My echo to Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti

In July and August attended a course organized by the Laudato Si’ Movement in order to become a “certified” Laudato Si’ “animator”. Here are my thoughts after the first two meetings.

  • The earth and the poor cries out to us. We know that we should change something, but we don’t do it. The question is why. I perceive a series of answers. I summarized them for you because they are my combined answer to Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti.

  • Pure capitalism means that we let greedy spirits rule this world. That’s against our vocation. God wants us, the humans, to rule the world. (Genesis)

    We are Moses feeling that somebody must tell the Pharaoh to let the people go. We are David hearing Goliath insult our people.

  • Communism is an old fundamental answer to capitalism. Acts 2,44-45 describes the communistic economy of the first disciples.

    But a purely communistic society cannot work sustainably. Pure communism tries to remove the “weed” of greediness from our hearts. And that’s not possible because it deprives a civilization of its motor. (Parable of the Weeds)

    Greediness is not evil as such. Love your enemies. Greediness includes every human’s desire to achieve something and to get rewarded for their efforts. Greediness and the human right to own property are inseparable.

  • Reconcile. Yes, we need to identify and name our enemies. One of the reasons for Greta Thunberg’s popularity is that she managed to identify a group of culprits. Watching a little girl stand up in front of mighty adults is both fascinating and entertaining.

    But neither “the politicians” nor “the extremely rich ones” are guilty.

    “We all are human beings and as such we all want the same basic five things in our lives: We all want to be loved. We all want to be respected. We all want to be heard. We all want to be treated fairly. And we all want the same things for our family as anybody else wants for their family.” (The basic five things we all want)

    So rather than asking “Who is guilty?”, we should ask “What’s wrong in the system?”

  • Repent. It is not enough to live CO2 neutrally by yourself. It can be a sign of hope for others, but it is not enough. We need some fundamental changes in our international law systems.

    We need to challenge “structures of sin” and call for “radical change” (LS 171)

  • I have a series of utopical ideas: Force private corporations to convert into public foundations when they reach a certain size and investors have had enough profit. Abolish the concept of “intellectual property”. Review land ownership laws. We need a world-wide public organization to share natural resources among all universal basic income.

    Most of my friends say that my plan seems crazy and unrealistic. But imagine Mary saying to the angel “Sorry, your plan is too crazy”. This was an introduction to How to save the world.