The Catholic Church in Times of Ecological Crisis: An “Unusual Suspect” in Advancing the Transition to Sustainability?

Abstract

Religious traditions and institutions have historically played a significant role in shaping cultural scaffoldings and social practices. Can they also help re-shape the unsustainable world humans have made for themselves, which is now undermining not only the actual and prospective minimum standards of dignified life for the many, but also the basic fabric of Earth’s life support? From an approach critical of mainstream sustainability and looking to the example of the Catholic Church and Pope Francis’ vision of an “integral ecology”, this article argues that, in spite of being a latecomer to the global sustainability debate, the Church is structurally uniquely positioned to play the role of a global sustainability governance agent in the necessary transition to future-able way(s) of societal organization. It can, however, do so only if it proves capable of avoiding the risks of corporatist takeover, instrumentalisation for economic and political purposes, and assimilation of the integral ecology narrative used by the overall ineffective approaches of mainstream sustainable development.