Steve Curtin, SJ

Fr Nicolás recently wrote to Jesuits reminding us of our commitment to our environment. Our last General Congregation said that we could not remain indifferent to the ecological destruction in our world.

The heart of any response is personal conversion. The environment must matter to us. It has to do with our faith, not just with politics and economics.

Personal conversion leads us to the small actions we can take as individuals, families and communities. We might make small changes to how we use power for heat and light, to our forms of transport, to our attitude to consumer goods, and so on. These symbolic actions are important because through them our convictions begin to affect our hands and hearts. Simplicity of life helps build integrity.

In time, our conversion enlarges our imagination. We keep in our minds and hearts the people in our world, born and yet to be born, whose lives are devastated by the exploitation of the environment.

The Jesuit response that Fr Nicolás calls for will build on the skills and relationships within our ministries. Schools can develop environmental programs that help shape the visions of the next generation. Parishes can relate God's care love of the world to the environment. The overseas works we support inevitably lead us to deal with the destructive effects of mining and logging. Our Jesuit universities and theological colleges can think through the difficult questions involved in this issue. Our publications can help us focus on what matters.

Finally, as citizens we can press our governments to give full weight to the environmental consequences of their policies for economic growth and development.

These are small things, an expression of our good faith and our respect for our descendants. They also express our gratitude to God for the beauty and delicacy of our world and our determination to respect it.

Reprinted from Province Express, a newsletter of the Australian Jesuits.