Volume 15, Issue 4, Winter 2015
Cory Andrew Labrecque
Pages 665-671
Catholic Bioethics in the Anthropocene
Integrating Ecology, Religion, and Human Health
Pope Francis’s encyclical on ecology addresses the deep and abiding problems of atomism, exploitation, and prodigality that distort the God–human-nature relationship. The invitation to think and act in more integrated and integrating ways—already put forward in Evangelii gaudium—thwarts our becoming “nomads without roots” and binds ostensibly disparate voices in a solidarity that is truly global in its reach. The resolve for such a change in worldview and agency is reminiscent of Van Rensselaer Potter’s original conceptualization of bioethics as a field of study and application that would bridge the disciplines.