UNDERLYING ANTHROPOLOGY AND THEOLOGY OFLAUDATO SI’

Dermot A. Lane

AGM of NAPPDA, 11-12th May 2016

  1. General Introduction
  1. Summary of LS and subsequent developments.
  2. A new addition to Catholic social teaching today.
  3. Huge moral questions.
  1. A Call for Dialogue between Religion and Science as part of the context
  1. The stand-off between Religion and Science.
  2. The new cosmic story.
  3. Implications of the new cosmic story.
  1. Critique in LS of Anthropocentrism (Cht. 3)
  1. No Ecology with an adequate Anthropology (118).
  2. Different forms of Anthropocentrism (68, 69,118,119,122).
  3. The need for a new Anthropology (116).
  1. Reconstructing Anthropology for the twenty-first century
  1. A refrain throughout LS: everything is related(16,42,240,91,92 120,137,141,162)
  2. Reconstructing the human as relational, dialogical, embodied, linguistic, and no longer the centre of the universe.
  1. A Call to Ecological Education and Conversion (Cht. 6)
  1. The lack of awareness concerning our origins, our mutual longing, and our shared future(202).
  2. Goals of ecological education: critique of the myths of modernity, recovering an ecological equilibrium, and keeping in touch with transcendence (210).
  3. Two forms of ecological conversion: interior (217) and communal (219).
  4. Attitudes necessary forconversion (220-221).
  1. The Centrality of Christ
  1. References to Christ: Risen(99,241) and the Incarnate Word(99,235,245).
  2. The quest for the cosmic Christ (note reference to Teilhard de Chardin, FN53).
  3. Recovering the creation-centred-Christologies of the New Testament:

Col. 1/15-29; Ep. 1/7-10; Phil. 2/10-11; 1 Cor. 15: 20-23; Apoc. 21: 1-4;

2. Cor. 5: 17-19.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Delio, Ilia, Christ in Evolution, New York: Orbis Books, 2008

Delio, Ilia, The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe, New York: Orbis, 2011

Edwards, Denis, Trinity, Evolution and Ecology, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2014

Johnson, Elizabeth, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love, London: Bloomsbury, 2014

Lane, Dermot, Catholic Education in the Light of Vatican II and Laudato Si’, Dublin: Veritas, 2015

McDonagh, Seán, On Care for Our Common Home, Laudato Si’: Encyclical of Pope Francis on the Environment with Commentary, New York: Orbis Books, 2016.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Hymn of the Universe, London: Collins, Fontana Books, 1970

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Human Phenomenon, London: Sussex Academic Press, 2003

"Tragic Error" (1993) by Denise Levertov

The earth is the Lord's, we gabbled,

and the fullness thereof

while we looted and pillaged, claiming indemnity:

while we preened ourselves, sure of our power,

willful or ignorant, through the centuries.

Miswritten, misread, that charge:

Surely we were to have been

earth's mind, mirror, reflective source.

Surely our task

was to have been

to love the earth,

to dress it and keep it like Eden's garden.

That would have been our dominion:

to be those cells of earth's body that could

perceive and imagine, could bring the planet

into the haven it is to be known,

(as the eye blesses the hand, perceiving

its form and the work it can do). Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

What did you do once you knew? (Excerpts from Hieroglyphic Stairway, a poem by DrewDellinger)

December 6, 2012 by appprecautionary

What did you do once youknew?(Excerpts from Hieroglyphic Stairway, a poem by Drew Dellinger)

What did you do once you knew?

“It’s 3:23 in the morning and I’m awake… because my great great grandchildren won’t let me sleep.

My great great grandchildren ask me in dreams,

What did you do while the planet was plundered?

What did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something ?…

When the seasons started failing?

surely you did something?

As the mammals, reptiles, and birds were all dying?

surely you did something?

Did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?

What did you do once you knew?

(Excerpts from Hieroglyphic Stairway, a poem by Drew Dellinger)

Those last seven words — What did you do once you knew? — are a sense of urgency about leaving the planet in reasonable condition for our grandchildren.

What are we all doing now that we know what we know about the adverse effects of pesticides ? How do we get more people to ask the questions?

Getting people to really understand that it’s broken — and that they’re empowered to do something about it — is what’s so damn tough.