Papists and Pagans: The Historical and Theological Roots of Catholic Eco-Ethical Debate 35 views

In the years since the publication of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home, several initiatives have been organized within the Catholic Church to enact and expand upon the ecotheological content of the encyclical. One such event was the 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon Region, a meeting which produced several working documents that built on Francis' vision for an "Integral Ecology" while addressing pastoral particularities of the Amazon region. Shortly thereafter, various forces within the Church condemned these documents as heretical by virtue of their supposed "pagan" and "pantheist" content. This accusation directs attention to an emergent debate within the modern Church that merits investigation. While some factions of the global Catholic community seem ready to embrace a moral vision which accounts for the non-human, the ecosystemic, and the culturally particular, another element of the Church feels doctrinally justified in their condemnation of such theologies as functionally pagan or pantheistic. This dissertation works to tackle this conceptual tension by exploring under-examined moments in the formation of Catholic cultural identity, tracing developing notions of paganism from early scriptural depictions of nature worship, to the promulgation of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” to the emergence of modern Catholic ecotheology. Based on my reading of this intellectual history, I contend that contemporary arguments against progressive moral ecotheologies are grounded in a longstanding fear of philosophical, liturgical, and aesthetic proximity to the pagan "other," reflecting a desire to define Christian civilization over and against an imagined non-Christian indigeneity. Working to illuminate a rich tradition of eco-conscious spiritual thought and liturgical practice within Church history, I argue for a reconsideration of defunct Catholic imaginaries of "the pagan" and for the institutional embrace of more capacious moral ecotheologies.

PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)

Ecotheology; Catholic Church History; Paganism; Catholic Moral Theology

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-01