By Suzana Moreira, Eco-Conversion Programs Manager
From July 10 to 25 in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, took place the ecumenical and interreligious course on “Ecojustice: Ecumenical commitment to overcome social inequality and climate emergency” organized by the Ecumenical Center for Services to Evangelization and Popular Education in Brazil (CESEEP) in collaboration with the Lutheran Gender and Religion Program of Colleges EST.
This course happens every year using critical pedagogy methodologies, mostly inspired by the teachings of Paulo Freire, known in Brazil and Latin America as educação popular (educación popular). I had the opportunity to participate as part of the collegiate coordination, along with Priscilla dos Reis Ribeiro (member of Sementes da Democracia), Loyet García (coordinator of the Martin Luther King Center in Cuba), and Angélica Tostes (ecumenism coordinator in CESEEP), all three of them references in the interfaith struggles for justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Opening celebration for the beginning of the course, sharing soil as part of the mystic, and eating corn with honey celebrating the wisdom of Guarani Mbya Indigenous people.
Nineteen people from Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, and Costa Rica came together to live those immersive 15 days reflecting and sharing about ecojustice in the light of four dimensions: environmental racism, eco-spirituality, the Indigenous wisdom of buen vivir (also known as sumak kawsay), and ecumenism. The program was packed with field trips to visit territories and churches with different perspectives and experiences on ecojustice, as well as moments of mysticism and spirituality grounded on the earth, music, dance, formation conversations, reflections, group discussions, performing the household chores, and sharing meals as a community.
There were also hybrid sessions with more than 20 people from Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. One of those sessions was with the world-renowned ecofeminist theologian and philosopher, Ivone Gebara. Another one of those sessions was with the rising decolonial ecotheologian, Josias Vieira. The knowledge exchanges were deep, helping us recognize in ourselves and our societies the different aspects shaped by the structures of injustice towards the Earth and the whole Earth community.
In-person and online participants with Ivone Gebara for the hybrid session on ecumenism, ecojustice, and ecofeminism.
I was delighted to witness that amongst such a diverse group of people, a few were Laudato Si’ Animators, and my colleague Ana Belén Ortega was also able to participate in person. It’s hard to put into words how transformative the experiences of educação popular can be. You must live and experience it in communion with others to be able to then reproduce the methodologies yourself and teach others as well. Therefore, I’m really glad that these members of LSM were able to live it with me so they can bear the fruits of it in their contexts. I share some reflections here as fruits of this community experience.
Movie screening of The Letter and sharing about Season of Creation as a way to take concrete steps to act and celebrate creation.
To talk about ecojustice and its practical implications, we must look at the root cause of injustices. As we read in Laudato Si’, “It would hardly be helpful to describe symptoms without acknowledging the human origins of the ecological crisis.” (LS 101). When we consider the implications of sin and its fruit of rupture from the interconnectedness of life, what may still be hard to understand is how to overcome a dualist binary type of thinking. Instead of recognizing the diverse dimensions of human existence, we tend to think everything is either black or white, left or right, soul or body, heaven or earth. In that same way, if we criticize capitalism, people automatically think we are communists. Why would we assume that the only possibility apart from capitalism is communism? How come we don’t recognize the wide range of other political and socioeconomic ways of organizing human communities, something especially evident in the lives of original peoples? As the Brazilian bishop Helder Camara used to say: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Visit to a multiethnic Indigenous territory in Guarulhos, being welcomed by Jaciara, Francisco, and Simone of the Pankararu Indigenous people.
In the words of Pope Francis: “In the meantime, economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment. Here we see how environmental deterioration and human and ethical degradation are closely linked. Many people will deny doing anything wrong because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is. As a result, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.” (Laudato Si’ 56)
There’s a limit to what we can do for the care of our common home if we don’t try to overcome the system that causes all the structures of social and environmental injustice in the world we live in. As the Brazilian environmentalist, Chico Mendes, used to say: “Ecology without class struggle is gardening”. Or as Pope Francis puts it: “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.” (Laudato Si’ 139).
Visit to the Agroecology School of Parelheiros, an initiative by the Outdoors University for the Environment and Culture of Peace (UMAPAZ), learning through hands-on experiences about several different agroecology practices and methods.
We must also continuously exercise our patience and acknowledgment that these structures of injustice won’t change overnight. And that is ok. As I often repeat to close friends, I’m not working to save the world, nobody can do that. I’m working to bring more justice to this time I’m living in, and I hope others work towards that as well. Plus, spoiler alert, Jesus has already saved the whole cosmos. You may ask then why do we still see so much injustice and sin? If God’s love were an obligation imposed on humanity, it would not be free and fruitful. Within that opportunity of humans being free to choose love is where lies our shortfalling. We deem ourselves as gods and think we know what’s best, choosing selfish ways of living instead.
Where does our hope lie then? How can we work towards ecojustice? We may not see the whole grown plants, but we can definitely plant the seeds that bring the firstfruits of hope. Every time we choose love is a microrevolution. Every human relationship established for the care of creation is a microrevolution. Every small change in our lifestyle stepping away from consumerism is a microrevolution. Every second we spend in communion with creation is a microrevolution. Like a beehive, each small amount of pollen and nectar collected by each bee is what creates the possibility of strong and juicy honey. Go and smell the flowers, collect that pollen, cultivate that nectar within you so you can help bring about the honey of ecojustice in this beehive we call home.
Visit to the Episcopal Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in São Paulo, where after celebrating the Sunday service, participants had a round discussion with Reverend Stephen Dass, his wife Mary Dass, theologian Wallace Góis, and seminarian Guilherme Bejo, about ecojustice, ecotheology and sustainable practices from the Anglican perspective.
Visit to the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral of Antioch in São Paulo, where participants heard Father Dimitrios Attarian sharing about the Orthodox perspective on creation, and later were invited to watch the Sunday service.
The course became for me a grounding experience that has renewed my conviction of commitment to the mission of LSM, to give fruits to Laudato Si’, to care for our common home. Being immersed in the process of organizing and planning Season of Creation at the global level, it moves me to witness the Holy Spirit at work making all of us hands and feet of Christ to bring the firtsfruits of hope to all of creation. May this year be the most historical Season of Creation yet!
P.S. For those interested in learning more about the experience in this course, you can find here the commitment letter developed by the participants in Portuguese and Spanish. You can also find the recordings of the hybrid sessions here.