We, accomplices of the planet’s disaster

The good that appears as beautiful carries with it the reason why it must be done. This is the first thought that came to my mind after reading this beautiful dialogue between Carlo Petrini, whom I have known and respected for years, a gastronome and activist known throughout the world, and Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit economist whose various contributions I appreciated in Catholic civilization(…).

Why this link? Because reading this text has generated in me a real “taste” of the beautiful and the good, that is, a taste of hope, of authenticity, of the future. What the two authors carry out in this exchange is a sort of “critical narrative” with respect to the global situation: on the one hand they develop a reasoned and stringent analysis of the economic-food model in which we are immersed which, to refer to the famous definition of a writer, “he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”; on the other they offer several constructive examples, established experiences, singular events of care for the common good and the commons that open the reader to a look of good and trust on our time. Criticism of what’s wrong, story of positive situations: one with the other, not one without the other.

I like to point out a significant fact: the fact that in these pages Petrini and Giraud, one a seventy-year-old activist, the other a fifty-year-old economics professor, or two adults, find established reasons for trust and hope in the new generations. Usually we adults complain about young people, indeed we repeat that the “past” times were certainly better, and that those who come after us are squandering our conquests. And instead we must sincerely admit that it is young people who personally embody the change that we all objectively need. They are the ones who are asking us, in various parts of the world, to change. Changing our lifestyle, so predatory towards the environment. (…) And not only are they asking us, they are doing it: going to the streets, demonstrating their disagreement with an economic system that is unfair to the poor and an enemy of the environment. And they are doing it starting from everyday life: they make responsible choices in terms of food, transport and consumption.

Young people are educating us about this! They choose to consume less and experience interpersonal relationships more; (…). For me, seeing that these behaviors are spreading to the point of becoming common practice is a source of consolation and trust. Petrini and Giraud often refer to youth movements that advance the demands of climate justice and social justice: the two aspects must always be kept together.

The two authors indicate operative ways for sustainable economic development and criticize the basic concept of well-being which is the most popular today. The one according to which GDP is an idol to which every aspect of common life must be sacrificed: respect for the environment, respect for rights, respect for human dignity. I was very struck by Gaël Giraud’s reconstruction of the historical way in which GDP established itself as the only parameter for judging the health of a nation’s economy. He says that this happened during the Nazi era and that the point of reference was represented by the arms industry: GDP has a “war” origin, we could say. So much so that for this reason the work of housewives has never been counted: because their commitment does not serve the war. Another proof of how urgent it is to get rid of this economistic perspective, which seems to despise the human side of the economy, sacrificing it on the altar of profit as an absolute yardstick.

The nature of this book is also doubly interesting. First, because it takes place in the form of a dialogue. This is a fact that I believe is important to underline.(…) It is conversation that becomes an opportunity for growth, not fundamentalism that blocks the way to novelty. It is the debate where we mature, not the hermetic certainty that we are always “right”. Even and especially when we talk about the search for truth. Blessed Pierre Claverie, bishop of Oran, martyr, affirmed: “One does not possess the truth, and I need the truth of others”. Allow me to add: the Christian knows that he does not conquer the truth, but if anything, he is the one who is “conquered” by the Truth, which is Christ himself. This is why I strongly believe that the practice of dialogue, confrontation and encounter is today the most urgent thing to teach the new generations, starting from children, in order not to favor the construction of double-locked personalities in the narrowness of one’s convictions.

Secondly, the two interlocutors – wisely stimulated by the editor – represent different points of view and cultural origins: Petrini, who defines himself as an agnostic and with whom I have already had the joy of conversing for another text; Giraud, a Jesuit. But this objective fact does not prevent them from carrying on a constructive conversation that becomes the manifesto of a plausible future for our society and our planet itself, so threatened by the harmful consequences of a destructive, colonialist and dominating approach to creation. A believer and an agnostic talk and meet on various aspects that our society must make its own so that the future of the world is still possible: it seems to me something beautiful! And it is even more so because, in comparison, the conviction of the decisive importance of the single word of Jesus clearly emerges, reported by the Acts of the Apostles, not present in the Gospels: “There is more joy in giving than in receiving”. Yes, because when the two interlocutors find the evil of contemporaneity in consumption driven to excess and waste elevated to a system, and identify in altruism and fraternity the true conditions for living together to be lasting and peaceful, they prove that the prospect of Jesus is fruitful and place of life for all men and women. For those who have a horizon of faith and for those who don’t. Human fraternity and social friendship, anthropological dimensions to which I dedicated my last encyclical Brothers allmust increasingly become the concrete basis of our relationships, at a personal, community and political level.

The horizon of concern on which Petrini and Giraud focus their attention is the critical environmental situation in which we find ourselves, the daughter of that “economy that kills” and which has caused the suffering cry of the Earth and the anguished and anguished cry of the poor of the world. Faced with the news that reaches us – drought, environmental disasters, forced migrations due to the climate – we cannot remain indifferent: we would be accomplices in the destruction of the beauty that God wanted to give us in the creation that surrounds us. Especially since in this way that “very good” gift that the Creator forged with water and dust, man and woman, perishes. Let’s face it: the reckless economic development to which we have bowed is causing climate imbalances that are weighing on the shoulders of the poorest, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. How can we close the doors to those who flee, and will flee, from unsustainable environmental situations, direct consequences of our immoderate consumerism?

I believe this book is a precious gift, because it shows us a path and the concrete possibility of following it, at an individual, community and institutional level: the ecological transition can represent an area in which everyone, as brothers and sisters, takes care of the home common, betting on the fact that by consuming less and having more personal relationships we will cross the door of our happiness.Vatican City, 11 April 2023