Jesuits urged to pray, think, act to promote ecological responsibility

(September 29, 2011) Jesuit communities around the world have been asked to make their buildings more energy efficient, help the farmers they work with use sustainable agricultural practices and launch programs in their universities to promote both theological reflection and scientific research on protecting the environment. A 68-page special report on ecology, "Healing a Broken World," was published in mid-September by the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. The report called on Jesuits and their collaborators to confront their own resistance and "cast a grateful look on creation, letting our heart be touched by its wounded reality and making a strong personal and communal commitment to healing it." Written by an international task force of five Jesuits and a laywoman, the report called for biblical and spiritual reflection on the gift of creation and an understanding of environmental protection as a justice issue, since it is the poor who suffer first and most severely from the destruction of environment. "Creation, the life-giving gift of God, has become material, extractable and marketable," the document said. People have allowed technology and rationality to dominate the way they look at the physical world, "blunting our sensitivity to the mystery, diversity and vastness of life and the universe," it said.