Ecological Sin and Ecological Conversion

-Afonso Murad¹

Dear friends:

In the final document of the Synod for the Amazon, it says:

We propose to define ecological sin as an action of omission against God, against the neighbor, the community and the environment. It is a sin against future generations and is manifested in acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the environment, transgressions against the principles of interdependence and the breaking of networks of solidarity among creatures (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 340-344) and against the virtue of justice (Synod, 82).

I will present, in the form of numbered paragraphs, a reflection on Ecological Sin. It is an open work, still under construction. We will think together. The title is deliberate, because I believe that we can only understand and use this concept if it includes personal and collective change, of mentality and structures, that is, a conversion.

In the first part, I will explain how the notions of sin and conversion appear in the Bible and their social implications. As the topic is very broad, I made a cut and selected some key words. Then I will show how ecological sin derives from social or structural sin, using the documents of the Latin American bishops in Medellín, Puebla, and Aparecida. Thirdly, we will try to answer a crucial question for pastoral work: Why do many Christians have difficulty accepting the issues of sin and ecological conversion? Fourth, I will recall the proposal of ecological conversion in Laudato Si. I will not include the Synod for the Amazon, since it deserves another reflection. To conclude, there are open conclusions, especially on the horizon of churches and mining.

I. A Synthesis of the Biblical View of Sin and Conversion

Jewish Scriptures

1. In the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament), the subject of sin is understood from God’s covenant with His chosen people. The LORD looks upon the people who suffered slavery in Egypt, he has compassion on them and delivers them, through the hands of Moses (Ex. 3:7-10). Together with the liberation and the promise of the promised land, God proposes a covenant: “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Ex 6:6-8; Jer 31:1). God also educates the former slaves to be a community. Such is the purpose of the long walk in the desert, during approximately 40 years: to strengthen the bonds with God, between the clans and their members (Deut.8, 2-6).
2. On this long and painful journey in the desert, people go through various temptations. As the name indicates, the temptations are failed attempts, to deviate from the path of life. Among them: an idol (the golden calf) (Ex 32:1-10), the illusion that life in Egypt was better than in the desert (No. 11.4-9), the refusal of food in the desert, pessimism, discouragement to continue walking (No. 20.4). There is always the risk of not hearing God’s call, hardening the heart and turning away (Psalm 95.8): “Let them hear the voice of the Lord today; let them not harden their hearts, as it was on the bitter day, the day of temptation in the wilderness, where your fathers tempted me, testing me” (Heb 3:7-9).
3. Sin is manifested in gestures and actions that break the covenant with God. Therefore, the Hebrew words relate sin to “missing the mark,” “keeping away,” which is preceded by “turning away the heart. In the opinion of the prophets, the great sins are:

4. There is a tension in the Jewish Scriptures between the vision of the prophets (and of Deuteronomy) and that of the priests. The prophetic current emphasizes the social character of the covenant and the fidelity of the heart. The priestly stream, which gained space after the Babylonian exile, emphasizes the fulfillment of the Law, which is both religious and social. The Law includes cultural precepts and human coexistence and introduces a series of rules of ritual purity. The “Law” is ambiguous and allows a double interpretation: the adherence to God, translated into gestures and attitudes (personal and communitarian); or also, the childlike submission to legal determinations.
5. In the book of Deuteronomy, especially in chapter 30, the contrast between “sin” and “fidelity to the covenant” is found in the expressions “to choose the way of death” and “to choose the way of life”. Death here has no biological meaning, but rather ethical and spiritual. “If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I command you today, loving Yahweh your God, walking in your ways and keeping his commandments, statutes and rules, you will live and multiply. The LORD your God will bless you in the land where you are entering to take possession of it. However, if your heart wanders and you do not obey, if you allow yourself to be seduced and to worship and serve other gods, I declare to you today: it is certain that you will perish! You will not prolong your days on the earth, where you enter, crossing the Jordan, to take possession of it. Today I take heaven and earth as witnesses against you: I offered you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, therefore, so that you and your descendants may live, loving Yahweh your God, obeying him and clinging to him, for he is your life and the length of your days. In this way you will be able to live in the land that Yahweh swore to give to his ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deut.30,16-20)”.
6. It is not enough to take possession of the land. We have to take care of it. The book of Deuteronomy offers a series of precepts about caring for creation. The Ten Commandments include rest for livestock and domestic animals, thus recognizing their dignity (Deut.5,14). Animals should be treated well, avoiding suffering (Deut 25:4;) and excessive effort (Deut 22:10). Lost animals should be taken and returned to their owner (Deut 22, 1-4). It is necessary to preserve birds with young, thus guaranteeing the continuity of their existence (Deut 22,6-7). Fruit trees should not be destroyed, even in a war situation (Deut 20,19-20). Cultivated plants should be preserved (Deut 20,6; 23,25-26; 24,19-21). Plantations are a divine blessing and everyone has the right to feed on the crops.
7. The people of Israel had a different ecological conscience than we have today. The prophets show that practicing sin, deviating from the path of life, has terrible social consequences and also for the earth, which will be devastated (Is 1:7). Infidelity to God and the degradation of relationships will lead to the destruction of the country and the environment. There was a feeling of harmony, the perception of solidarity between the land and the people. On the return of the exiles, the trees and the mountains clap their hands (Is 55,12). In the prayer of praise, the sea, the rivers and the mountains are invited to rejoice with the psalmist, because God comes to judge the world with justice (Ps 89,7-9). The same God who creates the world, frees people from slavery and saves them. His love lasts forever (Ps 136).
8. However, it is not easy to walk the path of good and justice because there are groups of evil people in society who practice evil against others. Several psalms show the cry of the righteous (= one who lives according to the covenant), in the face of the persecutions of the wicked (the impious). See, for example, Psalms 3, 4, 5, 7, 10). The theme of individual sin appears above all in Psalm 51: “Wash me from my unrighteousness and cleanse me from my sin! (…) Because I recognize my guilt and my sin is always before me (…) O God, create in me a pure heart and renew a firm spirit in my breast (Ps 51,4.5.12).This psalm was later attributed to David when the king took the wife of his soldier Uriah and caused her death (2 Sam 11:2-15).
9. The more important is the role of a person in society (as the king, the prophet, the priest, the ancestor), the greater is the blessing that extends to people and their descendants (Gen. 12:1-3). Or, on the contrary, the curse, if serious sin is incurred. The blessing and the curse are personal, communitarian and social. They affect the present and the future.
10. It was also considered that the sins committed by one generation would have consequences in the present community and in the next generations. Although the prophet Jeremiah emphasizes individual responsibility for guilt (Jer 31:29-31), such a view remains in the time of Jesus. For this reason, the disciples asked about the blind man: “Who sinned, this man or his parents? (Jn 9:2). This conception seems magical, but it shows that there is an intergenerational solidarity.
11. There is an insistent call for those who hold power (the king and the priests) and for all people to convert and turn to God (1 Kings 8: 33-34). God knows the hearts of all (1 Kings 8:39-40) and listens to the request for forgiveness (1 Kings 1:46-50). If each and every person listens to the voice of God, abandons the bad way, improves their habits and practices (Jer 8:8,11; Jer 26:3), God will fulfill his promise, and will grant peace, possession and cultivation of the soil and fertility.

New testment

12. The evangelist Luke teaches that Jesus prepares for mission by re-creating the path that Israel traced after the liberation from Egypt. Jesus spends forty days in the desert and then is tempted by Satan. But he resists all temptations (Luke 4:1-13) and thus strengthened, he begins his mission.
13. In Jesus’ time, the dominant religion was controlled by the scribes and Pharisees in the small towns, and by the Sadducees and the priestly elite in the temple at Jerusalem. They classified various categories of people as “sinners”. These were frowned upon and in some places did not have access to the synagogue, the place of weekly prayer and reading of sacred texts. Among public sinners, the Gospels cite prostitutes and tax collectors (Mt 21:32), who in addition to serving the Romans, appropriated part of the taxes. The insistence on the sin of others strengthened the position of those who considered themselves “the righteous”.
14. In this system of exclusion and ritual purity, the sick also entered the list of the impure and sinners. That is why, in Mark 2:3-12, Jesus begins by forgiving the paralytic his sins, and makes him overcome his paralysis and walk. As a sign that the Kingdom of God is near, Jesus heals many sick people. In addition to the restoration of health, a fundamental gift for living, this was a way of bringing people back to social coexistence and announcing the coming of the New Time (Mt 11:4-6). This is how we understand the scene in which Jesus heals Bartimaeus, the blind man of Jericho (Mk 10:46-52). Bartimaeus was literally “on the side of the road” (v.46). After the healing, he “follows Jesus on the road”.
15. Jesus is not interested in adding more sins to the long list that already existed, nor in condemning anyone. In a society with theocratic features, people considered “sinners” were marginalized. Therefore, Jesus’ gesture of sitting at the table with sinners (Luke 5:27-31) makes a lot of sense. The sharing of the table (the “commensality”), was a great sign of inclusion, communion and restoration of broken ties. We would say, in today’s language, that to forgive sins and live with sinners was also to promote social belonging and rescue their citizenship.
16. One of the novelties of the teaching and practice of Jesus is to announce that God is the loving father (Abba). He is not the God of the Law, but of mercy, as shown in the three parables of joy in Luke 15. God is like the poor woman who rejoices with her neighbors when she finds a lost coin. He is like the shepherd who, instead of breaking the leg of the fleeing sheep, carries it on his shoulders and calls friends and neighbors to celebrate. Above all, it is the kind father who welcomes the immature and ungrateful son with a hug. The son acknowledges that he has sinned (against heaven and the father, verses 18 and 21).
17. Jesus is indignant with the people and religious (and social) groups that place the religious Law and the precept of the Sabbath above the needy human being. This is his teaching, for example, when the disciples gather ears of grain on the Sabbath, which are the remnants of the harvest reserved for the poor (Mk 3:23-28). The evangelist Matthew gathers a series of speeches of Jesus denouncing the simulation, the schemes of domination, the lie, the inversion of values of the “doctors of the law” and the Pharisees (Mt 23). But the word “sin” is rarely used. On the other hand, the evangelists warn that “sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven” (Mk 3:28-30). This expression seems to indicate the total rejection of the human being to the proposal of Jesus.
18. If we read the Synoptic Gospels as a whole, the most important thing is the coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus and with Jesus. Jesus does not preach retributive justice (giving each one his own), but recreative justice (giving each one what they need to be happy and faithful to the covenant with God). “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33).In the Gospels, the actions of Jesus predominate in order to: announce the Gospel to the poor; forgive sins; cure physical, psychic and somatic illnesses; liberate from the dominant ideologies, which in his time were mainly religious; and recover hope in God and his reign.
19. Sin, as a rejection of God and the Kingdom of God, must be forgiven and fought against. Conversion requires humility (recognizing your sin), faith (trusting God and believing that it is possible to be different), a change of mind, and new attitudes. Jesus begins his preaching like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news” (Mk 1:15). Sometimes conversion requires repairing the damage done. The typical example is Zacchaeus, a rich man and chief tax collector. Jesus goes to meet him, to his house. Zacchaeus is converted and returns, in much greater proportion, all that he exploited from the poor (Lk 19:1-9).
20. The apostle Paul extends the reflection on the sin, putting it in contrast with the grace. He announces that Jesus Christ has freed us from the dominion of sin (in the singular), with his redeeming death and resurrection. For this, he uses the image of the slave who achieves freedom (=redemption) (Rom 6:3-10). However, the ambiguity of light and darkness remains in us. We are new creatures in Christ (Gal 6:15), but we must be careful not to fall back into slavery (Gal 5:1). Paul also opposes “life according to the spirit” and “life according to the flesh” (Gal 5:16-26). The word “according to the flesh” (kata sarx) does not mean the human body, or sexuality, as was later interpreted. And yes, the fragile and self-sufficient human being, who does not open up to God. More than speaking of “sins” (in the plural), Paul uses the term “Sin” to indicate a broad negative context that dehumanizes and distances people from God and his plan. He trusts in the victory of the Risen Christ over the forces of evil in history: “where sin abounded, grace abounded” (Romans 5:20).
21. According to the Gospel of John, the rejection of Jesus and his proposal does not occur only in the sphere of each individual person. There is a set of negative forces that oppose Jesus, even to the point of leading him to death. If Christ is the light of God who comes into this world, these forces are darkness that try to eclipse him (John 1:9-11). Those who practice evil hate the light, because it reveals their actions. And he who practices truth comes to the light, so that his actions may be manifested, because those are made in God (Jn 3.20-21). The darkness, the forces of evil in history, blinds people’s eyes (1 Jn 2.11b). In a controversy with his contemporaries, who want to kill him, Jesus says that “everyone who sins is his slave” (Jn 8:34). It is useless to trust in mere religious belonging, as if that would make them free. The devil, the prince of this world, is a murderer and a liar. He is the father of lies (Jn 8:44). Then, there is another dimension of Sin and of those who spread it. Sin not only justifies itself, hides, flees from the light, but also fights with false arguments, promotes lies and seeks to annihilate those who are on the path of light.
22. In short, there is a constellation of interdependent and essential concepts to understand sin from the Bible: the priority of God’s call (covenant, discipleship); the pilgrimage of faith and its risks; the need to listen to God’s voice and follow the path of life; the temptations that seduce us and can lead us astray; the mercy of God that is always greater than our sins; the simultaneousness of the personal, community, and political dimensions of sin; overcoming sin by asking for forgiveness, conversion and rebuilding of relationships; the ambiguity of the human being as a creature both light and dark, holy and sinful; sin as a rupture of friendship with Jesus and the loss of harmony with creation; sin as a context, a situation, a climate that conditions negative and destructive attitudes of persons, communities and the ecosystem.

II. Understanding the Ecological Sin of the Bible and Laudato Si

23. I believe that we should not begin the Christian discourse with the theme of ecological sin, but with ecological grace. We understand here that “Grace” is not simply a series of favors that God grants us (=graces). And yes, the Trinity that is given to us and invites us to participate in the cause of the Kingdom of God as disciples and missionaries of Jesus.
24. God’s first gift is creation. God creates humanity as part of the Earth. In the words of Pope Francis, our planet is like the house where we live with other creatures, a sister with whom we share our existence, a kind mother who welcomes us into her arms (LS 1). The world is more than a problem to be solved; it is a joyful mystery which we contemplate in joy and praise (LS 12). Each creature and the group of creatures (ecosystem) has value in itself and is the first gospel (LS 69).
25. There is a relationship of responsible reciprocity between human beings and nature. Each community takes what it needs from the Earth and has the duty to protect it and guarantee the continuity of its fertility for future generations (LS 67). God’s covenant with his people, announced in the Scriptures, extends to all creation, as it appears in the text of the extended covenant after the flood: “This is my covenant with you and your descendants, and with all the animals that are with them: birds, domestic animals and beasts, with all those who left the ark and now live on the earth” (Gen 9:9-11). Ecological grace awakens in us an attitude of gratitude to God, of praise, of enchantment, of ecstasy before the beauty of our Common House. And because we are enchanted, we want to take care of it.
26. Ecological sin is the rejection of “ecological grace,” a deviation from the mission of human beings to administer, care for, and cultivate the garden of creation (Genesis 1:26; 2:15). In the words of Deuteronomy 30, instead of choosing the path of life, one chooses the path of death. The biblical phrase “turn away the heart of God” applies here. Human beings deny their dimension as limited creatures, of being part of the Earth. He considers himself to be an owner, a dominator and a plunderer (LS 2). In this sense, ecological sin also means “lack of conscience”, as Paulo Freire understands it. Even if the person is not directly responsible for it. In turn, ecological conversion translates into critical-constructive consciousness. It leads to confronting the ideology of disordered (LS 69) and destructive anthropocentrism. This consciousness is not limited to theoretical knowledge. “The objective is not to gather information or to satiate our curiosity, but to become painfully aware, to dare to convert into personal suffering what happens to the world, and thus to recognize what contribution each one can make” (LS 19).
27. Ecological sin is similar to social sin, or can be an expression of it. It affects not only people, but also social, political and cultural structures. And, especially, our planet. But it also concerns each one of us, because in our daily lives we assume attitudes that positively and negatively impact the soil, water, air, and other living beings. Everyone can measure, for example, their ecological footprint and reduce it. As with other human deviations from God’s dream, ecological conversion includes asking for forgiveness, changing mindsets, adopting individual attitudes, and participating in collective and institutional actions. “We have never mistreated and harmed our common home as in the last two centuries. But we are called to collaborate with God so that our planet may be what he dreamed of when he created it and that it may correspond to his project of peace, beauty, and fulfillment (LS 53). It is ineffective to seek first a change of heart, and then to fight for new structures. The processes are interconnected.
28. Sin breaks the human being, divides him internally, makes him indifferent to the pain of others, makes him an accomplice to iniquity. Conversion means the reconstruction of the human being’s unity with himself, with others, with the community of life on the planet and with the God of Life. Therefore, ecological conversion is part of our life process, to be better, happier and integrated. This conversion is expressed in our commitment to integral ecology, which according to Laudato Si, articulates diverse aspects: environmental, economic, political, cultural, of daily life, urban, rural and intergenerational (chapter IV of Laudato Si). And in our Latin American and Caribbean culture, the steps towards “Good Living”.
29. It is necessary to understand the temptations related to ecological sin. They are interdependent: individual and collective. For example, the tendency to consumerism, the thirst for power and domination (over other people and other creatures), the spirit of competition and not cooperation, the indifference to the suffering of the poor and the Earth. From the tendency one passes to the acts. Then they happen in people and in society, through gestures, attitudes and cultural patterns. And when they become patterns of behavior, justified by ideologies, they exert a negative force on people.
30. Ecological sin and conversion are closely related to intergenerational justice, to the struggle for the continuity of the web of life on our planet. And we leave an open question: Is it convenient, from a theological and pastoral point of view, to insist on ecological sin? Or would it not be better to emphasize God’s dream for us and other creatures, and the need for ecological conversion?

III. Why is the topic “ecological sin” so difficult to be accepted by traditional and neoconservative Catholicism?

31. There is an ideological reason not to accept ecological sin as real. Keep in mind that the damage done to the planet is a sin that provokes individual consciousness. The person must recognize himself as a sinner and assume actions that demonstrate conversion. And the ruling classes do not accept that.
32. There are theological reasons. Sin, in traditional Catholicism, is limited to individual acts (and not community and institutional acts) that objectively violate a standard defined by the Church and by common sense. For this, there is a list of individual sins that emanates from an adapted view of the 10 commandments of God’s law (which are not the same as those of the Bible, see Ex 20:1-10) and the 5 commandments of the Church’s law. Furthermore, traditional doctrine distinguishes between “mortal sin,” which takes away the “state of grace,” and venial or light sins. Therefore, there is little room for understanding sin and structural sin, much less ecological sin.
33. According to traditional Catholic morality, four conditions are necessary for sin to occur: (a) that there is an individual who practices it and; (b) that he is aware and feels guilty when he makes a mistake; (c) that he intends to do evil; (d) that he actually performs a sinful act. For example, killing is a sin against the fifth commandment. If someone accidentally kills a person, he/she does not commit sin, because the intention is missing. If you want to kill someone, but you don’t do it, you don’t sin either, because the act is missing.
34. From this point of view, how do you overcome individual sin, which is related to guilt and objective transgression of the norm? (a) Through confession, in the sacrament of penance. The priest, in the name of the Church, forgives sins and proposes a practice of reparation, which is usually devotional (praying several Our Fathers and Hail Marys). Reparation is not a concrete gesture or process to mitigate the negative consequences of the sin committed; (b) Through penitential gestures, such as depriving oneself of certain food and drink, going on pilgrimage to shrines, giving up something pleasant
35. Ecological sin does not fit this scheme, because: (a) it is not only individual, but also collective and structural; (b) people often conspire with environmental damage or are indifferent to the Earth’s cry because they are not ecologically aware and therefore would not be guilty; (c) we can contribute to the destruction of the environment without having a negative intention to do so; (d) unless it is the case of an explicitly polluting company (such as mining), it is very difficult to measure the immediate damage, since anti-ecological actions interfere slowly with the environment.
36. Modern and post-modern culture has introduced a new element in ethics, which is the primacy of subjectivity over law and tradition. In other words: what the individual considers right or wrong is what he feels is good or bad for him. This creates, even in conservative groups, a dichotomy between what is preached and what is lived. Appearances are maintained, but personal practices are different. Traditional doctrine is adjusted to subjectivities and their reference groups. For example: they do not respect Francis, nor follow his instructions, even though he is the highest authority in the Church. Obedience, one of the virtues most praised by traditionalists, is relativized. The same is true for sins. Some are accentuated, especially those related to sexuality. Others are placed in the background, such as the capacity for dialogue, charity, and justice.
37. Neoconservative Christianity, whether Catholic or evangelical, is at once individualistic, corporate, and ideological. It is individualistic in its discourse, which is addressed to each individual in isolation. Religious practice aims to provide comfort, “peace” and individual success for subjectivities, in line with the market society. Jesus is preached without the Kingdom of God. Although large crowds are concentrated, the preaching is directed to each one. But at the same time, this version of Christianity is corporate, since people are guided by religious leaders (priests or pastors), who indicate the appropriate behavior to follow. Moreover, this corporatism leads to defending not the interests of civil society, but those of the churches. And they partner with right-wing political groups to maintain or increase their public space. In this context, there is little sensitivity to human rights, popular struggles, the defense of indigenous causes, and socio-environmental commitment. Even more serious: social and ecological problems do not give rise to any sense of unease. Guilt is transferred to others, to justify prejudice and to criminalize social and ecological movements. For this reason, neoconservative Christians are deaf to the discourse of “social sin” or “ecological sin.

IV. The Contribution of Theology and Magisterium to Understanding Ecological Sin and Conversion

38. A new vision about sin. After the Second Vatican Council, several theologians in the field of Christian ethics (moral theology) expanded their reflection on sin. From the Bible, they highlighted the following of Jesus as the foundation of Christian ethics. To overcome a legalistic vision, which was on the “list of sins”, they elaborated the concept of “fundamental option” or “fundamental orientation”. If a person guides his life towards the Good, he is directed towards God. But on this path of faith, which corresponds to existence itself, he can go astray, stop or walk more slowly. Sins multiply and the person changes course, taking the path of indifference or evil. Hence the need for constant conversion. Or a deep conversion, when the deviation is great. The limit of reflection on sin and the fundamental orientation is that it is limited to the person and does not include the social aspect.
39. In varying degrees, each of us is a saint and a sinner. “Through the heart of every Christian passes the line that divides the part we have of the righteous and the sinners” (Puebla 253). Holiness is the path of the Good, of light, of solidarity, of union with God, of harmony with creation, which purifies us and makes us grow. Conversion can mean both a fundamental change in the direction of the Good, and the process of correcting deviations from the path and awakening us to resume following Jesus with passion.
40. Social sin and the structures of sin. The Church of the poor and Latin American and Caribbean liberation theology, by assuming the preferential option for the poor, developed the concept of social sin. It is a sin, because it restricts, blocks, and fights against the Dream of God, which is life in fullness for all (John 10:10). It is social because it is not reduced to the act practiced by an individual. It infects society, to the point of creating and maintaining structures that oppress the poorest and increase social differences. Social sin is translated into political mechanisms, complex economic options, and destructive ideologies. Even a person with the right intention can help maintain these “structures of sin. Thus understood, we can say that ecological sin is a form of social sin.
41. Officially, the Latin American Church, in the conferences in Medellín, Puebla, and Aparecida, assumed the concept of social sin and the consequent conversion. The Medellín conference (1968) takes the first step by affirming without reservation that social injustices, which cause poverty, are a sin. Conversion includes both the person and the social structures.

– “This misery, as a collective fact, which marginalizes large human groups in our peoples, qualifies as an injustice that cries out to the heavens (Justice 1)”. Such misery, caused by social injustices, “expresses a situation of sin” (Peace 1). The Church “denounces the unjust lack of the goods of this world and the sin that engenders it” (Poverty in the Church 5).

– (…) The lack of solidarity “provokes in the individual and social field, real sins, whose crystallization appears evident in the unjust structures that characterize the situation in Latin America” (Justice 2).

– Jesus comes “to free all men from all the slavery to which sin subjects them: hunger, misery, oppression and ignorance, in a word, the injustice that has its origin in human selfishness” (Jn 8:32- 34)” (Justice 3). “A sincere conversion will have to change the individualistic mentality into one of social sense and concern for the common good (Poverty in the Church 9c).

– The Church recognizes that it is necessary to change structures, but she emphasizes the conversion of every human being. “We will not have a new continent without new and renewed structures, but, above all, there will be no new continent without new men who, in the light of the Gospel, know how to be truly free and responsible” (Justice 3). Peace, the fruit of justice, simultaneously implies “changes in structure, changes in attitudes, conversion of hearts” (Peace 14b).

42. The Puebla document advances the issue, although with some ambiguous statements. It uses the expression “social sin” and “situation of sin”.

– “Jesus, in an original, unique and incomparable way, demands a radical following that embraces the whole man and all men, involving the whole world and the whole cosmos. This radicality makes conversion a never-ending process, both at the personal and social levels” (DP 193).

– “The luxury of a few becomes an insult to the misery of the great masses. This is contrary to the plan of the Creator and to the honor due to Him. In this anguish and pain, the Church discerns a situation of social sin, the gravity of which is even more serious as it occurs in countries which claim to be Catholic and which have the capacity to change: “that the barriers of exploitation (…) against which its greatest efforts of promotion are” (John Paul II, Allocution Oaxaca 5 AAS LXXI p. 209). (DE 28).

– “The Latin American reality makes us experience bitterly, to the extreme limits, this force of sin which is the flagrant contradiction of God’s plan” (DP 186).

– The realization of the evangelizing service “will always be arduous and dramatic, because sin, the force of rupture, must constantly prevent the growth of love and communion, both from the heart of men and from the different structures created by them, in which the sin of their authors imprinted its destructive mark” (DP 281).

– There are “situations of sin which, on a world level, enslave so many people and negatively condition the freedom of all” (DP 328). Both liberal capitalism and communism are systems “clearly marked by sin” (DP 92).

– There are two complementary and inseparable elements: liberation from all the servitudes of personal and social sin, and liberation from progressive growth in being, through communion with God and with men, which culminates in the perfect communion of heaven (DP 482).

– Sin corrupts the use of power by men and leads to the abuse of the rights of others” (DP 500).

– “Christianity must evangelize the whole of human existence, including the political dimension. For this reason, the Church criticizes those who tend to reduce the space of faith to personal or family life, excluding the professional, economic, social and political order, as if sin, love, prayer and forgiveness were not important there” (DP 515).

– There are (…) profound interrelations between the objectifications of sin in the economic, social, political and ideological-cultural fields (DP 1113). “There are many causes of this situation of injustice, but at the root of all of them is sin, both in its personal aspect and in the structures themselves” (DP 1158).

– “In view of the sinful situation, the Church has the duty to denounce, which must be objective, bold and evangelical; she does not seek to condemn, but to save the guilty and the victim” (DP 1269). A missionary and serving Church “denounces situations of sin, calls to conversion and commits the faithful to the transforming action of the world” (DP 1305).

– The Church in Latin America “has made an effort to call people to a continuous individual and social conversion. She asks that all Christians collaborate in the transformation of unjust structures, communicate Christian values to the global culture in which they are inserted and, aware of the results already obtained, encourage them to continue working for their improvement (DP 16).

43. Let’s see how the themes of Social Sin and conversion appear in the Aparecida Conference. The conference includes the “pastoral conversion” of an “outgoing church. Therefore, the Church needs to change its paradigms and its evangelizing practice.

– “Our pastoral service to the full life of indigenous peoples requires that we proclaim Jesus Christ and the Good News of the Reign of God, denounce situations of sin, structures of death, violence and injustice at home and abroad, and promote intercultural, interreligious and ecumenical dialogue” (DAp 95).

– “With sin, we choose a path of death. For this reason, the proclamation of Jesus always calls to conversion, which makes us participate in the triumph of the Risen One and initiates a path of transformation (DAp 351).

– “Conversion (…) is the initial response of those who listened to the Lord with admiration, believed in Him through the action of the Spirit, decided to be His friends and go after Him, changing their way of thinking and living” (DAp 278).

– We are all “called to assume an attitude of permanent pastoral conversion, which implies listening attentively and discerning” “what the Spirit is saying to the Churches” (Rev 2:29) through the signs of the times in which God is manifesting himself (DAp 366) “The pastoral conversion of our communities requires that we go beyond a mere conservation ministry to a pastoral ministry that is decidedly missionary” (DAp 370).

44. Pope Francis, in Laudato Si, insists on ecological conversion. He does not use the term “ecological sin,” but has expanded the theme of social sin to include the damage we cause to the planet. For there is only one crisis, which is socio-environmental. And it requires “an integral approach to combat poverty, to restore dignity to the excluded and simultaneously to care for nature” (LS 139). Let’s see some quotes.

– “The violence that exists in the human heart, inherited by sin, is also manifested in the symptoms of illness that we notice in the water, in the air, in living beings. Therefore, among the poorest, the most abandoned and mistreated, there is an oppressed and devastated land, which “groans and suffers labor pains” (Rom 8:22) (LS 2).

– “Patriarch Bartholomew (…) has repeatedly expressed himself in a firm and encouraging way, inviting us to reconsider our sins against creation: “That human beings destroy the biological diversity in divine creation; that human beings degrade the integrity of the earth and contribute to climate change, stripping the earth of its natural forests and destroying its wetlands; that human beings pollute the water, the soil, the air. All are sins. Because “a crime against nature is a crime against ourselves and a sin against God” (LS 8).

– “Human existence is based on three relationships that are fundamentally strictly connected: the relationship with God, with one’s neighbor, and with the earth. According to the Bible, the three vital relationships have been broken, not only externally, but also within us. This rupture is sin. (…) The harmony between the Creator, humanity and all of creation was destroyed because we pretended to take the place of God, refusing to recognize ourselves as limited creatures (…) The originally harmonious relationship between human beings and nature has become a conflict (Cf. Gen 3:17-19) (…) Today’s sin is manifested with all its destructive power in wars, various forms of violence and mistreatment, abandonment of the most fragile, attacks on nature (LS 66).

44b. Francis dedicates part of Chapter VI of Laudato Si (Ecological Education and Spirituality) to the theme of ecological conversion. He makes clear how personal attitudes are combined with community actions. And he proposes elements for the cultivation of an ecological spirituality of gratitude, love and care. Briefly:

– “I want to propose to Christians some lines of ecological spirituality that are born from the convictions of our faith. Because what the Gospel teaches us has consequences for our way of thinking, feeling, and living. (…) Spirituality is not disconnected from one’s own body or from nature or the realities of this world, but is lived with and in them, in communion with everything that surrounds us” (LS 216).

– “The ecological crisis is a call to a deep inner conversion. They (many Christians) need an ecological conversion, which implies letting all the consequences of their encounter with Jesus Christ emerge in their relations with the world around them. Living the vocation to be protectors of God’s work is an essential part of a virtuous existence, it does not consist of something optional or a secondary aspect of the Christian experience (LS 217)”.

– A healthy relationship with creation as a dimension of the integral conversion of the person… also implies recognizing one’s own errors, sins, vices or negligence, and repenting from the heart, changing from within” (LS 218).

– “It is not enough that each one be better to resolve such a complex situation (…) Isolated individuals can lose their capacity and their freedom to overcome the logic of instrumental reason and end up at the mercy of a consumerism without ethics and without social and environmental sense. Social problems are responded to with community networks, not with the mere sum of individual goods (…) A gathering of forces and a unity of realization will be required. The ecological conversion required to create a dynamic of lasting change is also a communitarian conversion” (LS 219).

– Ecological conversion presupposes various attitudes which combine to mobilize generous and tender care.

(a) It implies gratitude and gratuity, a recognition of the world as a gift received from the Father’s love, which consequently provokes gratuitous attitudes of renunciation and generous gestures, even though no one sees or recognizes them.

(b) It requires the loving consciousness of forming with the other beings of the universe a precious universal communion. For the believer, the world is contemplated from within, recognizing the bonds with which the Father has united us to all beings.

(c) Ecological conversion leads the believer to develop his creativity and his enthusiasm, in order to resolve the dramas of the world (LS 220).

– Various convictions of our faith help to enrich the meaning of this conversion:

(a) the awareness that every creature reflects something of God and has a message to teach us;

(b) the certainty that Christ has taken on this material world and now, risen, he dwells in the depths of each being, surrounding it with his love and penetrating it with his light;

(c) the recognition that God has created the world by inscribing in it an order and a dynamism that we cannot ignore (LS 221).

45. The entire final document of the Synod for the Amazon is structured around “new forms” and “conversion. An integral conversion (chapter 1), which promotes new pastoral (chapter 2), cultural (chapter 3), ecological (chapter 4) and synodal (chapter 5) paths. We will not deal with these themes here, since they are quite well known.

V. Provisional conclusions

46. The declaration of the Synod for the Amazon, in number 82, gathers in a synthetic and adequate way the theological elements about the ecological sin, as we present in this reflection.

– An action or omission against God, against the neighbor, the community and the environment. Here the emphasis is on the objective and complex aspect. Ecological sin breaks the pact with God, harms people, communities and the environment that surrounds us and of which we are a part. Such sin is effective in visible human actions. But the human being is also part of it when he is silent in the face of socio-environmental injustice or is an accomplice to it.

– A sin against future generations. We are responsible for the continuity of life in our common home, to the fullest extent. Ecology evokes a commitment to the present and the future. Intergenerational solidarity applies not only to the human community, but also to other species of living beings that inhabit our planet.

– He manifests himself in acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment. Ecological sin is expressed in actions that cause negative impacts that accumulate slowly over time (pollution) or have an immediate effect (destruction). It comes from habits and perceptions that are rooted in the deviation of the human heart and is externalized in structures of sin, which break the balance of ecosystems.

– It includes “transgressions against the principles of interdependence and the breaking of networks of solidarity among creatures and against the virtue of justice“. Here, more profound questions related to ecological sin are pointed out. Modern individualism and the globalization of indifference to the pain of the poor and the planet have their human cause in the disordered anthropocentric paradigm. It breaks with basic solidarity among creatures, and puts competition and individual success as supreme values. In the language of the Jewish scriptures, we would say that it is a form of idolatry, a way of abandoning the path of life and following the tracks of death.

47. I have doubts as to whether the concept of “ecological sin” is the most appropriate to encompass the set of situations and structures, attitudes and acts, at the personal, community, institutional, corporate, economic and political levels, against God and our common home. Perhaps it would be better to talk about: “sin against mother earth”, or “sin against integral ecology”, or “socio-environmental sin”. The notion of ecological sin is an extension of the notion of social sin or structural sin, when it incorporates the new paradigm of ecological consciousness.
48. I believe that the main objective of the discourse should be ecological conversion, which requires real reparation of the damage caused against the biosphere and its members: abiotic beings (water, air, soil and energy) and living organisms (microorganisms, plants, animals and human nodes). This simultaneously implies personal and collective attitudes and a new project for society.
49. Each one of us, in different degrees and spheres of existence, participates in the condition of pilgrim on the path of life, which we call holiness, as well as of sin. Therefore, we must “look and pray” (Mt 26:41). In humility, let us examine our attitudes and gestures in the light of Jesus’ mercy and his call to conversion. This conversion means passing from evil to good, as well as from good to greater good. Prayer connects us to the God of Life and strengthens in us the vocation of disciples and missionaries. We act in groups, to defend the environment and communities affected by mining. We promote an ecological spirituality, which implies a struggle for socio-environmental justice, but which is not only one of struggle and confrontation. It includes meditation on the Word of God, the cultivation of inner peace, gratitude towards others and nature, the joy of tasting the little things of daily life, praise and thanksgiving to God, the experience of communion with the soil, water, air, plants, animals and people.
50. Specifically in relation to sin and ecological conversion, in the field of “Churches and Mining” there is much to be developed. I am risking some points:

– Each type of mining has a different negative impact on the environment and surrounding communities. This socio-environmental impact extends and dilutes across the planet, as everything is interconnected.  About the ecological sin, we must talk about a situation of sin, or structural sin, which is the iniquity of the “market society” and the way mining is developed in the context of neo-colonialism.  But we must also show how and where mining impacts water, soil and air; and to what extent it compromises the continuity of life in biomes, plants, animals and humans in the concrete territories. Especially in rural, indigenous, and Afro-descendent communities. It is necessary to avoid too generalized a discourse.

– “Churches and mining” articulates different languages. What ecology calls environmental degradation and human exploitation, in the light of faith we call “ecological sin” or socio-environmental sin. They are two different and complementary ways of understanding the same reality. In our practice, we mix ethical outrage with scientific knowledge and the perspective of faith.

– Most mining projects are located in rural areas, far from the big cities, where the majority of the population is concentrated. So mining becomes a distant thing for most people, who are concerned about urban problems. In addition, mining companies use powerful arguments and effective publicity to hide the negative effects of their exploitation and to overestimate the positive consequences of “progress”. In that sense, the sin lies in the deception and the lie. These perverse mechanisms must be made visible, through denunciation, from the victims, as the biblical prophets did.

– In the confrontation with the mining companies, the communities are subject to many temptations and sometimes they give in to them. Leaders may betray the affected group and accept seductive offers from mining companies. Instead of common interests, they seek immediate benefit, for themselves and their families. Community members are subject to the temptation of discouragement, mistrust, individualism, and division due to membership in different churches and religions. But we believe in the strength of faith in Jesus and in solidarity among ourselves. And we pray insistently: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”.

– In some regions, mining companies are allied with religious leaders, whether Catholic or evangelical. With convincing religious discourse, priests and pastors reinforce guilt, scruples, and encourage disincarnate spiritualism. They promote internal division in the communities. They say that conversion consists in intensifying pious practices. In return, they receive economic benefits from the mining companies. In the light of faith, we denounce these positions as true idolatry, since they manipulate the name of God in favor of iniquity and religious and economic power.

– The various struggles for socio-environmental justice are a communal way of combating ecological sin and promoting conversion. As people become involved in this cause, they develop important values, such as increased caring, resilience, a spirit of cooperation, hope, trust in others, and faith in the God of Life. By achieving victories, however small, they indicate that another way of organizing society is possible. And they celebrate with gratitude those signs of God’s reign among us.

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