Being a non-Catholic, I have not always followed nor even read papal encyclical until now. And was it an enormous surprise? The 184 page Pope Francis encyclical was a very powerful piece: extremely well written and with the authority of a great leader. It has great wisdom; it is sensitive, insightful, and lucid even when discussing very scientific and technical subjects.
If you love elevated language, good turn of phrase, dialectics and syntax, Pope Francis’ encyclical met all of those and more. Unsurprisingly, the power of the argument contained in the encyclical, not less the subject matter, elicited global response. Days before the publication of the encyclical, the global media went into frenzied speculations on its content — in fact an Italian newspaper, L’ Espresso, leaked its content before the due day. Understandably, the reaction to the encyclical was mixed. Across the world except perhaps in Nigeria and Africa, the continent that incidentally is most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, there was scarcely any response! Elsewhere politicians, scientists, environmental activists etc, weighed in forcefully with their opinion.
By Africa’s silence, the continent has further strengthened its reputation as a laggard that is animated only when issues of money arise. It appears on the matter of climate change, Africa’s agenda is money. Yet, as Pope Francis was eloquently formulating a position that underscores the plight of Africa’s dismal condition in the face of the ravages of climate change; the continent was missing in action. This is sad.
As Nigeria and Africa sleep, in the rest of the world, various peoples and interest groups were taking positions on climate change. Three perhaps absurd reactions came from two American politicians—actually the three men are Catholics and belong to the Republican Party and they are all gunning for the American presidency in 2016. Rick Santorum wanted the Pope to leave science of climate change to scientists, but was reminded that Pope Francis was not actually ignorant on the subject, that he has a Master’s degree in Chemistry. The other political figure was Jeb Bush, who waffled something to the effect that the Pope should not get into political issues since he is not a political leader. No one fully understood what Jeb Bush’s comments meant and it was dismissed as not making much sense. Marco Rubio shadow-boxed on this issue. The Republican Party is known for being very edgy on the issue of climate change.
This is not difficult to understand. American big business establishment have always been reluctant to embrace climate change, because doing so will mean accepting responsibility that man and their business model is the source of climate change. A point, the papal encyclical highlighted over and over.
Those who wanted to discredit the Pope labeled him anti-capitalist. Yet any objective reading of the encyclical would show that the document was not by any means anti-capitalism. Rather Pope Francis expressed his thoughts with a profundity expected of a leader of a major institution like the Roman Catholic Church, who is concerned about the world and the direction the world is going.
For lovers of a better world and its future and those not blinded by material quest, Pope Francis clearly spoke their minds, when he said: “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish…Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption to combat this warming, or at least the human causes that produce and accentuate it. Numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of the global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases…given off above all because of human activity.”
Pope Francis captured the total neglect of the environment, the poor human and health condition of a typical third world country like Nigeria, when he noted: “Some forms of pollution are part of people’s daily experience. Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor, and causes millions of premature deaths. People take sick, for example, from breathing high levels of smoke from fuels used in cooking or heating. There is also pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and agro-toxins in general. Technology, which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only way”.
Pope Francis laments our inability to deal with this problem adding: “Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. The exploitation of the planet has already exceeded acceptable limits and we still have not solved the problem of poverty.”
While Pope Francis acknowledges the great stride science and technology have brought to the human society, he warns those who place their absolute trust in technology, explaining that: “Technology tends to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology “know full well that it moves forward in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race”, that “in the most radical sense of the term power is its motive – a lordship over all”. This bears repeating, technology’s ultimate objective is power.
Elaborating further Pope Francis expresses his deep mistrust of man’s capacity to control so much of the power technology confers on him. “There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means “an increase of ‘progress’ itself”, an advance in “security, usefulness, welfare and vigour; …an assimilation of new values into the stream of culture”, as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such. The fact is that: “contemporary man has not been trained to use power well”, because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious; of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.”
This is a truly frightening insight, which no reflective man should ignore. Pope Francis’ powerful comments should set every human being thinking. I hope it does. I hope we can sit back and rethink the world for our sake and the future of unborn generations. This is by no means a call to abandon technological evolution—far from it. The point is that power without restraint even, technological power is troubling and there is need for caution.
- Odili was formerly Delta State Green Economy Project Lead
