Laudato Si’ and the Legitimation of Sustainability: How Integral Ecology Links Competing Cosmological Conceptions

This article deals with the cosmology of Laudato Si’ and explains how it advances the institutional changes needed for sustainability by presenting a way through existing ideological impasses that mire institutions in ineffective action. It examines the diverging cosmological outlooks that orient the Catholic Church and secular institutions. The core difference between these institutions concerns competing views of the person as being in relation to God or in relation to him or herself as the arbiter and determiner of values regarding the Earth and nature. This article elaborates the frames of reference that orient the Catholic understanding of ecological issues and those of secular institutions. It shows how Pope Francis draws on Romano Guardini to critique the human-centered preoccupations of modernity and postmodernity that seek to sustain resources efficiently for egoistic use as justified by relativized values. This research clarifies the basic cosmological outlook on the Earth and humans’ relation to it in Laudato Si’ and elucidates the tensions between Catholic understandings of the cosmos as God-centered and the prevailing technocratic paradigm of extreme anthropocentrism. This article argues that a core innovation of Laudato Si’ is the model of “Integral Ecology”, which bridges theological and secular concerns, giving a broad set of institutions a way of seeing sustainability that enables them to integrate and connect mutual concerns. Ultimately, this article argues that this model, when facilitated by dialogue, allows for a pluralistic space in secular society by which competing cosmological outlooks can find common ground to protect our common home.