Thinking with Francis and his Canticle: Humility Before Creation

The question of the earth has become a central concern, and with increasing intensity our place as a creature is no longer so certain.Where previously the human being sat comfortably above the beasts and below the angels, on the well-fitting earth at the center of the cosmos, now we must face our place in creation with increasing suspicion.We must come to terms with the disturbing possibility-in light not only of our ongoing destruction of our common environment on earth, but also our profound inhumanity to ourselves-that human beings might indeed be placed even beneath the beasts.Despite the uncertainty of our exact status in creation, there nonetheless remain at least two opposing extremes.On the one hand, there is the pull to turn back to the earth itself, to recover a more natural and harmonious place upon it.This impulse takes the form of withdrawal from the current global economic and industrial paradigm and thus leads more to isolation rather than genuine solidarity.On the other hand, there is an ascendant, even dominant, tendency to place human beings above the angels, transforming human nature beyond any given order, whether through the digital transformation of our humanity or related efforts to expand above the earth in extraplanetary projects of colonization.And yet, while these positions mark opposing extremes, they nonetheless lie along a shared continuum of naivety, oscillating between a nostalgia for the earth and a drive toward unchecked economic growth.Rather than treating the ecological crisis through a sense of alarm and reactionary ethical proscriptions, or from a sense of management and ideological urgency, the present issue demonstrates an intellectual approach closer to a posture of methodological humility, one modeled-at least in spirit-on the Franciscan gesture of praise.In the Canticle of Creatures, praise appears in the face of Francis' incredible suffering and illness, and it is through this immediate personal crisis that Francis responds, transfiguring it into a posture of humility and respect in his praise of God and creation.Following a path opened by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si, "On care for our common home," the 2024 biennial INPR seminar in Perugia, Italy sought to approach the themes of World, Earth and Creation in light of St. Francis' Canticle of the Creatures.Our intention was to approach the question of the