical sciences. The second is called the Ethos gate. It is about discernment and morality. The third one is the Nomos gate, about regulatory norms and governance. The fourth one is called the Logos gate: how we interpret and imagine the world. The fifth is the Praxis gate: the actions in which we are to engage for the transition. The last gate is the Dunamis gate: how we reconnect with the self, others and nature, and with God for those who are believers.
The key aspect is that different persons can enter by different gates. The point is to start by the door which is more “natural” to you and then follow the dynamic that inspires you to explore the complexity of the ecological and social crisis of the Anthropocene. Let me give you one example, one I tend to follow naturally. I am an agro-engineer so I tend to start with Oikos and the science-based description of the world. Then, realizing that this description is demonstrating an advanced state of crisis of the living world under human pressure, I turn my eyes to societies, looking for solutions, for norms and controls. Therefore I open the Nomos gate. At this point, I realize that laws are human constructions, and that they are not good or bad per se. They should serve the good and fight the bad. They should help us to live a good life. But what is a good life? Here comes the Ethos question. Yet, as we all know, ethics is not only about philosophy and explicit discernment. Our behaviors are shaped by ethical principles that we receive from our cultures, from the stories we hear, the arts we develop, the narrative we were born in. This brings us to the Logos gateway. At this point, I realize that narratives are essential because they shape our acts at personal and collective levels. Actions: this is what we desperately need today. Actions that really have impacts. Actions that meet the Anthropocene challenges we face. Here is the Praxis gate, and I must confess that today in my mission as a Jesuit, praxis is what takes up most of my time. But as a Jesuit, as a Christian, I know that my actions, that our actions, are desperate if we count only on our own strength. I know by experience and praxis that I and we need to be deeply connected with God, with oneself, with others and with creation if we are to be alive, peaceful and joyful in this chaotic Anthropocene era. That’s the Dunamis gateway. The one I consider more directly connected with the Spiritual Exercises and my Christian faith.
We could have started with the spiritual experience and the conversion experience, or with the urgent need for action, for praxis. Then we could have traced it many ways. People can start with every kind of gateway. When faced with the Anthropocene, we tend to think that everybody should start in the same way, let’s say, by the House, the Oikos approach. How is my family or my community consuming the world? But figures, maps and facts can be compelling for some and not for others. If I want to build something with others, I have to be able to join them by their own gate. Maybe the ethical, the Ethos one. Or maybe the actions, the Praxis one. No matter. What is at stake is an invitation to dialogue, an invitation to let ourselves move within to join others where we are, to build the Common Good together. The task is great, urgent, challenging, and never-ending.
So I would like to conclude with one of the spiritual texts that nourishes deeply my Christian eco-spiritual pilgrimage, the first page of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Mass on the World[7]:
“Since once again, Lord […] I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole world my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world.
Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and, once again, begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labor. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits. My chalice and my paten are the depths of a soul laid wide open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. […]
Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation, moved by your magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day. […] This wine, our pain, is no more, I know, than a draught that dissolves. Yet in the very depths of this formless mass you […] have implanted – and this I am sure of, for I sense it – a desire, irresistible, hallowing, which makes us cry out, believer and unbeliever alike, ‘Lord, make us one’.”
Reproduced with permission from La Civiltà Cattolica.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32009/22072446.1224.1
[1]. “They all need an ‘ecological conversion,’ whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them” (LS 217).
[2]. P. Crutzen et al, “The Anthropocene”, in L. Robin S. Sörlin – P. Warde (eds), The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2013, 483-490 (www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt5vm5bn.52).
[3]. “Edgar Morin: L’encyclique Laudato Si’ est peut-être l’acte 1 d’un appel pour une nouvelle civilisation”, in La Croix (www.la-croix.com/Religion/Actualite/Edgar-Morin-L-encyclique-Laudato-Si-est-peut-etre-l-acte-1-d-un-appel-pour-une-nouvelle-civilisation-2015-06-21-1326175), June 21, 2015.
[4]. D. Batho, Écologie intégrale, Le manifeste, Monaco, Éditions du Rocher, 2019.
[5]. See for example the five dialogues that Pope Francis uses to structure the chapter 5 of Laudato Si’.
[6]. Cf. C. Renouard et al (eds), Manuel de la Grande Transition, Paris, Les Liens qui libèrent, 2024. An English summary is available online: https://lsri.campion.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inline-files/The-Great-Transition-Guide-Principles-for-a-Transformative-Education_0.pdf.
[7]. P. Teilhard de Chardin, The Mass on the World, (https://www.tarsus.ie/resources/SSS-2020/The-Mass-On-The-World.pdf).
