Spring 2016 stories

I Am Climate Change. I Am the Cause. I Am the Solution.

by Carolyn Woo, President and CEO, Catholic Relief Services

“We are all in the same universe, in the same ecosystem. We are all joined. We with each other and we with creation. Pope Francis has emphasized that human life is based on three foundational relationships: our relationship with God, our relationship with each other, and our relationship to creation...”

—Carolyn Woo

Is There a Common Good? Exploring the Politics of Inequality

by Matthew Carnes, S.J., Associate Professor, Department of Government, Georgetown University

“The challenge of our age is a growing inequality and the challenge of our age is achieving a common good in the midst of this inequality...Worldwide, we still have the dismaying number, 700 million people, who live below that World Bank poverty standard and well over 2 billion people who live below $3.25 a day...Growth has lifted many boats, but the rise has been highly uneven. So while some very low-income individuals have been lifted marginally out of poverty, most of the gains in growth in recent years have accrued to a small set of elites. And this trend has been particularly apparent in the developed countries.”

—Matthew Carnes, S.J.

The Pope, the Poor, and the Planet: Overcoming Insularity in an Integral Ecology

by Jose Ramon “Jett” Villarin, S.J., President, Ateneo de Manila University, Phillipines

“An ecology that is integral recognizes the complex yet real connections among the environment, society (its politics, economy, and culture), and the human person. The ecological crisis is itself caused by frayed connections among these elements. An integral ecology treats environmental problems as social problems, and social problems as environmental ones as well. Solutions are therefore effective only insofar as they are grown from nature and the culture of those affected.”

—Jett Villarin, S.J.

Photo Credit:
Carolyn Woo - Jocelyn Hung
Fr. Matt Carnes - Paige Mueller
Fr. Jett - Joanne Lee