Integral Ecology and Theologies of Solidarity Course Registration

The climate crisis is an unavoidable pastoral concern in the church today. As the effects of anthropogenic climate change continue to increase in the coming years, increasingly the pastoral work of the ‘cure of souls’ is directly impacted by the intersecting crises of the climate crisis. This class will proceed in two parts. In the first half, students will be introduced to scholarship around the root causes of our current crisis with special attention given to the ideologies of alienation, that constitute the structure of this crisis. This will include a critical investigation of ideologies of race, colonialism, patriarchy, scientism, and property and their intersections with Christian theology. In the second part of the course, building on the idea of “integral ecology” as presented by Pope Francis in his landmark encyclical Laudato Si’, students will be introduced to practices and movements of solidarity building to connect them to ideas, resources, and networks of resistance and resilience to inform their pastoral practice.