To speak about the environment and ecology is to speak about a great deal! These are four inter-related Key Words:

Environment comes from the French virer, “to turn” or “to veer,” and environ “around,” from which we get “to turn round” and finally “surroundings.” Environment not only refers to all the surrounding conditions that influence botanical, biological and human life but also suggests that we pay ever more careful attention to how pollution might damage them.

Ecology starts with three letters “eco” from the Greek oikos, which means “home or household”; and then adds logos, which is “discourse, meaning, sense.” So ecology is meaningful talk about our home the earth. The modern term “ecology” was introduced by the biologist Ernest Häckel in 1869. It is the scientific study of living beings in relationship with their surroundings. Being “a wondrous work of the Creator,” the natural environment contains “a ‘grammar’ which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation” (Civ 48).

Ecology, as treated by Pope Benedict, relates to two other words beginning with more or less the same letters. Economy starts with oikos and adds nomos, “rule” or “law”; and ecumenical builds on oikos to become oikoumen? g?, “the whole inhabited world” and all its inhabitants including our descendents. The three words beginning with oikos imply how we should dwell and behave here on our planet, one household common to all.

Moreover, each of the four key words suggests a quality or virtue that we need in order to embrace God’s gift of nature:

            environment calls for awareness,

            ecology enjoins responsibility,

            economy requires justice, and

            ecumenical hearkens to unity, not only global but also intergenerational.

Thus, in addition to their definitional meanings, these four key words also contain suggestive clues for appreciating Catholic social teaching on the environment. “I willingly join in spirit all who are grateful to the Lord for the fruits of the earth and the work of human hands, renewing the pressing invitation to respect the natural environment, a precious resource entrusted to our stewardship.”[1]

Ergo, conclusion: stimulate everyone to heighten awareness, accept responsibility, act justly and strive for unity …

… but first and finally let us turn to prayer. “In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God’s creative activity” from the beginning; and “the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation” (Civ 48) culminates in adoration as, for example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his magnificent Hymn to Matter:

"Blessed are you, reality ever new-born; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth; triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who, by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards of measurement, reveal to us the dimensions of God."[2]

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[1] Benedict XVI, Angelus, 15 November 2009.

[2] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J., Hymn to the Universe, tr. Simon Bartholomew, NY: Harper & Row, 1965, pp. 68-69.