Toward a Human Ecology Person Life Nature

The theme of the Winter, 2011 issue of Communio is: “Toward a Human Ecology: Person, Life, Nature.” In his encyclical letter Caritas in veritate , and in subsequent writings, Pope Benedict XVI has called for the development of a “human ecology” grounded in the idea of creation as gift.. . .

“The body is . . . an anamnetic expression of good as form or, we could also say, of beauty, disclosing the vocation of human nature itself.”

"What is needed . . . is a 'catholic' ecology . . . : the recognition of a common desire for beauty and meaning, . . . and the apprehension that the participation of others is necessary for a common good that is deeper that the co-incidence of our private goods or our ideology."

"The rhapsodic drama awakens both individual and social conscience. It offers an invitation to participate in communion with a beloved as seen in and through one's solitary relationship with the Infinite."

"God, in the very act of communicating himself, produces matter as the receiver of his gift and, at the same time, lets matter originally co-produce the gift it receives."

"Only an analogy of nature that has room for the inanimate character of matter will be able to accommodate the abiding finitude of the human being."

"The science of the Cross involves the subject to the point of its own annihilation and abandonment into the meaning of being. The paradox is that this abandonment represents a foundation for knowledge."

"We can give a meaningful answer to the questions raised only if we . . . are able to express the logic of the Faith in its integrity, the good sense and reasonableness of its view of reality and life."