Implementing an ecoculture: living beyond fear

Abstract

In light of Pope Francis' Encyclical Laudato Si' I will defend the necessity and urgency of implementing an ecoculture in such a way that it is possible to live the present and look to the future beyond the fear of destruction. The happy dream for the human family, as described in Laudato Si', will mean breaking free from the chains of the paradigm of fear, where having takes precedence over being and, consequently, leads to the agony of the whole Creation in a spiral of survival, where the fullness of life has no place. Ecoculture will make possible a sobriety that is able, without despair or fatalism, to develop an action of compassion for Creation - a compassion in which the human being understands himself as an integral part of Creation, suffering with it whenever destruction is victorious. In an ecoculture, human beings reassume their original role in Creation, abandoning all ambitions and attempts at superiority, but rather seeking the common good of Creation, in which technical progress, policies, and social relations are allies in safeguarding the common home and never sacrificers of integral ecology.