Mukai - Vukani no.70

1MUKAI - VUKANI No. 70 Dec 2015/Jan 2016

Pope Francis’ Encyclical

On the Care of OurCommon Home

22 MUKAI - VUKANI No. 70 Dec 2015/Jan 2016

“What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (160). This question is at the heart of Laudato si’ (May You be praised), Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care of the common home. “This question does not have to do with the environment alone and in isolation; the issue cannot be ap-proached piecemeal”. This leads us to ask ourselves about the meaning of existence and its values at the ba-sis of social life, that which would be called “Principle and Founda-tion” in Ignatian Spirituality: “What is the purpose of our life in this world? What is the goal of our work and all our efforts? What need does the earth have of us?” “Unless we struggle with these deeper issues – says the Pope – I do not believe that our concern for ecology will pro-duce signifi cant results”.

The Encyclical takes its name from the invocation of St. Francis, “Praise be to you, my Lord”, in his Canticle of the Creatures. It reminds us that the earth, our common home “is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us”. We have forgotten that “we ourselves are dust of the earth; our very bod-ies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.”

Laudato Si focuses on the idea of “integral ecology,” connecting care of the world with justice for the poorest and most vulnerable peo-ple. Only by radically reshaping our relationships with God, with our neighbours and with the natu-

ral world, can we hope to tackle the threats facing our planet today. Sci-ence, he insists, is the best tool by which we can listen to the cry of the earth, while dialogue and educa-tion are the two keys that can “help us to escape the spiral of self-de-struction which currently engulfs us.”

The Pope’s refl ections climaxes on the question: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” The answers he suggests call for profound changes to political, economic, cultural and social systems, as well as to our individual lifestyles. The same an-swers call for action for all people of good will.

Apparently, it is noticeable that there are lots of changes in our cli-mate, for instance the intense tem-peratures experienced in the entire Sub Saharan African region in No-vember. Equally, the rains, whose cycle has drastically changed and has become unpredictable, are some of the immediate examples of the effects of climate change. Such has resulted from man’s carelessness with the environment. Profi t driv-en conglomerates, business and malpractices by governments and ordinary persons have led to the bleeding of our common home. The pope therefore calls for care of this common home, a plea which the rich nations won’t take lightly.

This issue of Mukai/Vukani there-fore makes wide attempts to take stock of our present situation, pointing to the cracks in the plan-

et that we inhabit as well as to the profoundly human causes of envi-ronmental degradation. Although the contemplation of this reality in itself has already shown the need for a change of direction and other courses of action, now we shall try to outline the major paths of dia-logue which can help us escape the spiral of self-destruction which cur-rently engulfs us.

Fr. Ffi eld Richard and Fr. David Harold Barry SJ, take us back with their responses and further refl ec-tions on Consecrated Life, from Mukai/Vukani 69. Thereafter, Fr. Nigel Johnson introduces the read-er to the encyclical, followed by numerous localized refl ections. At-tempts are made to respond to the call, with action

Editor

Papal Call to Action


No. 70 Dec 2015/Jan 2016Published by the

Jesuit Communications

Office of the Jesuit Province of Zimbabwe - Mozambiqueas an in-house magazine for Jesuits and Friends.

Editorial office:

JesCom, 37 Admiral Tait Rd, Marlborough, Harare,

tel. (+263-4) 309 623

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Editorial Team :

Jesuit Journal for Zimbabwe - Mozambique

CONTENTS

2 Laudato Si - Papal Call To Action

Consecrated Life for lay people too4

inside this edition

Why Should People Care For Our

Common Home

Fr Clyde Muropa SJ, Taona Tavengwa

layout & Design:

Frashishiko Chikosi

Printing: Print Dynamix

Readers may contribute to the production costs

by cheque or cash. Articles with full names of their

authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the

editorial board.

22

28PA

GE

PAGE

29PAGE

Why would anyone want to be a Monk?

Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the HolyFather Francis

A Snapshot on ‘Laudato Si’

Connecting God, Man and Nature

What does Environment Encyclicalmean to Malawi

Leave it in the ground

Greed Kills

6

8

Ten Causes of the Ecological Crisis12

The Pope, the Planet and the Commons14

Our collective sin against creation still on going31

17

19

22

24

25

Steward turned Exploiters27

I am beautiful and lovely - Poem32

15PAGE

Rethinking the Human RightsApproach to Water


In Catholic circles we often witness, or at least hear of, people being or-dained priests or making their reli-gious profession or commitment. It is different from marriage but contains the same element of a permanent gift of oneself.

But when did you last attend a profes-sion of commitment by lay people? For me the answer is, ‘yesterday, at Kasisi in Zambia!’ It was without all the trappings of an ordination or pro-fession but contained the same atmo-sphere of promise and joy.

They were professionals, men and women, who have practiced a life in the Spirit for some years and now wish to permanently commit them-selves to a way of life based on the gospels. You might say, ‘well, we do that already without making a public show of it!’ No doubt, you do and many others too. But the public com-mitment – as in marriage or anything else – focuses minds and provides method and structure. And those who witness the commitment now know that they have a task to support the ones making this choice.

The eight who made this lifelong promise are members of the Chris-tian Life Communities, a worldwide federation based on the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Ignatius’ way was not just for

Jesuits but opened up a path for any-one wishing to live the gospel more closely.

I was struck by this simple ceremo-ny because it focuses attention on a movement in the Church which is as transforming as leaven in fl our. I have lived long enough to have seen packed seminaries and novitiates on every continent. We were seventy novices when I entered the Jesuits in the days before Vatican II. Many left in the 1960s and ‘70s and few came in the 1990s and ‘00s. Today numbers are a fraction of what they used to be but we are not panicking. Quietly, we are trying to understand what is going on.

One conclusion shouting at us from the evidence is that lay people are taking a far more active role in the church than they ever did. I can fore-see a day when the Vatican will be staffed by lay men and women with only the odd cleric here or there. This is already happening in diocesan of-fi ces. Catholic schools that were once almost exclusively staffed by reli-gious – that was my experience at St Ignatius College in Zimbabwe when I arrived in 1966 – are now entirely run by lay people and a few religious.

So, lay people have taken over schools, hospitals, radio stations, so-cial centres and similar works that used to be run by priests and reli-

gious. But the question we are facing is; are they running them as compe-tent professionals only or do they also see themselves as missionaries of the gospel?

There should be no contradiction be-tween these two attitudes for the truly ‘professional’ approach will always be in harmony with the gospel. But when I make this distinction here I am referring fi rst to those who see their work as satisfying basic expec-tations laid out in their job descrip-tion. Yet living the gospel defi es job descriptions. Jesus used parables, not descriptions, because living accord-ing to the gospel opens up boundaries and sees no limits.

My experience is that lay co-workers are touched by gospel values and do wish to live them in their service of the Church as well as in their own lives at home with their families. But it is often hard to grasp what exactly it is to be a disciple of Jesus unless we have a way of discovering who Jesus was and what was his message. This cannot be got from books or training courses.

This is where the Christian Life Com-munities come in. They present a way of life which takes us into the heart of the gospel message. First, CLC is a community movement. The members meet regularly, often once a fortnight, and share their experiences in a con-text of prayer. They help each other to understand the meaning of their expe-riences and they encourage each oth-er to face challenges. They also enjoy each other’s company and build warm friendships.

Secondly, CLC uses the tool of Ignati-an spirituality, that is, the dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises which comes down to a method of understanding (discerning) the motivations which dominate my own heart. How do I act and why do I act the way I do? These exercises are not training ses-sions, such as footballers and athletes go in for though they have something in common in the sense of developing attitudes and honing spontaneities. The Exercises of Ignatius open up the person to pay attention to God who

A response from Mukai/Vukani No. 69

CLC Members


is at work in their heart. They do this by helping the one making the Exer-cises to see themselves as they really are. Like a doctor’s diagnosis this can be frightening. But unlike a doctor’s diagnosis there is always a remedy. The one making the Exercises fol-lows Jesus through his proclamation of the kingdom, the cost of this to him in his death and the bursting forth of new life in his rising from the dead. The CLC member goes through this journey and draws on it for his or her own life.

And this is where we come to the third pillar, or hearth stone, of CLC: mission. Having come together as a community of friends and having journeyed together through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we are – like the disciples in the early Church – ready for mission. CLC sees four ways in which this can be done but I would like here to focus on the fi rst way. The four ways are:

* The mission of living the gospel in daily life

* Individual works, salaried or voluntary, by which one serves the people

* Corporate works which several CLC run, e.g., a school (as in Nai-robi)

* Advocacy work, e.g., at the UN where CLC has a voice

Living the gospel in daily life is what every follower of Jesus is called to do. But for many it can be rather general and unexamined. It is a general atti-tude of being a ‘good guy’ and ‘doing the right thing.’ But that can be a little fuzzy.

I spoke of the leakage of priests and religious in the 1960s and ‘70s but at the same time the Vatican Coun-cil was putting a new emphasis on the mission of the laity. There are a number of striking passages in Lu-men Gentium (#31, #34 and #36) and Gaudium et Spes (#36) but let me just quote one:

The laity are called in a special way to make the church present

and operative in those places and circumstance where only through

them can she become the salt of the earth (LG #33).

Jesus gave the Church a mission and this has primarily been understood as the preaching of the good news and the ministry of the sacraments. All other works – schools, clinics, work with refugees, etc. – are expressions of this announcing of the good news which is the love and compassion of God for his people. But now, in the 21st century, the Church has under-stood that these are not enough. God wishes also to reveal himself right in the heart of ordinary life and work: the fi sherman at his nets, the mechanic at his lathe, the sales checker at her pay counter. They have to ‘announce’ the kingdom in a way in which it can be done only through them. This means all sorts of things, for example, in-tegrity, imagination and attentiveness to the environment. A preacher on a Sunday morning can suggest to his listeners how to be honest. But there is no way he can suggest to them how to be imaginative. Yet imagination is part of the good news. We would never have advanced God’s creation, as we have, without it. So, living the gospel is not just a matter of being pa-tient with your wife or husband; it is also seeing work as the place where I forge my contribution to the building up of the community of God’s people. Work may often seem rather dull and routine. But the joy is to strain from it all the brightness that I, as an individ-ual, can contribute.

So the mission of CLC, is fi rst of all, to live the light of the gospel in those “places and circumstances” where only I, if I am a lay person, can make my contribution.

A huge boost to this way of thinking was given by the work of Pierre Teil-hard de Chardin who died in 1955 and whose thinking infl uenced some of the bishops at the Council a few years later. Teilhard, a French Jesuit, went back into history as a palaeontologist studying the origins of life on our planet. Over the years he developed an understanding of evolution as a force in creation that strained forward towards what he called the Omega point, that is, the point where all cre-ation achieves its goal.

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the

world or life or death or the present or the future – all belong to you ,

and you belong to Christ, and Christ

belongs to God. (I Corinthians 3:21-23)

Teilhard’s thought can be glimpsed from one short quotation:

Right from the hands that knead the dough, to those that consecrate the bread, the great and universal Host should be prepared and handled in

a spirit of adoration.’ (Le Milieu Divin p 67, Fontana edition).

All nature, all matter, was charged with seeds of divine energy and the task of men and women everywhere is to bring those seeds to fruition. Lay people have the primary task here.

I have briefl y described the call to the laity but where does this leave us, priests and religious? In what I have said I might be accused of downplay-ing our role as though we have be-come as redundant as former colonial offi cials! No, this will not happen. There is an essential role for priests and religious. In the language of CLC they are ecclesial assistants (EAs), or chaplains, although for some rea-son this last term is no longer used. What has happened is that roles have shifted. In the past the EA did virtual-ly everything in terms of running the communities. Now he or she does not have to do all the administration and logistics and can concentrate on the quality of his/ her service in “opening the scriptures and breaking the bread” (Luke 24:32). Across the board – in schools, parishes and social centres – priests and religious can leave all the administration to lay people and con-centrate on “serving the word” (Acts 6:4). Priests, religious men and wom-en, bishops and popes are becoming freer and freer to devote their time to teaching the word and animating the community. In this way EAs and CLC members complement each other. This is one small model of the future Church.

David Harold - Barry SJ

Xavier House, Jesuit Noviciate

Lusaka, Zambia

Blog: nguvayekunamata.blogspot.com

“The Climate is a common good”Laudato Si (23)


Because he wants Love and he wants Prayer. Both of these are ways of saying that he wants God. St John tells us that God is love and Prayer is communication– and, ultimately, union – with God.

A monk is someone who lives in a community under an Abbot and seeks God.

He won’t fi nd perfect love and he will often think he is far from God but he will grow to be content with this. Young men who are seeking perfec-tion are often very judgemental and I remember that as a young monk I quite often found myself thinking: ‘The way that Fr so-and-so behaves, he certainly has no business calling himself a monk’. I later realised that for every single one of my brethren whom I had mentally – and, some-times, verbally to others – criticized in this way, I sooner or later came across him doing something or other, quite unobtrusively, that was utterly and completely selfl ess and generous. No monk, no saint, no human being has ever been perfect, except Jesus and his Mother.

A monastery is not a community of holy men but a community of ordi-nary men trying to become holy with the support of each other and under the guidance of an Abbot.

All this is expressed in the three Vows that are taken by Benedictine monks: Obedience, Stability and Conversatio Morum. Obedience is an expression, not of subservience but of love: living as if another is more important than oneself, which is what St Paul tells us is the meaning of love . Jesus ex-pressed his love for his Father, as well as for us, by emptying himself of his Godness and becoming a human be-ing like us with all that that entailed in suffering at the hands of other hu-man beings.

Stability is a vow not to run away when life gets too hard or when one’s community fails to live up to expec-tations: one will never fi nd a perfect community. And Conversatio Mo-rum is a vow to keep on with the pro-cess of becoming more and more like Christ for the rest of one’s life: we can never say “I’ve gotten there”.

St Benedict is known as the Doctor

of Humility and his Rule includes 12 steps of humility, that act as a check list to see, from time to time, what still needs to be done in the process of becoming more and more like Christ. St Paul uses almost exactly the same words to explain humility that he uses to defi ne love.

St Benedict calls the daily round of the Divine Offi ce the Work of God. At times it does seem like work: Mat-ins at 0500, Lauds followed by Mass at 0740 and the short offi ces of Terce, Sext and None at intervals during the day, with Vespers in the evening and Compline before bed. But it is a worthwhile work of praise: i.e. of thanksgiving to God for all He has given to creation. The Psalms express the whole variety of human moods and emotions, both positive and neg-ative. We are praying on behalf of humanity. Not that the prayer nec-essarily makes us feel holier or clos-er to God but, if one is honest with oneself, one does fi nd that there have been some improvements over the months in generosity, tolerance and patience with others. This is the true test of prayer . In other words, one is gradually becoming more Christ like, which is the business of every one of his followers. Spending time with him, whether physically as the Apos-tles were able to do, or in prayer as all of us can do, is the way the process happens.

Of course, anyone considering be-coming a monk wonders whether he can give up the prospect of marriage and bringing up a family. But he has probably met priests and religious who live fully celibate lives and he has seen that they are not shriv-elled-up, curmudgeonly and misera-bly unfulfi lled people but are cheer-ful, out-going and full of life, just as Jesus was. They illustrate the truth that St Irenaeus implied: “The glory of God is man fully alive”.

Nevertheless, he may be thinking of becoming a monk in order to have the security of a roof over his head and three meals a day for the rest of his life. In this case, the formation pro-cess, which is quite a long one, will probably fi nd him out – or he may change his mind: people sometimes join for one reason and stay for anoth-er. St Benedict says that the newcom-

er should be keen for trials and obedi-ence and advises that someone who wants to join should be ‘kept at the door knocking’ to test his motivation.

He may have been attracted because he has seen a monastic community and they seem thoroughly normal but nice people and he’d like to be one of them. They seem to care for each other and also to care for others. Any Christian community must be seen to be active in giving to the poor and dis-advantaged.

St Benedict’s Rule is remarkable not only for its recognition that individ-uals are different and need to be led and encouraged by the Abbot in ways suited to their different tempera-ments, strengths and weaknesses but also for its balance of Prayer, Work and Study, especially the prayer-ful reading of Scripture. The main work of any monastic community is Prayer but it needs to earn its living and through the 1500 years since St Benedict wrote his rule, monks have engaged in a tremendous variety of works. The Zimbabwean Bishops, when they asked for a monastery in Zimbabwe said that they did not want the monks to run parishes or schools but to be a centre of spirituality. So the Monastery of Christ the Word doesn’t employ anyone but does its own cooking and cleaning and grows most of its own food as well as run-ning retreats for religious communi-ties and for individuals who come to stay in the monastery for a time.

I ask forgiveness from any young woman who has read this far and is indignant at the male chauvinism but I can only write from my own expe-rience and if she feels at all inspired by this article, she might fi nd what she is looking for with the Communi-ty of Poor Clares in Harare (the Poor Clares were founded by a friend of St Francis who based their rule on that of St Benedict) or the new founda-tion of enclosed Carmelite sisters in Mutare or the Community of Maria Chiedza near Chegutu.

Richard ffi eld is a monk of the Mon-astery of Christ the Word at Monte Cassino near Macheke, Zimbabwe.

Because he wants Love and he wants Prayer. Both of these are ways of saying that he wants God. St John

of Humility and his Rule includes 12 steps of humility, that act as a check list to see, from time to time, what

A response from Mukai/Vukani No. 69


The title of Pope Francis’ latest encyc-lical letter, Laudato Si, are the open-ing words of St Francis of Assisi’s prayer, “Praise be to you, my Lord”. The best known parts of this prayer are where St Francis also gives praise to all that God has created: brother sun, sister moon, brother wind, sister water, brother fi re, mother earth.

St Francis sees that he is related to all the other members of our created family, including the soil, the plants and the animals with which we share this earth. Pope Francis shares this same vision.

I recently listened to a preacher at-tacking animals, saying that we hu-man beings are the only important part of creation, animals have simply been created for us to use. Both Saint Francis and Pope Francis disagree with such a self-centred approach that some humans have towards the rest of God’s creation.

We humans have evolved to the high-est level of intellectual development on this earth. We are also offered the highest level of spiritual develop-ment, even sharing in the eternal life of Christ. But with such gifts from God, also come responsibilities. Our

responsibility within creation, and our duty towards nature and the Cre-ator are an essential part of our Chris-tian faith.

In the opening chapter of Genesis we read that each time a new part of cre-ation was formed, God saw that it was good. Finally He created us human beings, telling us to cultivate the earth and take care of it .

We know that we have a special re-lationship with God, and with each other. But we also have a special rela-tionship with the rest of creation, and we have disrupted all those relation-ships through sin: sins against God, sins against our brothers and sisters, but also sins against creation. We fail to fulfi l our responsibilities; we deny our limitations and attempt to take the place of God.

St Francis of Assisi loved and respect-ed all creatures, even the smallest; he called them by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’; he sought to restore the harmony of the whole of creation. Pope Francis speaks of such crea-tures, that by their very existence, they give glory to God.

Following a similar vision, in his

Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius calls on us to refl ect on how God dwells in all creatures: in the elements giv-ing them existence, in plants giving them life, in the animals conferring on them sensation, in man bestowing understanding.

And, of course, Jesus himself said, ‘Are not fi ve sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is for-gotten before God” (Lk 12:6). “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (Mt 6:26). We have disrupted our relationship with creation

We know that, through sin, we have disrupted our relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters. But Pope Francis points out that we have also disrupted our relationship with creation. We have failed to take care of the created world God has given us. Instead, we have used it, exploit-ed it, extracted what we want from it today with no thought for the future. We have fi lled the air with industrial gases; we have sucked up the water to sprinkle our lawns; we have poured our waste into rivers, lakes and dams; we have cut down trees without re-placing them; we have destroyed birds, insects and microbes with our insecticides and fertilizers; we have piled up our rubbish in gutters and street corners. The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and like an immense rubbish heap.

Nature has developed a way of re-cy-cling its used products. The grass grows, the trees shed leaves; cattle and goats, worms and termites, slugs and snails turn the grass and leaves into manure; unseen microbes turn the manure into nutrients; new trees and grasses feed on the nutrients. But most of the time we fail to re-cy-cle our waste. We simply throw it all

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

Precious water wasted watering lawn


out, mixing re-cyclable waste along with the non-recyclable – but it is so easy to separate the two. Even at home we can have a bin for cans, bot-tles and plastic, with a separate bin for vegetable and egg shell waste for re-cycling in a compost heap. Glass can be recycled, as can paper and cans, and even some plastics; but these need special collection points and the development of a recycling industry.We fail to take heed of the damage we are causing to this balance of nature. We do not know what impact we are having on the delicate balance of liv-ing creatures. The harmony of living creatures has evolved over millions of years, but industrialization has taken place so rapidly that nature cannot adapt. We are turning this beautiful earth into a wilderness of death, and we ignore the problems we are be-queathing to future generations.

Our common home

The subtitle for the Encyclical is ‘Care for our Common Home’, and the Pope uses this phrase twelve times in the letter. He presents us with the picture of a family sharing one home. Parents teach their children to keep the home clean, not to come in with dirty shoes, not to slam doors, to clean up when they spill food on the fl oor. Mother does not leave dirty dishes to pile up until next needed. Father attends to faulty door hinges. The bed linen gets washed regularly, the fl oors swept, the windows cleaned. It is a very dysfunctional family that is willing to live in squalor. Pope Fran-cis says that we need to see that our common home is falling into serious

disrepair, and that, if we scan the re-gions of our planet, we immediately see that humanity has disappointed God’s expectations.

The poor suffer the most

The earth’s resources are not shared equally between all. Not only is it that the highly industrialised North-ern nations consume many times more than the less developed South-ern nations. ‘A minority believe that they have the right to consume in a way that can never be universalised; the planet could not even contain the waste products of such consumption’. But, on a smaller scale in any African country, the same is true of the affl u-ent city suburbs in comparison with the poorer suburbs and the rural areas. Affl uent suburb dwellers sink private boreholes to water their lawns; they have water delivered in tankers; they buy bottled water at the supermarket. The poor depend on erratic municipal supplies and polluted shallow wells. However, the voice of the poor is rare-ly heard, because most professionals, opinion makers, communications me-dia and centres of power are located in affl uent urban areas, far removed from the poor.

Business and Politics go for short term gains

No one looking for quick and easy profi ts is interested in caring for eco-systems. The farmer wanting maxi-mum yields will consume, while the pesticide and fertiliser manufacturer

promote their products. That is the way business operates. We seem to think that we can substitute an irre-placeable and irretrievable beauty with something which we have creat-ed ourselves.

‘Whatever is fragile, like the envi-ronment, is defenceless before the interests of a deifi ed market, which become the only rule.’

At the same time, politicians are concerned with immediate results and short term growth. In efforts to win electoral support, they try to win votes by building shopping centres on wetlands, and turning suburban soc-cer pitches into housing cooperatives. They have no motivation to include a more far sighted environmental agen-da.

The human and the natural environ-ment deteriorate together

Many cities have become unhealthy to live in, not only because of pollu-tion caused by toxic emissions, but also as a result of urban chaos, poor transportation, and visual pollution and noise. Many cities are huge, ineffi cient structures, excessively wasteful of energy and water. Neigh-bourhoods, even those recently built, are congested, chaotic and lacking in suffi cient green space. We were not meant to be inundated by cement, as-phalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature.

Many cars, carrying one or two peo-ple, circulate in cities, causing traf-fi c congestion, raising the level of pollution, and consuming enormous quantities of non-renewable energy. This makes it necessary to build more roads and parking areas which spoil the urban landscape. There is need to give priority to public transportation, but that will also need substantial improvements in the systems them-selves. But there have been some good re-sponses

Rivers, polluted for decades, have been cleaned up; Native woodlands have been restored; Landscapes have been beautifi ed thanks to environ-mental renewal projects; Production of non-polluting energy; Improve-ment of public transportation; Beauti-ful buildings have been erected.

Compost heap: Recycling Organic Kitchen Waste


One example of the imaginative and positive use of architecture and tech-nology is at the Eastgate building in Harare. Many city offi ces use huge amounts of energy on air condition-ing. The Eastgate design was inspired by the natural ventilation system found in termite anthills. Along the top of the building you see a series of chimneys, just like the natural funnels at the top of an anthill. These draw up air from vents lower down the build-ing, creating a natural circulation of cool air – and saving on the use of our scarce electrical power.

We see ourselves as the centre of the universe (anthropocentrism)

We have progressively gained more and more control over the world around us. Over thousands of years, humans have intervened in nature, selecting and cross-breeding animals and grasses to produce cattle, sheep, maize and wheat. But the develop-ment of industry over the past few centuries, and technology over the past few decades has accelerated this process.

We now believe that there can be no limit to our powers and progress, that we are able to control the en-tire world. We have set ourselves up in place of God, and so provoke a rebellion on the part of nature. We speak as if we can achieve unlimited growth. But this is based on the lie that there is an infi nite supply of the earth’s goods, while the planet being squeezed dry beyond its capacity. While some parts of the world pro-ceed with wasteful and consumerist super-development, others remain in a state of dehumanizing deprivation. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume.

What needs to be done

Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial re-sponses to the immediate problems of pollution, environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the as-sault of the technocratic paradigm.

Ecological Conversion

We need an ecological conversion, whereby the effects of our encoun-ter with Jesus Christ become evident in our relationship with the world around us. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is not an optional aspect of our Christian experience – it is essential to a life of virtue.

Ecological Education

Environmental education needs in-clude a critique of the myths of mo-dernity –individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market. It needs to restore ecological equilibrium, es-tablishing harmony within ourselves, with others, with nature and other liv-ing creatures, and with God.

International Action

A global consensus is essential for confronting the deeper problems, which cannot be resolved by unilat-eral actions on the part of individual countries. However, due to lack of political will, world summits on the environment have not lived up to expectations. Agreements have been poorly implemented, due to the lack of suitable mechanisms for oversight, periodic review and penalties in cases of non-compliance.

The countries which have benefi ted from a high degree of industrializa-tion, at the cost of enormous emis-sions of greenhouse gases, have a greater responsibility for providing a solution to the problems they have caused. For poor countries, the pri-orities must be to eliminate extreme poverty and to promote the social development of their people. At the same time, they need to acknowledge

the scandalous level of consumption in some privileged sectors of their population and to combat corruption more effectively.

Local Action

While the existing world order proves powerless to assume its responsibili-ties, local individuals and groups can make a real difference. They are able to instill a sense of responsibility, a sense of community, readiness to pro-tect others, a spirit of creativity, and a deep love for the land.

Where enforcement of laws is in-adequate due to corruption, public pressure has to be exerted in order to bring about decisive political action. Through non-governmental organiza-tions and intermediate groups, society must put pressure on governments to develop more rigorous regulations, procedures and controls. Unless citi-zens control political power – nation-al, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment. Local legislation can be more effective, too, if agreements exist between neighbouring commu-nities to support the same environ-mental policies. A change in lifestyle could also bring healthy pressure to bear on those who wield political, economic and social power. This is what consumer movements accom-plish by boycotting certain products. Community networks are more effec-tive than individual good deeds.

Nigel Johnson SJ is the Director of Jesuit Development and

Communictions.

1. Genesis 2:152. Contemplation for Obtaining Love: 2353. Laudato Si, 964. Laudato Si, 615. John Paul II, Audience, 17 January 2001 6. Laudato Si, 507. Laudato Si, 498. Laudato Si, 369. Laudato Si, 3410.Pope Francis Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium11.Laudato Si, 17812.Laudato Si, 44

13. Laudato Si, 15314. Laudato Si, 117. John Paul II Centesimus Annus, 84015. Laudato Si, 106. Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, 46216. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 67117. Laudato Si, 20418. Laudato Si, 11119. Laudato Si, 21020. Laudato Si, 164 -16721. Laudato Si, 170. Bolivian bishops pastoral letter, 2003.22. Laudato Si, 17223. Laudato Si, 179


For many years now, people from different spheres of life have been raising alarm about the ecological cri-sis. The late Marvin Gaye sang about the environment in his song “Mercy, Mercy Me” in 1971. In 1989 Pope John Paul II addressed the same issue in “The Ecological Crisis: A Com-mon Responsibility”. Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States of America, produced a fi lm in 2006 en-titled “An Inconvenient Truth” that fo-cused on the adverse effects of global warming. Oliver Mutukudzi, a gifted Zimbabwean singer, sang about the environment in his song “Pindirai” in 2006. In 2015 Pope Francis raises the same issues. In response to the afore-mentioned, this write up is going to look at the meaning of ecology, what ecological crisis is and its causes.

Ecology is a science discipline stud-ied by biologists, and to a certain

extent by geographers. Ecology is a word derived from Greek that means “house”. It examines the relation-ship and interaction between ani-mals, plants and micro-organisms in their natural habitats (King, 1989), sometimes referred to as ecosystems. Humans form part of an ecosystem. They have a relationship with, and therefore interact with other elements within the same ecosystem. Humans, animals, plants and micro-organisms all live in the same “house”, the earth. There are different types of ecosys-tems depending on their inhabitants. The relationship and interaction be-tween the inhabitants of an ecosystem is balanced and regulated by its in-habitants. It is possible to have inter-action between different ecosystems. A crisis arises when this balance is disrupted. History has shown that humans are the major cause of imbalances in the

different ecosystems. Kluckhohn, in Hutchinson (1998) postulates that humans view nature as being there to be subjugated. Hutchinson (1998: 19) explains that “With such a design, nature is exploited for human benefi t and has extrinsic value only in terms of its utility to the human”. It is this orientation that has led to the current ecological crisis.

Hayes (2011) proffers ten causes of the ecological crisis. The fi rst one he calls patriarchy/anthropocentricism. This is similar to Kluckhohn’s view alluded to in the previous paragraph.The second cause is related to the cul-ture of unnecessary accumulation of goods and excessive consumption of commodities. Agyeman, Bullard and Evans (2003: 2) believe that, “Most environmental pollution and degrada-tion is caused by the actions of those in the rich high-consumption nations, especially by the more affl uent groups within those societies”. Advertising makes people believe that this be-haviour is desirable and possible, re-gardless of the damage it causes to the environment from the waste products and dumped excess goods.

The third cause is related to the wor-ship of technology. It is believed that today’s challenges can be solved through the use of technology, espe-cially in industry. Butler and Angus (2011) point out that much of the environmental destruction that is go-ing on in the rich countries is caused by the big corporations that own the mines, factories and power plants, where technology is used. Disasters caused by these conglomerates, like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, are solved using technology. Nature is not given a chance to heal itself.The fourth cause is related to human

Industrial Smoke


nature’s reliance on technology for everything, like transport. People are made to believe that they have to drive to work, shop for particular goods and products, holiday in cer-tain places, and own specifi c house-hold goods. The use of cars results in emission of gases harmful to the envi-ronment. Flavin, Brown and Wolf, in Hague (2000: 5) assert that, “World-wide, each year 250 million tons of carbon is caused by electricity, 550 million tons produced by the world’s 400 million cars”. Hayes (2011) sug-gests that people need to change their behaviour, adopting sustainable life-styles. Technology, however, is ap-plauded for improving people’s lives in different spheres like medicine and communication.

The fi fth cause is related to the use of chemicals, especially in farming and industry. Hayes (ibid) laments the use of these chemicals, pointing out that they are not biodegradable and easily recycled naturally. Hague (2000: 6) notes that, “each year a huge amount of harmful chemicals are emitted into the air that are directly detrimental to human health”.

The next cause is related to the mass media that propagate the views of the corporate world. This world is the one that owns the industries that are contributing the most to the ecologi-cal crisis. The mass media is used to down play the negative effects of the ecological crisis. Opposing and alter-native views are thwarted.

Hayes (ibid) views the seventh cause as being that of concentration of pow-er in a few individuals in the corpo-rate world. Baarschers (1996: 3) calls these individuals “polluters” and strongly believes that, “they are will-ing to sacrifi ce the entire planet for the sake of profi t”. These individuals own the world’s large corporations, extracting anything and everything they can from the earth, including its people, in order to make themselves richer. Butler and Angus (2011) ob-serve that the majority of stocks and equity in America are owned by these people in America who also own the corporations responsible for many of the ecological crises.

Hayes (ibid) bemoans the lack of a holistic approach to environmental issues as another cause. He believes that people suffer from “ecological il-literacy” resulting in them not recog-nising the interrelationships between all elements of an ecosystem. He ac-knowledges that indigenous knowl-edge systems (IKS) have a great contribution to make in educating members of the society on how best to look after the environment.

The penultimate cause is lack of a long-term view, especially of eco-nomic development. Hayes (ibid) believes that there is too much focus and emphasis on short term returns, resulting in a failure to plan for long term development.

The fi nal cause according to Hayes (ibid) is lack of competent political

leaders locally, nationally and inter-nationally. The same point is raised by Nhemachena (2015). The incom-petent leaders are controlled by the owners of the large corporations, making it diffi cult for the leaders to enforce environmental laws (Butler and Angus, 2011).

Although Hayes has those ten points as causes of the ecological crisis, oth-er people include the ever increasing population as another. Whilst ac-knowledging its contribution, critics of this view, however, point out that over population did not cause the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the huge damage of the ecosystems in the Ni-ger River Delta, the development of the tar sands in Canada, or the build-ing of the Chinese shopping complex on a wetland in Harare for that matter.Pope Francis’ call for us all to “care for our common home” is very sig-nifi cant. Each one of us, rich or poor, needs to admit to our contributions to the ecological crisis. We can tap into the IKS which is rich with knowl-edge on how to manage ecosystems. Resources should be shared equally and equitably between rich and poor nations. Sustainable development should not focus on consumerism that leads to environmental destruction. If God made the world and saw that it was beautiful, and if He made us in His own image, why can we not also see that the world is beautiful?

Gladys Matchaba is a Lecturer at Belvedere Teachers’ College, Harare

REFERENCES:Baarschers, W.H. (1996). Eco-facts & Eco-fi ction. London: Routledge.Butler, S, and Angus, I. (2011) “Is the Environmental Crisis Cause by the 7 Billion or 1%?” Available from: http://www.grist.org/.../2011-10-26-the-environmental-crisis-caussed-by-7-billion/ Accessed 0n 4 November 2015Haque, M.S. (2000) “Environmental Discourse and Sustainable Development: Linkages and Limitations” Ethics and En-vironment 5, 1: pp 3 – 21Hayes, R. (2011) “Root Causes of Social and ecological Crisis” Available from: http://www.ecowatch.com/2011/11/10/the-root-causes-of-social-and-ecological-crisis/ Accessed on 4 November 2015Hutchinson, D. (1998). Growing Up Green: Education for Ecological Renewal. New York: Teachers College Press.King, T.J. (1989). Ecology (2nd Edition) Surrey: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.Nhemachena, W. (2015) “The Paradox of Leadership and the Pope’s Message on the Year of Consecrated Life: Towards Greater Responsibility” Mukai-Vukani 69 August 2015 pp 8-9

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind,and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather

through whom you give sustenance to your creatures.


By Chris Chatteris SJ (South Africa)One of the remarkable achievements of Laudato Si’ is the fact that Pope Francis addressed it to everyone on the planet, and that many have lis-tened. Even his critics have given him a hearing.

Secular commentators have approved of how he has fi rmly placed the atmo-sphere among the ‘global commons’, those gifts of nature, like the sea, that belong to us all and for which we need to take a common responsibility. Dr Brigitte Knopf, the General Secretary of the Mercator Institute says that the encyclical ‘defi nes the atmosphere and the environment as a common good rather than a “no man’s land”, available for anyone to pollute’.

The good news here is that the concept of the common good, which seemed rather passé in a world in which the privatisation of the commons had seemed unstoppable, is back. Thank goodness, because the idea that the atmosphere is part of the commons and therefore essential to the common good is simply undeniable. The com-monest of common sense tells us that the atmosphere is not something we can parcel up or privatise. As Francis says often in the encyclical, ‘every-thing is connected’. We now know that the greenhouse gasses dumped into the atmosphere over Sasolburg have an effect on the climate in the Sahel. If we mess up the commons we all lose out in the long run.

Francis leaves us in no doubt that the main problem here has been our lamentable global inability to agree on how to treat this most common of the commons. National and fi nancial interests have trumped the common good every time and we have kept on drilling, burning, dumping, even denying that there was a problem, all the while bickering about who should make the necessary sacrifi ces.

This Changes Everything is the title of Canadian climate activist Naomi Klein’s recent powerful book. Lau-dato Si’ approaches the environment from the perspective of St Francis’ divinely-inspired reverence for cre-ation, but the conclusions mostly concur with Klein’s and other secular fi gures. If everything is connected, then in order to save the climate and the planet, we will have to change our politics, our economics, our patterns of consumption, even our understand-ing of what our life on earth is all about (something St Francis’ magnifi -cent Canticle may help us to do).

What of the developing world? We too will have to do our bit. Countries like ours will be asked to commit to an eventual transformation of our carbon-intensive development path. Unfortunately for us we are sitting on one of the world’s so-called ‘carbon bombs’, i.e. our rich deposits of coal and the hard truth is that even we, for all our South African exceptionalism, will have to leave a very large amount of it in the ground. However this

should not be a source of debilitat-ing anxiety since we are abundantly blessed by ‘Brother Sun’ and we are now on the cusp of what Fritjof Capra in his book The Turning Point, called the Solar Age.

‘Sister Water’ also gets a signifi cant mention in Laudato Si, another signif-icant theme for our thirsty land. Pope Francis makes a plea for access to clean drinking water to become an in-ternationally recognised human right and he hopes that the world’s water will never be privatised but remain part of the commons.

I share an anxiety. It is that Christians will bask in the sunshine on the high moral ground of Francis’ encyclical and thereby feel absolved from ac-tion. For the practical implications of the encyclical are rather, well, Franciscan. St Francis dramatically renounced the materialistic lifestyle of his family and embraced what he called ‘Lady Poverty’, a radical sim-plicity which brought him in touch with the poor and in harmony with the environment. Pope Francis appeals to

Pope Francis with Ban Ki-moon Secretery General U.N


us today, like St Francis, to hear the ‘cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’. Will we?

Will we ‘green’ our dwellings and workplaces, modify our consump-tion, review our transport habits and, change our diets? Will we phase out coal, oil and gas in favour of cli-mate-friendly energy systems? Will we peruse our portfolios and risk

moving funds into green energy? Or will we take the attitude, described by Mark Dowd in a clever paraphrase of St Augustine: ‘Lord, make me car-bon-neutral, but not yet’?

Even more challengingly, will we ponder on the very nature of our ex-istence here on the planet, and will we come to understand that we have a much nobler human and religious

calling than that of being mere con-sumers?

This momentous document is asking nothing less of us than to reassess who we are on this earth and how we should live here.

Chris Chatteris SJ is a Lecturer at St Francis Xavier Serminery,Cape town, South Africa

AbstractIn his encyclical, ‘Laudato SI’- On care for our common home’, the Holy Father, Pope Francis has made a call to all the people of the world to reconsider the human right approach to water. On the other hand, Harare City Coun-cil has continued in its quest to install prepaid smart water meters in the city. Thus, this paper seeks to review the contrasting global debates concerning the key approaches to water governance in the understanding of the Catholic’s social teachings on human dignity. Examples will be given focusing on developments in the water sector in Harare, Zimbabwe. This review is mainly based on document analysis augmented with the author’s own observations. It emerges from the review that there are two major contending global views – i.e. treating water as an economic good and treating water as a human right. However, the challenge that is continually faced by the water utilities is the cost of providing the precious resource to the common populace.

Introduction

� e perpetual depletion of glob-al water resources has now reached unprecedented levels. � is is against a background of limited global sup-plies of fresh water. Only 2.5% of the water covering the earth’s surface is freshwater. However, Jain and Singh (2010, p. 216) argue that, “…less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use”. Con-sequently, “…the other 99% is stored in glaciers and polar ice caps or as groundwater at great depths” (p. 224). In Zimbabwe, the majority of wa-ter utilities are struggling to provide adequate and safe drinking water to the general populace. � e situation

is calamitous in Harare, where dai-ly water demand “…is between 1200 and 1400 megalitres against a supply of 600 megaliltres” (Gambe, 2013a, p.272). � is quandary is exacerbated by a high level of non revenue water. � us, some parts of Harare receive piped water supplies only once a week – an indirect violation of the people’s right to water. � is has caused inde-scribable su� ering to residents espe-cially women and young girls who are the managers of water at household level (Gambe, 2013b; Gambe & Dube, 2015), hence the planned installation of prepaid smart water meters in Ha-rare will exacerbate this predicament. � us, this paper seeks to assess the soundness of this move in line with global water management debates, especially the right to water vis-à-vis

treating water as an economic good.

Brief Review of Literature and Discussion

� ere are di� erent global approach-es to water management. Langford (2007) argues that acute water short-ages have produced four di� erent ap-proaches which are, the ‘commodity approach’, the ‘public approach’, the ‘community or local approach’ and the ‘social/human rights approach’. � e commodity approach treats wa-ter as an economic good whilst the public approach emphasizes the role of central government in the provi-sion of clean, safe and adequate water supply to its citizens (Langford, 2007). Furthermore, Langford opines that community/local approach accentu-

By Tazviona Richman Gambe

Rethinking the Human Rights Approach to Water:


ates the role of consumers and other stakeholders in water supply, and the last approach upholds the human dig-nity hence treats water as a basic hu-man right.

� e treatment of water as an econom-ic good emanates from the Dublin Water Conference of 1992. Principle 4 for example, states that “water has got an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good” (Al Jayyousi, 2007, p. 329). � is treatment of water as an economic good is an approach that is also supported by the Bretton Woods Institutions and other donor agencies (Langford, 2007). In addition, Lang-ford argues that the distinct features of this approach are; water should be priced, water delivery should be opened to the market, and water re-sources should be privately owned (p. 274).

� e conceptualization of water as an economic good supports technology such as prepaid smart water meter-ing that City of Harare wants to im-plement. Besides, the approach seems to be driven by a pro� t motive thus pays no attention to the needs of the poor and marginalized who endure life with limited or without access to water. It takes away the right to wa-ter from these groups and gives that right to only those who are able to pay hence disregarding the human dignity. In as much as there is need to recover the costs of supplying the precious resource to the people, the

process should not be driven by a pro� t motive. � is is why prepaid wa-ter metering is being opposed by res-idents’ associations because it denies the urban poor the right to water and gives that right to the opulent. Argu-ably, water scarcity then becomes a phenomenon experienced by the poor, marginalized and downtrodden whilst the a� uent have more access to water solely because they are able to pay.

� e Catholic social teachings value the dignity of each and every human being as they are all created in the image and likeness of God. From the unborn to the elderly, the rich and the poor, all people have inherent value and need to be treated with dignity. � us, there are certain rights ascribed to each and every human being which include among others, the right to life, shelter, food and water. According to Khadka (2010) “…human rights are a symbol of justice for survival and progress because if people lack hu-man rights, it creates a desperate and unjust society”. To buttress this as-sertion, Jain and Singh (2010, p. 216) posit that, “…water is vital for human survival – no water means no life”. � us, it is “…axiomatic to describe water as a human right because it is so vital for human existence” (Murthy 2013, 91). � e current global trends of commoditising water are therefore a direct violation of the existence of hu-man beings and also a total disregard of the human dignity concept. � e constitution of Zimbabwe en-

dorses the human rights approach to water. Section 77 states that,

Every person has the right to – a. Safe, clean and potable waterb. Su� cient foodand the State must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right.

� is clause clearly treats water as a human right despite the present wa-ter situation in Harare pointing to the contrary. � e problems of quantity and quality have rocked the major-ity of suburbs in Harare for example Msasa Park. � e suburb has gone for more than three years now without a drop of water coming out of their taps (Gambe 2013b).

Conclusion� e current water woes in Harare to some extent represent a violation of the residents’ right to water. Besides, commoditizing of water through installation of prepaid smart water metering is an aggravation of this vi-olation since it reduces the poor and marginalized groups’ access to the precious resource and thus access to decent life. However, further research is still needed in order to � nd e� ective and e� cient ways of � nancing water provision. One way or the other the cost needs to be catered for, wheth-er by the central government, donor agencies or the consumers them-selves.

REFERENCESAl Jayyousi, O. (2007). Water as a human right: Towards civil society globalization. International Journal of Water Resources Development. 23(2), 329-339. doi:10.1080/07900620601182943Gambe, T. R. (2013a). Water billing and service delivery management in Harare: A case of Upper Avenues and Msasa Park. In I. Chirisa (Ed.), Contem-porary rural and urban issues in Zimbabwe: Implications for policy and planning, (pp. 249-279). Palo Alto: Academica Press.Gambe, T. R. (2013b). Stakeholder involvement in water service provision: Lessons from Msasa Park, Harare, Zimbabwe. International Journal of Politics and Good Governance, 4 (4.2), 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.onlineresearchjournals.com/ijopagg/art/127.pdfGambe, T. R., & Dube, K., (2015). Water woes in Harare, Zimbabwe: Rethinking the implications on gender and policy. International Journal of Inno-vative Research and Development, 4(6), 390-397. Retrieved from http://www.ijird.com/index.php/ijird/article/viewFile/72887/56667Jain, S. K., & Singh, V. P. (2010). Water crisis. Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, 26(2-3), 215-237. doi: 10.1080/17486831003687618Khadka, A. K. (2010). The emergence of water as a ‘human right’ on the world stage: Challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 26(1), 37-49. doi: 10.1080/07900620903391838Langford, M. (2005) The United Nations concept of water as a human right: A new paradigm for old problems? International Journal of Water Resourc-es Development, 21(2), 273-282. doi: 10.1080/07900620500035887Murthy, S. L. (2013). The human right(s) to water and sanitation: History, meaning and the controversy over-privatization. Berkeley Journal of Interna-tional Law, 31(1), 89-147. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjil/vol31/iss1/3


It is one thing to take Laudato Si as a message of the Pope being addressed to governments, large conglomer-ate companies and leaders of vari-ous kinds, and forget to see how it is addressed to me as an individual. It is true that humanity has been for a greater part of the 20th century and into the 21st one, negligent towards the care of Mother Earth. The results are there to see, global warming re-sulting in terrible droughts and terri-ble fl oods. This has been resulted in by a combination of actions and neg-ligence ranging from ever increasing emissions of Carbon dioxide and destruction of ecosystems in clear-ing forests and wetlands. Whilst do-ing these activities may not be seen directly as damaging, as the persons involved do them nevertheless, for economic reasons. However, profi ts realized are short lived as such ac-tions later on, have dire consequences to our lives. Thus, on the sacrifi cial table of quick individual money, great populations and future generations

are going to pay the price.

Zimbabwe has been endowed with beautiful forests and wetlands, but we have been clearing the vegetation colors from our residential areas and from our cities. Before, our residen-tial areas were beautifully decorat-ed with a mixture of colors. Having great patches of green around the houses, in the pathways and the ex-istence of untamed wetlands, divid-ing one location from the other. Was this not marvelous? Today, half of the little bushes that demarcated the ar-eas with beautiful natural aura, have been, in the fi rst phases, replaced by the planting of maize while other plants were being uprooted. The sec-ond fatal phase to this life has seen a total clearing of any green thing and an unorganized erection of dwellings that would not need a qualifi ed coun-cil inspector of housing units to as-sess. One can give examples of what has become of the wetlands around the Glen Norah areas, between Glen

Norah B and Glen Norah A and also, the once vast green area and wetland between Glen Norah and Amalinda Park. Some major investors have also followed the same trend, and Longsh-en plaza in Belvedere quickly comes to mind. These examples demonstrate lack of concern for the greener parts in our midst; making them disappear day by day.

We are playing a part in doing things that are not recommended. Building on the wetlands, stream bank culti-vation, clearing of forests, starting up veld fi res leading to the destruction of ecosystems, and eventually, the demise of the water table. In Zimba-bwe, we boast of an educated popu-lace. In spite of that, activities that are destructive to the environment are so much on the increase. An interesting observation is that, every average person seem to know exactly the con-sequences of these actions, then one wonders, why then is it happening? We can refl ect on the signifi cance of

Veld Fire


the message of Laudato Si from an individual and personalized perspec-tive.

Pope Francis talks of postmodern cul-ture to have developed what he terms, a “Throw Away” culture. This is a tendency seen more and more in us, of wasting things, or throwing them away if we lose interest in them re-gardless of their usefulness and their value. It is an attitude of tolerating oneself to even throw away some-thing that someone can survive on, as long as I am done and satisfi ed with it. It is, in other words, some form of extreme individualism where every-thing is measured from my own per-sonalized world view and utility.

This throw away culture can be mea-sured by the way we waste useful things, by the way we throw away what could have been of great value to others. In reality, the wasteful or the throw away culture is not using things to their full potentiality. Thus we underuse the created or manufac-tured gifts we have. As individuals, by having an attitude of throwing away, we end up not using or not liv-ing up to our full potential. That will eventually mean that we throw away ourselves and other human beings – much to our demise.

Many of the damaging effects we have from the throw away culture are resulted in by some actions that we may not really take time to think about.

Let us think about how we celebrate life, how we party, how we spend our leisure moments. Gluttony is indeed throwing away. Consuming food and drink to the extent that they seize to

be helpful to us but become toxic and more damaging to the very life we are trying to live and celebrate. I think of some of my friends, who, go for braai almost on a daily basis. Every day after work, they have to pass by a nearest social place to swallow ki-lograms and kilograms of meat. Such great amounts of beef and pork con-sumed by an individual will end up not building the body but damaging it because of overdose. That is the wasteful culture we can have. Drunk-enness, can be bracketed within glut-tony, is indeed wasteful. Thus, taking many liters of alcoholic beverages than we can manage is a double loss. Firstly, one loses his health and well-being as he experiences the effects and even suffer from overdrinking. Secondly, there is the loss of money which could have been put into better usage of enhancing life.

In many ways, we are clouded by the culture of minuteness, judging that what I am doing is just a small thing, however, it does not reach to our minds that everybody else could be thinking like that.

We can justify our actions like cutting down trees for building and for sourc-es of energy. We may ask ourselves the following questions: will the ac-tions of cutting trees for consumption and energy continue, and if it does for how long? Are we making sure that we will still have many trees around to cut, say 5 years or 10 years from now? Is it not foreseen that, in a few years to come, there might be no more trees to cut? How many of our peo-ple plant trees naturally to replenish destroyed forests? Have we promoted the culture amongst young children to respect these our resources?

One can think of throwing away litter in places which are not designated. I remember the culture of throwing away cans, water and juice plastics bottle drinks from a vehicle, throw-ing Styrofoam and ice-cream boxes, bottles or very tiny papers that wrap small commodities like sweets by the sideways. One wonders what penalty our mobile service provides are ready to pay in the face of “juice cards” which litter streets as people throw away soon after scratching and top-ping their phones. One wonders why these service providers can’t provide resort to use of Eco cash and ban scratch cards. It is prudent as well to learnt and pluck a leaf from Rwan-da, whose capital city, Kigali is the smartest city in Africa. The Rwandan government banned use of plastic bags, and replaced them with paper bags. The government introduced “general cleaning for every citizen” on a monthly basis. When people re-alized how much cumbersome this work was, everyone then began polic-ing the other. Anyone who attempts to throw away litter is reprimanded by the general public. This has created a sense of ownership and pride in their city.

The encyclical calls us to think be-yond ourselves, to think of what we do as individuals and the consequenc-es they have on us. What action then comes out of all these our intellectu-al refl ections? Words with no action won’t help us much, therefore, AC-TION bids us into praxis.

Fr Admire Nhika SJ is Parish Priest for Makumbi Mission, Domboshava,

Zimbabawe.

Clearing Land for housing


While I know and also believe that as Catholics we actually come closer to God through the body and blood of Christ that we receive in Holy Com-munion, I tend to agree completely with Wright. Nature really expresses our deep feelings about the connec-tion between God and humans. Being in nature is, in a sense, like inhabiting the heart of God. � at is why many Christians, Catholics included, � nd it spiritually enriching to be with their Maker in natural environments like mountains, take for instance the rela-tionship between us and the Chigona Mountain in Mutemwa, Mutoko. � e natural surroundings bring us alive spiritually.

When you witness a beautiful sunset rising from the mountainous Eastern Highlands, or when you sit and listen to the sounds of a bird, do you not connect that to the magni� cent image of the Creator? Yet the same nature, if not taken care of, as demanded by the Creator, can cause havoc in our � eshly and spiritual lives.

Biblical man’s � rst encounter with God was through the natural world, the Garden of Eden being the epito-me of all that is beautiful on earth. We are placed in the Garden, given a Di-vine purpose for living that is directly linked to nature. In Genesis 1:28, God blesses man with these words: “...Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it; have domin-

ion over...every living thing...” One chapter later, God places man in the Garden of Eden “to cultivate it and to guard it.” From the very beginning, we are given the inherently complex task of having complete control over the Earth, and are required to treat it with a deep sense of duty.

Images in the Book of Psalms rein-force a joyous relationship between man, nature and God. Psalm 96 puts across these succinctly: “Let the heav-ens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let the sea roar and the fullness thereof; let the � eld be joyful and all that is therein; then shall the trees of the for-est rejoice before the Lord…”

� e story of creation is central for re-� ecting on the relationship between human beings and other creatures and how sin breaks the balance of all creation in its entirety. And Pope Francis says: “… these accounts sug-gest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely inter-twined relationships; with God, with our neighbour and with the earth it-self.”

How can we, as Christians, create a fruitful and long lasting relationship with nature, and ultimately, with God? Nature, as de� ned by Wikipedia, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. Within the various uses of the word today, nature o� en refers to geology, the realm of living plants and

animals, and in some cases to the pro-cesses associated with inanimate ob-jects – the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather.

Man is a dual being - a natural phe-nomenon and the controller and master of the natural domain. Hu-mans employ nature for both leisure and economic activities. Industry is sustained by nature; take for instance mining, agriculture and even manu-facturing. In ancient times, they hunt-ed animals, gathered uncultivated plant materials for food and employed the medicinal properties of vegetation for healing. Ranging from food pro-duction to energy, nature in� uences economic wealth.

Laudato SI calls for changes to our lifestyle and consumption behaviours in order to live in harmony with na-ture for the bene� t of both sides. Pope Francis said that God created the world and entrusted it to us as a gi� . “…now we have a responsibility to care for and protect it and all peo-ple, who are part of this creation. Pro-tecting the human dignity is strongly linked to care for creation.” For exam-ple, we have to learn to re-use some items like containers, use the bucket to bath rather than showers, and also to compost food waste than just to throw away.

� e unique position of man in the

A great American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, has two great quotes: “I believe in God, only I spell it Nature” and “God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature, and it has been said often by philosophers, that nature is the will of God. And, I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see. If we wish to know the truth concerning anything, we will fi nd it in the

nature of that thing”.


organisation of things is sometimes considered as the source of the un-systematic and destructive abuse of natural resources and of the contam-ination of the evidence of the Bible’s concern for the environment, for ex-ample, the prohibition to destroy fruit bearing trees (Deuteronomy 20:19); the extension of the Sabbath rest to include domestic animals (Exodus 20:l0); the restriction to the Israelites travelling through the Sinai desert not to leave � lth along the way (Deuter-onomy 23:12-14). Psalm 104 could be used as a model for the idea of an en-vironment, though one could adduce balanced ecological system.

Bacon (1561-1626) once said: “We cannot command nature except by obeying her.” According to Mutare Diocese priest, Fr Ambrose Vinyu Chagongonyeka, there is no life out-side of nature. His Mass, week in week out, is punctuated by the Gospel of Nature. He says nature has got every-thing to do with the Gospel.

“If you leave Mass or any Sunday ser-vice for that matter, you are involved with the surroundings, the envi-ronment, with nature - trees, grass, mountains and so on. So someone would be unfortunate to ignore na-

ture when talking about the Bible or simply when preaching. People su� er because they don’t take care of these things. Even in the Bible God says be responsible for these things.”

Zimbabwe and many parts of South-ern Africa are currently facing ener-gy de� cit and the majority of people are enduring long hours in the dark. Industry is operating at a minimum because of prolonged power cuts blamed on the low levels of water in Kariba Dam, which is used to hydro-power our energy. However, this is all to do with climate change taking place in the world because of the way we are treating the environment. And

St Pope John Paul 11, during World Day of Peace on January 1, 1990 put this tersely when he said: “When man turns his back on the Creator’s plan, he provokes a disorder which has inevi-table repercussions on the rest of the created order. If man is not at peace with God, then earth itself cannot be at peace: ‘� erefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the � eld and the birds of the air and even the � sh of the sea are taken away’ (Hos 4:3).”

Fr Vinyu exhorts people no to burn grass, not to cut trees, and to avoid

throwing litter everywhere. We are poor because we don’t care about our environment. Our animals - cows and goats - get into trouble because there is not enough grass to graze, and we complain. Tsvina kwese kwese. (Rub-bish all over the place). You get sick of cholera, die and blame the Govern-ment for not providing medication.

� e new motto, and also connected to Laudato SI, is not for man to have dominion over other creatures, but to live in harmony with them. While man has he rightful claim for a spe-cial position in the order of things, a position somewhere between God and Nature, or between Evolution and

the Evolving, the same man, like other living beings, should remember that he is a part of things as they are, and should humble himself in order to be at peace with God and nature. Elevat-ing himself well above nature, maybe regarded as an act of ignorance or ar-rogance on the part of man.

The Writer, parishioner at Uganda Martyrs Mufakose, is reading for a

Master of Science in Peace, Leader-ship and Confl ict Resolution with the

Zimbabwe Open University.


It was a very tall and very full tree, branches thick and thin. Ideal for cutting down to cook many meals and to warm many huts. But over the years, no one has touched it, despite trees all around it having been cut down and the landscape left quite barren.

Why has this tree been preserved? A local Malawian villager told us very directly and simply: “The spirits protect the tree, to help us draw wa-ter locally.” A closer look at the roots of the tree reveals a small spring that provides good fresh water. But there’s more to the tree’s sur-vival than this. The people of this village and other villages in the area have a very strong traditional belief in a spirit-fi lled world. And it is believed that this particu-lar tree shelters spirits which provide water for all the communities around.

The belief in a spirit-fi lled world that has been cre-ated for the delight and the good of human be-ings is of course a central theme of Laudato Si, Pope Francis’s dramatic encyclical on the environment. The traditional Af-rican recognition of the sacredness of nature is echoed in its opening lines: “In the words of this beautiful canti-cle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.” (1)

The message of Laudato Si could not be clearer. Pope Francis not only fi rmly acknowledges the reality of climate change but insists on its close connection with human activity: “A very solid scientifi c consensus indi-cates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system … Humanity is called to rec-ognize the need for changes of life-

style, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which pro-

duce or aggravate it.” (23)

The encyclical highlights in particular the need to respect and protect the dignity and lives of

the poor. T h e y are the m o s t vulner-

able to c l i m a t e

change. It emphasises that “a true ecological approach a l w a y s becomes

a social a p -

proach; it must integrate questions of jus-tice in debates on the envi-ronment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” (49)

The people of Mala-wi do not need scientif-ic investigations to show them that climate change in their beautiful country is very real. They have been undergoing its effects

in dramatic ways in recent years: in-creased water scarcity, unpredictable weather patterns, recurring fl ooding and droughts, unpredictable start of rainfall with short rainy seasons, pro-longed dry spells during rainy sea-sons, drying up of rivers and lakes with lowering fi sh supplies, heat waves, frequent bush fi res, increased prevalence of water borne diseases, low and unstable hydro-electric pro-duction, declining fl ora and fauna, and declining natural species.

As a Malawian woman farmer told us, “In years past, I used to plant my maize fi eld at the end of October or beginning of November, when rains are just beginning. Then with rains stopping in late March I would have been assured of a good harvest. But in recent years, the rains don’t start until late November, then stop in mid-De-cember, trickle in a bit in January, and dry up completely by February. No good harvest, and plenty of hunger in my family!”

Malawi is over-dependent on one ex-port crop: tobacco. Serious ecological damage is caused by the clearing of land to plant tobacco and by the heavy use of trees for fi res to cure the tobac-

co. Studies estimate that a hectare of wooded land may be needed to cure one hectare of tobacco. And that adds up fast to deforestation, with consequent climate change

effects. Tobacco is not only dev-astating to the health of smokers. Tobacco production is devastating to the environment.

Even if Malawi did not suffer en-vironmental damage because of its heavy dependence on tobacco pro-duction, it would still face the conse-quences of the heavy use of biomass to produce energy for cooking and heating. Most Malawians live in ru-ral areas, and with less than 9% of households having access to electrici-ty, large trees and scrubby bushes are

branches thick and thin. Ideal for cutting down to cook many meals and to warm many huts. But over the years, no one has touched it, despite trees all around it having been cut down and the landscape left quite barren.

Why has this tree been preserved? A local Malawian villager told us very directly and simply: “The spirits protect the tree, to help us draw wa-ter locally.” A closer look at the roots of the tree reveals a small spring that provides good fresh water. But there’s more to the tree’s sur-vival than this. The people of this village and other villages in the area have a very strong traditional belief in a spirit-fi lled world. And it is believed that this particu-lar tree shelters spirits which provide water for all the communities around.

The belief in a spirit-fi lled world that has been cre-ated for the delight and the good of human be-ings is of course a central theme of Laudato Si, Pope Francis’s dramatic encyclical on the environment. The traditional Af-rican recognition of the sacredness of nature is echoed in its opening lines: “In the words of this beautiful canti-cle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.” (1)

The message of Laudato Si could not be clearer. Pope Francis not only fi rmly acknowledges the reality of climate change but insists on its close connection with human activity: “A very solid scientifi c consensus indi-cates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic

in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which pro-

duce or aggravate it.” (23)

The encyclical highlights in particular the need to respect and protect the dignity and lives of

the poor. T h e y are the m o s t vulner-

able to c l i m a t e

change. It emphasises that “a true ecological approach a l w a y s becomes

a social a p -

proach; it must integrate questions of jus-tice in debates on the envi-ronment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” (49)

The people of Mala-wi do not need scientif-ic investigations to show them that climate change

creased water scarcity, unpredictable weather patterns, recurring fl ooding and droughts, unpredictable start of rainfall with short rainy seasons, pro-longed dry spells during rainy sea-sons, drying up of rivers and lakes with lowering fi sh supplies, heat waves, frequent bush fi res, increased prevalence of water borne diseases, low and unstable hydro-electric pro-duction, declining fl ora and fauna, and declining natural species.

As a Malawian woman farmer told us, “In years past, I used to plant my maize fi eld at the end of October or beginning of November, when rains are just beginning. Then with rains stopping in late March I would have been assured of a good harvest. But in recent years, the rains don’t start until late November, then stop in mid-De-cember, trickle in a bit in January, and dry up completely by February. No good harvest, and plenty of hunger in my family!”

Malawi is over-dependent on one ex-port crop: tobacco. Serious ecological damage is caused by the clearing of land to plant tobacco and by the heavy use of trees for fi res to cure the tobac-

co. Studies estimate that a hectare of wooded land may be needed to cure one hectare of tobacco. And that adds up fast to deforestation, with consequent climate change

effects. Tobacco is not only dev-astating to the health of smokers. Tobacco production is devastating to the environment.

Even if Malawi did not suffer en-vironmental damage because of its heavy dependence on tobacco pro-duction, it would still face the conse-quences of the heavy use of biomass to produce energy for cooking and heating. Most Malawians live in ru-ral areas, and with less than 9% of


eagerly cut for fi rewood and to make charcoal, signifi cantly contributing to deforestation. Trees and forest soils absorb and store carbon. Diminish-ing forests result in this carbon being released as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Of course it isn’t only deforestation that is causing climate change in Malawi. As Pope Francis forceful-ly points out: “a number of scientif-ic studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, ni-trogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity …. The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system.”

Some steps can be taken at the local level that offer hope rather than de-spair. For example, the traditional three-stone open fi re cooking meth-od uses a lot of fi rewood. The Jesuit Centre for Ecology and Development (JCED) in Lilongwe is working with local women groups to construct sim-

ple stoves (mbaula) which reduce the use of fi rewood by 70-80%. Apart from reducing the use of wood-fu-el, the energy-effi cient mbaula also reduces emission of carbon into the atmosphere.

Early on in Laudato Si, the Pope notes that “change is impossible without motivation and a process of educa-tion….” (15). Loyola Jesuit Second-ary School (LJSS) in Kasungu, Mala-wi, embodies this message not only in its instruction, but in its construction. Soil-based bricks have been used in its new buildings rather than the tradi-tional kiln-burnt bricks. The school’s desks and chairs and bunk beds have been made using trees from a lot where new trees are planted regularly to prevent deforestation. Solar water heaters have been installed. Small steps, but good steps.

Malawians alone can’t alter the cli-mate change catastrophe the country faces. Very little of the global emis-sions of greenhouse gases come from a poor and non-industrialised country like Malawi. The people of the mighty fossil fueled economies of Europe, North America and China must be

honest in looking at the situation, cre-ative in designing effective responses and courageous in taking some hard and unpopular actions. Pope Francis repeatedly calls upon more effective international cooperation for the pro-tection of our common home.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris in De-cember is a vital opportunity for ac-tion. As Pope Francis sadly notes, pre-vious such conferences have not been effective: “International negotiations cannot make signifi cant progress due to positions taken by countries which place their national interests above the global common good. Those who will have to suffer the consequences of what we are trying to hide will not forget this failure of conscience and responsibility.” (165)

When Laudato Si speaks of “our com-mon home,” it refers to is the whole of Mother Earth. But the message of Pope Francis is particularly meaning-ful and challenging for we who live in Malawi. Our response – and that of the rest of the world - will determine our future.

Alex Muyebe SJ directs the Jesuit Centre for Ecology and Development, Lilongwe, Malawi (www.jced.amalocal.co.zm); Peter Henriot SJ works with Loyola Jesuit Secondary School, Kasungu, Malawi (www.loyola-malawi.org) [This article appeared in 29 August 2015 THE TABLET, a British Catholic weekly magazine.]

When pumped or squeezed out of the earth, oil pollutes both the natural and moral environments. Land is blighted by it; governments become corrupted by it; wars are fought over it. Oil is the cause of both economic and po-litical instability. If it were not part of God’s creation one would be inclined to say that oil is cursed.

Of course it is what we do with it and how we use it that curses it and there is a late but accelerating realisation that we have, in our consumerist glut-tony, greedily over-used and abused it. And now we are locked into the

use and abuse of it, our transport sys-tems being so dependent upon it. That is why we are, despite this dawning realisation, still using up over 90 mil-lion barrels per day. If we had been using it wisely, that is as a scarce and non-renewable re-source we would not be in quite the quandary that we presently fi nd our-selves. But our use has been truly extravagant. This has been because we have used oil for much more than transport, the need to get ourselves and our products from A to B.

For a motor vehicle is much more

than just that. It serves as a status symbol in the pecking order of class, wealth and power, and so its size and speed count. For the personally inse-cure it is an ‘ego-expander’.

The absurd fact that most cars can travel at speeds far in excess than the legal limit speaks volumes about how cars are more than mere vehi-cles. Would it not be simpler, safer, and vastly more economical if all ve-hicles (obviously with the exception of police cars and ambulances) were designed to travel at no more than 120 kilometres per hour (or 110 which is


the standard limit in other countries)? Or if the Government insisted that all manufacturers fi t a ‘governor’, a device for keeping the speed below a certain level, on any vehicle capa-ble over travelling that the maximum speed limit?

The absurdity stems from the fact that rather than adopt such a rational solu-tion, we have to have a whole system of traffi c police and a vast outlay on ambulances and trauma units to deal with the crashes that occur because of speeding on our freeways. No one, it seems, has thought to tackle the prob-lem at source and make cars mechan-ically incapable of breaking the upper speed limit.The fact that any politician who sug-gested such reforms would be po-litically lynched by driving voters and the car manufacturers is simply another indication of how the crazi-ness what we consider to be our nor-mal situation. An obvious and simple solution cannot be articulated.Well, it seems that some things that

would have been unsayable very re-cently are now being spoken about quite a lot. There is the ‘leave it in the ground’ campaign and the campaign for disinvestment from coal and oil. The former is talking about the scien-tifi c assessment that in order to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic cli-mate change we will have to leave up to 80% of fossil fuels where they are, deep in the earth. The latter is the move to persuade in-vestors to make sure fossil fuels stay where they are by taking money out of oil, gas and coal companies and to reinvest it in renewable energy proj-ects. From being on the fringes, with some-thing of a retro, anti-apartheid feel about them, these movements have grown dramatically and have recent-ly challenged large investment banks, universities, charities, churches, in-dustry, governments and even the UN, to broach the previously unmen-tionable. Perhaps the point when it got really serious was when the Rock-erfeller Brothers Fund announced that

it was moving $50 billion of its assets out of fossil fuels. That kind of money really does talk. These campaigns are going to im-pinge on us all in the end, like the an-ti-apartheid disinvestment campaign. As individuals we will be challenged to be an active part of the transition from fossil to climate-friendly gener-ated energy. If we hold investments in coal, oil and gas, pressure will be on us to disinvest from these and re-invest in green sources of energy. Or-ganisations that resist will be held up to scrutiny and fi nd they have a bad press (‘Catholic Church Clings to Shares in Dirty Energy’). Individuals who continue to drive gas-guzzlers will fi nd themselves on the moral low ground vis-à-vis their more frugal neighbours with the small petrol car or the electric one or even worse, the neighbour who cycles or uses public transport.It’s going to get tough out there; fore-warned is forearmed.

Exhaust fumes


A farmer wants to achieve maximum profi t in minimal time; he goes and cuts down all the trees on his farm so as to extend his arable land, grow more crops, and earn more money. Being the owner, he thinks he may rise up or tear down as he sees fi t.

Does he consider the effects this has on the water supply on his farm? What kind of land is he going to leave to future generations? A dustbowl?

He does not respect creation since he does not see his land as a gift of the Creator.

You would think that the discovery of oil or gas, diamonds or some pre-cious metal would be a boon for any African country. In fact experience shows that the opposite may be the case. Would there be war in the Sudan or Congo if there were no oil wells or lucrative mines? Greed kills.

A young woman, on realizing she is pregnant, may say, “My tummy be-longs to me. - - - . This thing in my belly – I did not invite it to come in. It is an intruder. It must go.”

She has not accepted that a woman is a co-creator, her womb a source of life, the child God’s gift she is to wel-come as her own.

A wife-beater has no qualms, “I have paid for her. She is now mine, I can

do with her what I like.” The more he claims proprietary rights as “mas-ter”, the less he respects her as a per-son. He denies her the open space she needs to live, so she cannot breathe, he chokes her to death.

Violent men who have no home, be-long nowhere, have no one to love them, and do not care about life. Fi-nally killing themselves means noth-ing to them, in their senseless pride they take a planeload of people along with them into their nothingness.

There are so many things we think we absolutely “must have”. Ava-rice, greed, lust make us dependent on what “we cannot do without”. We become like addicts who are forced to steal so as to satisfy their craving.

Jesus was the freest of all men, of all people on this earth. There was noth-ing of which he would have said, “I must have it”. He had only one pas-sion, the love for his Father and for all his sisters and brothers he had come to bring back to his Father’s house.

This passion was not a desire to have, but to give. His love did not want to conquer and control, but to give, even himself, to share and to let go. He “had nowhere to lay his head”. He advised the rich young man to “sell all that you own and

distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven,

then come, follow me” (Luke 18: 22) to be as free as he was. He said “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven”

(Matthew 5).

My body is a gift. Finding myself alive in this world is not of my own doing. Contemplating the earth, gaz-ing at the stars, marvelling at pure fl owing water, walking through a for-est, - the more I admire created living beings the less can I claim them as my own. Grass, fl owers, herbs, plants, trees, animals in the bush, wildlife big and small, animals enjoying human company, donkeys and dairy cows, horses and hounds, watchdogs and mice-catching cats, - they were given to us as companions, we did not invent them, mould them, make them walk, we thank God, the source of all life, for them, they are on loan to us, so we may pass them on to our chil-dren and grandchildren.

The Creator has given to them and me life and breath, I am not the owner, I cannot boast of riches and of posses-sions.

In that sense I am poor. I stretch my empty hands and see them fi lled.

This world is out of joint. But we were meant to live in harmony. “Human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with


the earth itself”

Nature was there long before we came. And it should continue in be-ing long after we are gone. During our short time on Planet Earth we should live in friendship with our fellow hu-man beings, be in right relationship to nature, plants and animals, and be thankful to land and sea, to valley and mountains that they offer us shelter and let us live.

To live in a sound relationship to all fellow human beings, to nature and all created beings that have life and breath, we must deeply reverence the Creator, be aware of his love for us and love him in return. If we live in awe of God, the source of all life, we cannot but respect all his creatures, from little ants and busy bees to el-ephants and giraffes. If we truly hon-our Creation, we live indeed in the presence of the Creator.

St Francis expressed this beautifully in his “Canticle of the Sun”

Pope Francis calls the earth “our com-mon home” and stresses the interde-pendenc between all created beings. “We need to grasp the variety of things in their multiple relationships……As the Catechism teaches:’God wills the interdependence of creatures. The sun and the moon, the cedar and the little fl ower, the eagle and the sparrow: the spectacle of their countless diversities and inequalities tells us that no crea-ture is self-suffi cient. Creatures exist only in dependence on each other, to complete each other, in the service of each other’ ”(Laudato Si, n. 86, quote from Catechism of the Catholic Church, 340).

We, as human beings who have the gift of intelligence and freedom, must recognize the divine origin of all that exists. Therefore we are to be stew-ards and keepers, not destroyers and ruthless exploiters.

“We are not God. The earth was here before us and it has been given to us. …We must forcefully reject the notion

that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifi es absolute domination over other creatures. The biblical

texts …..tell us to ‘till and keep’ the garden of the world (cf. Gen 2:15).

‘Tilling’ refers to cultivating, plough-

ing or working, while ‘keeping’ means caring, protecting, oversee-ing and preserving. This implies a

relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature.

Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it

needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming

generations. ……God rejects every claim to absolute ownership……”

(Laudato Si, 67).

There is no absolute ownership. The exclusive owner, grasping and vora-cious, squeezes the last drop of life blood out of creation and destroys it. Whatever we are given and may keep as ours, we must use it for the benefi t of our brothers and sisters.

Man and woman enjoy their intimacy as husband and wife; but their love is also to bring forth new life in their children. Their sexual powers are not given as private property, but for pro-creation and building community. We have been made stewards and must preserve and protect creation.WE MUST LET IT BE, in honour of the Creator. Creatures are meant to give glory to the Creator by their very being. Why kill birds and fi sh, wild animals and companionable domesti-cated animals for no reason whatso-ever? Just to demonstrate our tyranni-cal power, so we can be photographed with a heavy boot planted arrogantly on the head of a slain kudu, bushbuck, zebra or lion?

We must leave God creatures be! We must give them their freedom. They are given to us as gifts to admire, not as prey to be obliterated. Sadly, people who want to possess more and more, grasp and throttle to death whatever comes into their possession. Where there is true love, there is freedom, and the lover does not lay a hand on the loved one in anger and violence.

A society possessed with a consumer-ist lifestyle has no room for children and denies them the freedom to live. Whereas humble self-denial creates space for them and gives them the “freedom of the children of God”.

God’s poor who do not grasp, but receive with open hands, thankful

even for little, are truly free. “I have

learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plen-ty….I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4: 12).

If we had this inner freedom, show-ing itself in being indifferent to either poverty or riches, we would not ruth-lessly cut down trees, burn coal and wood to satisfy our excessive demand for energy. If we were aware that it is in God’s world that we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28) then we would admire nature, keep it and use wisely.

Instead we produce so much garbage and junk that we drown in it, con-sumers of luxuries who shame those living on no more than a dollar a day by their scandalous “throw-away” culture.

Our grasping greed destroys, but free-dom from possessiveness will give life. But what is our way forward?

“We are invited to take care of the micro-ecology by looking at the

right use of tobacco and alcoholic drink, of cosmetics and of medicine;

we need to promote education on ecological issues by considering the protection of our surroundings as a human right; we encourage moder-ation in the use of limited resources such as energy and water; we must

defend the rights of the poor because they suffer the most from the eco-

logical crisis; we must bring to light the ethical values of the communion between people and their environ-ment, and educate young people in these values; we must help the dis-covery of the aesthetic values of the environment so as to be able to sing with Francis the glory of God and to discern prayerfully with Ignatius the

love of God shiningThrough the environment.”

This was said by Fr Peter-Hans Kol-venbach SJ, the then Superior Gener-al of the Society of Jesus in a lecture

on “Our Responsibility for God’s Creation” given on 22 August 1998 when he opened and blessed Arrupe

College, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Oscar Wermter is based at IMBISA as the Co-odinator of

Theological Refl ection


I believe God trusted the human being

has better instincts than the rest of his creatures thus He made him the care taker of everything he created. But the rate at which the human kind is destroying the earth makes one wonder; did God make a mistake by making Adam and Eve the stewards of creation? It is Pope Francis’ worry in his encyclical letter Laudato Si that while God trusted us with everything he created, we are busy betraying him by destroying it. Imagine the disap-pointment the Lord has in us now and what will the earth look like in the next fi ve years?

We are slowly destroying that which connect us with the Lord our mak-er, and that is the environment. The environment is one of the things that show God’s power. The Catholic so-cial teaching states that we should have respect for human life and this doesn’t refer to killing only but also destroying that which the human life depends on, our carelessness and recklessness over earth shows that we do not have respect for human life and more so we do not respect the one who gave us the beautiful gift of na-ture.

Pope Francis in his encyclical Lau-dato Si personifi es the earth and calls it mother earth, the one whose fruits, food and air we depend on for sur-

vival, but this our mother is in deep pain for we are destroying her be-cause rather than seeing ourselves as her care givers “we have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will”. We are infl icting pain to that which gives us life and provides us with a beautiful home, so one should think what will become of us when we are done de-stroying our common home.

We are being driven by greedy and selfi shness, we are lacking love, the love for our neighbors that Christ taught is long forgotten because one should stop to think of many people who are benefi ciaries of the water we pollute, the soil we erode, the land we degrade and the air we pollute before doing so. If everyone develops that kind of concern for others then with no doubt we will live in a better en-vironment. If only we had love for one another then mother Earth would surely be safe for a thousand years to come. Let’s not forget honour God by being good stewards to his creation and respecting that which he created.

As a woman I know I am one of God’s beautiful creations and my main con-cern for protecting the environment goes to my fellow women. A woman was given some great privileges in the world which includes, giving care and love and also nurturing and molding a living soul so why not use that skill to protect our environment?

Women have great infl uence to many people in the society and have a chance to change peoples’ perspec-tive of the environment; she can in-fl uence her children in the realm of motherhood. Also taking into con-sideration that women are the ones who spend most of the time with their kids it becomes their responsibility to teach kids about taking care of the environment. If every woman takes that as a responsibility and every kid is taught to be responsible of the envi-ronment surrounding him/her then we can be assured of a better tomorrow with responsible citizens and a clean environment. Just as God entrusted to a woman his Son, we can entrust the future of our environment to women, the natural care givers.

Our common home is in danger jus as the Pope says and as women we should use our gifts for the common good. For everything that you do from dawn to dusk make it for the bet-terment of our mother earth. We are known for taking care of our homes, lets extend that and be known for tak-ing care of the environment that sur-rounds us be it our homes or not. We are in danger, our future is in danger and you and I can change it and create a better environment that is clean and healthy.

Pylaia Chembe is a student at MSU, Gweru, Zimbabwe

She has a role to play


A frank and an unconditional glance of the regions of our planet reveals that the earth; our common home, is falling into a grim disrepair and one would not be mistaken to conclude that humanity has disappointed God. Impelled by this conviction, I would like to expound on why humanity should care for the environment in light of human moral systems. This should indeed bring to light the foun-dations of the moral obligations in view of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’. To begin with, our common home is being torn apart in various ways mak-ing it diffi cult for the present and fu-ture generations, especially the poor, to inhabit it. Human beings are in-creasingly releasing atmospheric pol-lutants such as vehicle smoke, indus-trial fumes and agro-toxins that are hazardous to our health. Furthermore, in the recent decades, human beings have been exacerbating the phenom-enon of global warming by activities such as deforestation and discharging greenhouse gases like carbon diox-ide and methane into the atmosphere. Additionally, the depletion of fresh water has become a major concern that is now manifested by its pri-vatization as a commodity subject to the laws of the market. However, the poor suffer the consequences the more. Each year, in addition to this, thousands of animal and plant species disappear and sadly these will never be seen again. Apparently, today our many cities have become suicidal not only because of pollutions but also because of urban chaos, poor road network and transportation, and a lack of a fresh and green environ-ment. We have witnessed many nega-tive social dimensions such as human traffi cking, social exclusion, social breakdown, drug traffi cking and an unbearable gap between the rich and the poor. The world has become a menace unto itself!In as much as humanity is weak, there are still some things that are diffi cult

to understand or maybe need some ex-ternal assistance to apprehend them. The recent killing of elephants with cyanide has been making headlines in Zimbabwe. These are the known kill-ings and numerous of cases as such are not reported. Public funds and properties have been privatized, and making the poor man poorer by each passing day. Diamonds and other pre-cious minerals are being syphoned from the country. Bogus land devel-opers associated with certain political heavyweights are robbing the poor of their little savings. There is indeed need to resuscitate human conscience before the time-bomb explodes. It would be plausible to propel that Christian morality based on the Bi-ble can provide some foundation and basis for humanity to be responsible stewards in caring for the environ-ment. This should be drawn from God the Creator Himself who saw everything He Created as very good (Gen 1:31). Accordingly humanity was created in His image and like-ness which shows a profound dignity in each person who is someone not just something. These propositions give each person of good will a duty to maintain that which was created to remain “very good” in God’s eyes as at the origins of the universe. The uni-

verse was indeed created for human beings to take care of it, to protect it, to oversee it and to preserve it (Gen 1: 28) rather than to injure, exploit and dominate. Thus the cosmos; our com-mon home, is the Lord’s and to him it belongs (Ps 24:1). Without a doubt, the Bible does not have a place for a tyrannical and selfi sh anthropocentric unconcern for other creatures. For in-stance the Jewish people had different traditional celebrations as a way of acknowledging that the earth and its fruits belong to everyone and should not be manipulated, exploited or pri-vately owned (Lev 25:10). This is an acknowledgement that humanity does not own the universe, but rather God the Creator. It is pathetic to remark that the exploitation has been extend-ed to other human beings who are now being dehumanized and subject-ed to extreme dangerous conditions. We ought not to grow accustomed to this practice of the most powerful, “the fi rst comer” or the winner takes it all, which has resulted in inequalities, injustices and acts of violence. Peo-ple, indeed, should not live today to rob the poor and future generations of what they need to survive on, just as we found some resources to live on. Furthermore, humanity’s obligation to care for our common home lies in

Keeping the place clean


the principle of the common good. It is noteworthy that the moral obli-gation to care for the environment is not only a Christian initiative for it has already been expressed by other elements of human society outside Christianity. For instance, environ-mental scientists have already spoken about the inter-connection of various elements in the global environment and how certain bad behaviors can lead to devastating effects on earth. This, truly, obliges people of good will to respond positively to the ap-peal of Pope Francis in Laudato Si’. The common good provides a central

and a unifying principle of social eth-ics that is inclusive for the entire hu-manity (that is, it includes non-Chris-tians and non-believers). In the midst of the universe that is faced with ab-solute domineering and exploitation, the common good becomes summon to solidarity and a preferential option for the poor. ‘The global economic crises have attested as obvious the detrimental effects of disregarding our common destiny, which cannot exclude those who come after us” (#159). Consequently, the universe is a gift which we have freely received and ought to be cared, protected and

preserved so that we can share it with those who will come after us in a bid to realize the common good. It is a matter of justice for us to care for our common home since it belongs to those who will follow us. One might ask: What kind of a world would we want to leave behind us; worse or a better home for future generations? My conclusion and personal response would be, let me live today as if I will be born in the future.

Emmanuael Kaparasa SJ is studying in Kenya.

More than 25 elephants were report-edly killed by poisoning in poaching activities in Kariba and Hwange over the past one month and it is suspect-ed that poachers have resorted to the use of the toxic cyanide to hunt down innocently living creatures in protect-ed and reserved parks. A few months ago, the Western world mourned the brutal death of Cecil, whereas in Zim-babwe, this “death” did not make headlines.

Veld fi res engulf tracks of land as peasant farmers prepare for the farm-ing season, whilst other cut and slice trees as an energy source in these days of minimized power generation at Kariba. This pictures a gloomy ap-pearance of Zimbabwe, yet these are brutal facts one has to content with.

Most of these changes and distress-es and meted upon the world by men and his insatiable appetite for a better living.

Men’s continued desire to earn a liv-ing and amass wealth has compelled him to seek all means possible, even distractive means, to land himself on the treasures of the earth. A limited number of populations has attempted to earn it in modesty. Apparently, the majority is driven by their self-love and egocentrism, displayed in their showing little or no love for other ex-isting creatures and the effects of pol-luting and spoiling the environment. Men’s actions in contemporary times, has harmed the earth in their use of the gift of invention, chemicals in suspected poaching activities.

The motives are clearly illegal and self-centered, with no intention to benefi t all citizens and hideously to distract the interrelatedness of men and other creatures thus poisoning our common home. This has clearly confi rmed Saint Pope John Paul II’s warning as quoted by Pope Francis in his Encyclical Laudato si’ that ‘hu-man beings frequently seem to see no other meaning in their natural envi-ronment than what serves for imme-diate use and consumption.’

The environmental talk has been stim-ulated around Catholic, Christian and even in non-religious circles when the Pope wrote the encyclical on the Care for our common home and I strongly feel justice is yet to be done, if ever it will be, on how humanity care and look after its surroundings. Care for the children includes creating emo-tional bonds to make them feel safe and loved, formulating legal frame-works that protect them from unkind men but further goes on to the con-stant monitoring and implementation of the various protective policies and laws.

However the world todays has done very little to protect and conserve the


beautiful and very vulnerable envi-ronment from various predators who either take advantage of absence of law or lack of its implementation.

Some criminals could have been ar-rested for the cyanide poisoning, but the continued attacks on these beau-tiful creatures, the waters and even the unrecognized organisms which depend on the poisoned waters shows how lack of strict implementation and adequate monitoring of our environ-mental protection laws and policies affect the future of creation.

Why so much cry on the irresponsi-ble attacks on the waters and the other creatures who so deserve to enjoy the fruits of the creation? It is because we must now cultivate in us the culture of being responsible for our home, our environment and protect our present for future generations, so that they too, may appreciate and praise God for creation. The Holy Father right-ly notes it in his encyclical that our ‘problem is that we still lack the cul-ture needed to confront this crisis.’ He further says that ‘we lack leadership

capable of striking out on new paths and meeting the needs of the present with concern for all and without prej-udice towards coming generations.’ Therefore responsible authorities and the ordinary citizens must all appreci-ate the role we must collectively play in ensuring that our environment is secure.

There is no justice we could ever possibly do to our environment now than to collectively prevent its further harm for in the end we also harm our-selves and the tomorrow of our coun-try.

Cities and towns are expanding thus an increased activity in the construc-tion sector where sand is dug for bricks and land degraded without proper monitoring and maintenance of the areas where construction parties are soliciting these natural resources. For example, in Marondera, it pathetic and mind blowing witnessing the rate at which construction companies are fast-tracking land degradation where they deconstruct roads and construct dangerous pitfalls in their endeav-

our to get river and pit sand for their bricks and pre-cast walls.

Of much concern is that many of them are highly linked to political gi-ants and all the agencies supposedly the custodians of the environment can do is focus on making them pay fi nes, that’s if they are not bribed, whereas the environment is not getting healed by their acts. This simply shows how much our deep love and care for cre-ation has depleted due to the birth of the culture of egocentrism and has af-fected our care for the environment. Most of us now are no more worried about how we will fi nd the earth in the next decade but we are only concerned about our immediate gains. The trag-ic shift in our care are worrying and if all could be concerned about the envi-ronment they would keep the words I took from Fr. McGarry S,J’s article in the Mukai/Vukani 66th edition which says, “when you go, leave the earth as you would wish to fi nd it,” for we will not only collectively do justice to our home, but also get freedom.

I am beautiful and lovely.I am green and am lovely

Sometimes I am brown, and lovely tooSometimes I add other colors to spice up thingsI am lovely, I am colorful and lovely to look at

Oh Sons and daughters of the soilHave you set down to totally � nish me

To discard my external decors that I have provided you withDo you only want to remain with a few colors in your life?

Your children will grow up without knowing my beautyYour children will be deprived of my company

Where will that beauty come from then?Once I am destroyed, it takes too long to bring me back

Sometimes you will never bring me back.

I may appear not very helpful, But apart from my beautyI sustain you, I give you a constant supply of lifeA constant defense to what threatens your life

I do it silently, but I do it anywhere!

You have become so used to me, � at you thought you can easily buy me outYes, you can buy me out, but you cannot replace

� e work that I do, the constant supply to your lifeAnd the constant defense to what threatens it.

Believe me, I am beautiful and lovelyI give life to you, I have given it to your ancestors

And I shall give it to your children, I am beautiful and lovely and I give LIFE.

Fr. Nhika Rufaro Admire SJ.

28 MUKAI - VUKANI No. 70 Dec 2015/Jan 201628 MUKAI - VUKANI No. 70 Dec 2015/Jan 2016

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Mukai - Vukani no.70