Healing a Broken World - Society of Jesus

Healing a Broken World
4. UNDERSTANDING OUR JESUIT MISSION IN THE
CONTEXT OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
31] In this section we examine various aspects of the relationship between
our Jesuit mission and the call to be reconciled with creation. At the last
three General Congregations our Jesuit mission was defined as ―the service
of faith and the promotion of justice‖ indissolubly united. It was also stated
that ―dialogue with persons who differ from us in culture and religion… is
integral to our service of Christ‘s mission.‖ 37
32] We begin by reviewing the development of ecological concern in the
Society over the last 20 years. Within this historical context we examine, first,
the relationship between the call to reconciliation with creation on the one
hand, and our mission‘s faith-dimension on the other. We then move to the
relationship between the promotion of justice and the ecological crisis, and
conclude by illuminating, in the context of the dialogue with different
cultures and religions, some aspects of our new relationships with creation.
4.1 Care for creation: the development of a new
dimension in Jesuit mission
The period from 1993 to 2008
33] Concern about ecology has been growing in the Society for the past 15
years. In response to GC 34 Decree 20, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach directed
the Social Justice Secretariat to prepare the document We Live in a Broken
World: Reflections on Ecology. 38 In the introduction to the document, Fr.
Kolvenbach acknowledges that GC 33 (1984) was the first one to give
―authoritative expression‖ to the Society‘s environmental concern. 39 In 1993-
94 certain Provincial Congregations passed postulates on ecology, which GC
34 took up but could not treat in depth. 40
34] The document commissioned by Fr Kolvenbach was an invitation to
continue the exchange, deepen the collaboration, and appeal to an ecological
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