Day 26 Lenten Reflection

“A friend recently asked me what our ecological crisis has got to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. … In his paragraph on Mary Queen of All Creation, Pope Francis uses the phrase the crucified poor (Laudato Si’, 241). He is addressing the desperate state of certain people around our world who are ignored, excluded and considered disposable. Many of these people live in sacrifice zones. Places where toxic pollution causes cancer, heart disease and respiratory illness. Communities living in these damaged areas are systematically excluded from decision-making and their dignity and human rights are continuously trampled on. People are ‘crucified’ in the industrial-extractive processes of these places. Soils, vegetation, animal life and air are also cashed up and put to death. The sickness of physical sites and people are the inter-connected end result of sacrifice zones.

The Body of Christ is put to death over and again in these desperate places. When the human community entitles itself and exercises power and control over innocent people and places, the Body of Christ suffers condemnation and death. The short answer to the question about ecology and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ would seem to be; Jesus has never stopped being condemned and put to death in the poor of Earth and in Earth herself. The new life of resurrection much longed for in sacrifice zones, rarely appears.”

(~ Peter Healy, SM, Entitlement, Sacrifice Zones and Bright Green Lies, January 30, 2023))