Ron Gauthier recently retired from corporate life after roughly 50 years in the agribusiness field. Born and raised in Montreal, his career took him to the Greater Toronto area in 1984. He graduated with a Bachelor in Agricultural Sciences and Diploma in Management from McGill University. Before the pandemic, he enrolled part-time in a Master of Theological Studies degree at Regis College, with focus on eco-theology and Ignatian spirituality. Ron is a 4th-degree Knight of Columbus, an RCIA Leader at Mary Mother of God Parish, Oakville; a STIR (Spiritual Transformation in Recovery) Toronto Retreat Coordinator; and a member of the Board of Governors of Catholic Mission of Canada. Ron is happily married to his sweetheart of 37 years, Chantal, with three great sons, two beautiful daughters-in-law, three grandchildren and one more little angel on the way.
It will be one year soon since I retired from the corporate world after a fun career for roughly 50 years in the agribusiness field. Just before the pandemic years I enrolled part time in a Master of Theological Studies degree at Regis College, with a strong interest in eco-theology. It is with passion that I find myself studying and researching that topic with courses from the Elliott Allen Institute of Theology and Ecology (EAITE), as well as also from other colleges. It has become an ongoing spiritual meditation on the environment combined with my Ignatian spirituality courses.
I am a cradle and still practising Christian and Catholic. I have always had a thirst for natural sciences and I graduated in Agricultural Sciences with a strong interest for the environment and climate change and its impact on populations and humankind. I often find myself worrying about the environmental legacy we will leave to our children, grandchildren, and future generations.
I find it a perfect fit for me now to study and research eco-theology, given my spiritual and corporate background and my environmental interests through the years. I have often been asked questions such as: “Eco-theology…What is that?” “There’s such a thing?” “There is a relation between ecology and spirituality?”, which allows me to have interesting discussions with people from various backgrounds.
After reflection, the best and quickest simple way for me to answer those questions is that God created the universe, nature and humankind. All three are interconnected and came from the same Creator. Thus, the start and meaning of eco-theology. Or eco-spirituality if you prefer. Nature (the environment) is God’s gift to humankind.
When we receive a precious gift, we are to cherish that gift and value it. Unfortunately, that gift of creation has been neglected with the advent of the industrial revolution marking a major turning point in earth’s ecology and humans’ relationship with their environment.
It is important to realize that significant scientific discoveries, modernity, and industrialization just recently happened this last century compared to Mother Earth’s long history. And relatively overnight, it dramatically changed every aspect of human life and lifestyles. Significant industrial growth with an increasing world population caused problems and tensions between the very rich and the poorest people within society and it continues to do so all over the world, because of environmental indifference and degradation. We cannot be indifferent to the problems caused by environmental challenges and climate changes. And in those concerned regions with environmental and climate change challenges, those affected the most are women, the marginalized and the poor
Economic growth is necessary and has always been important. It allows better living conditions. New technologies are crucial to allow improvement in providing better health, a comfortable place to live, access to education, better nutrition, social connections, a healthy environment, and happiness. But “greedy capitalism” has quite often created a growth at any cost and to the detriment of the environment and the poorer people. Examples are endless. Of course I have nothing against modernity, growth, and better living conditions, but I often wonder, if we could press “the rewind button” since the start of the industrial world, how different things would be if we would have been, at the same time, eco-conscious, and we had properly, responsibly, and ecologically exploited our natural resources. Am I being a bit naïve by thinking so?
For me, if we could remember one thing from the Bible it’s the great commandment of loving God and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. How can you remain indifferent to growing environmental challenges associated with climate change that affect people (our neighbors) around the world? Consider forest fires and what is presently happening in front of our eyes in Jasper, Alberta (a natural beauty), desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and their impact, the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions, the pollution of rivers and aquifers.
Striking is the news story of the Seine River at the Paris Summer Olympics, with the contrast between the health and fitness of those Olympians and the poor health condition of this urban river. I have a problem with that picture. A result of industrialization and increase in population in urban cities, not dissimilar from the fates of many urban rivers around the world. How difficult now to bring a river back to life in the modern warming world, even after spending a billion dollars.
Pope Francis, in his now-famous 2015 environmental encyclical, Laudato si’ (Praise Be to You, which I invite everyone to read) came up with the term “integral ecology,” a concept that recognizes the interdependence and interconnectedness between humans and the natural world. The Pope says: “a true ecological approach becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”
We hear about climate deniers. I do not believe there are such people. They do believe that there are environmental challenges responsible for ongoing climate change, but they are not willing to come out of their comfort zone and make sacrifices for the benefit of the earth and the poor. It would be too costly for them to do so. Facing what appears to be a “one minute to twelve” situation, it is urgent that we do an examination of conscience, as pilgrims on this earth, especially those of us living in a comfortable modern world. In Laudato si’, Pope Francis calls for an ecological conversion by responding to the cry of the earth and at the same time to the cry of the poor affected by wrong natural resources exploitation and by climate change.
Read other InsightOut posts.