La conservazione della nostra casa planetaria: il “sabato” come paradigma appropriato per la sostenibilità totale
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/6175
Nel contesto della crisi ecologica contemporanea, abbiamo bisogno di una comprensione più completa della sostenibilità, intrecciando le dimensioni cosmica, umana e divina del reale. Il cammino verso la conservazione della nostra casa planetaria tramite la sostenibilità totale richiede che ritroviamo, prima di tutto, un profondo senso di armonia con il resto del creato. In secondo luogo, sarebbe necessario riscoprire un vero senso di solidarietà con gli altri esseri umani, soprattutto i poveri e i deboli. Infine, in ultima analisi, la vera sostenibilità può essere fondata solo sulla pace con il Creatore, il fondamento ultimo del nostro essere, che tiene insieme tutte le cose e le sostiene nel suo amore infinito. Una tale prospettiva olistica della sostenibilità è essenziale se vogliamo riuscire a conservare la nostra casa planetaria per noi stessi e per le generazioni future.L’autore conclude presentando l’istituto biblico del “sabato” come paradigma adeguato per una comprensione olistica della sostenibilità.
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Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
Sabbath
Conservation of Our Planetary Home. The “Sabbath” as an appropriate paradigm for total sustainability
Text.Serial.Journal
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Articles
2015-12-30
2016-05-30
2015-12-30
2017-09-04
165-190
CSCH
Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam
2015/12/30
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/6175
165
Salesian Pontifical University
1973-9494
Sabbath
en
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BOOKLESS D., Planet Wise: Dare to Care for God’s World, Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham.
Conservation of Our Planetary Home. The “Sabbath” as an appropriate paradigm for total sustainability
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15
    It is common knowledge that the concept of sustainability involves aspects relating
to the environment, the economy, society and food.
    It is also undeniable that sustainability should be considered a process or state that
can be maintained indefinitely at a certain level, in other words, in equilibrium between
satisfying the needs of the present and future generations, consequently, without jeop-
ardizing the latter in any way.
    According to these assumptions, and in the context of sustainable development, it
is essential to respect the environment around us, so that the human footprint is able
to avoid exceeding the regenerative and receptive capacity of natural systems as un-
derlined by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
    On the other hand, to overcome the dichotomy between the economic and the
socio-cultural sphere, especially in the current international crisis of values, what is
needed is a sense of sustainability that comes from within.
    This refers to the single action of the person who, individually and in compliance
with ethical principles in defense of these values, behaves not only on the basis of
sobriety and equilibrium, but also on the basis of their own moral and religious identity.
    In relation to these considerations, the work of Prof.J.I. Kureethadam is of particular
interest being filled with ethical and fideistic principles in harmony with individual be-
haviour, since they produce no adverse effects on others or on the environment as a
whole, but reach out and give succor to those in need of material and spiritual support.

                                                                           Editor-in-Chief
C    ONSERVATION OF OUR PLANETARY HOME

The “Sabbath” as an appropriate paradigm for total su-
stainability


   Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam*
   Faculty of Philosophy, Salesian Pontifical University, Rome, Italy

   Keywords: ecological crisis, creation, sustainability, solidarity, Sabbath



   Introduction

   The contemporary ecological crisis points to the precarious situation of Earth, our
common planetary home. The crisis is about our very home! Life, human life, civiliza-
tion, religion, philosophy, art, music, literature, science and technology, and a thousand
other artefacts of human culture have been possible because there is the common
home of the Earth in which to dwell, and not vice versa. Without our common home,
we cannot exist and flourish. Earth can exist without modern humans, as it has done
for over 99.9% of its history, but not we without the Earth. The conservation of our plan-
etary home is thus vitally important for the survival of humanity and for the flourishing
of human culture.
   In this paper, we shall argue that the conservation of our common planetary home




                                                                                                   CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
requires a holistic understanding of sustainability. In the 1970s and 80s, as evidenced
by landmark publications like The Limits to Growth1 commissioned by the Club of
Rome and the Brundtland Commission’s Report: Our Common Future2, the emphasis
was largely on physical sustainability. In the last couple of decades, there has been
much talk about societal sustainability,3 as the link between the degradation of our
common planetary home and the unjust social structures that keep millions of the
members of our common household shackled to poverty and misery has become con-
spicuously evident. In this crucial moment of human and geological history, it is evident
that we need to take the sustainability revolution even further. We need today an even
more comprehensive understanding of sustainability, weaving together the cosmic,
the human, and the divine dimensions of the real, if we are to succeed in conserving
our planetary home for ourselves and for future generations. The three pillars of total
sustainability are therefore harmony with creation, human solidarity, and peace with
the Creator. We will conclude by presenting the biblical institution of ‘Sabbath’ as an
appropriate paradigm of such a holistic understanding of sustainability and draw some
practical implications in this regard.




* Corresponding author: joshtrom@unisal.it


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                                                           1. Harmony with Creation

                                                            The word sustainability is etymologically derived from the Latin word sustinere4 which
                                                        means to hold up, keep, support, endure, etc. Earth, our planet, gradually became a
                                                        home capable of ‘sustaining’ multiple forms of life, including humanity, in a stupendous
                                                        cosmic process stretching into billions of years. It appears that the unique capacity of
                                                        Earth to be a home that sustains and nurtures life is increasingly imperilled today. We
                                                        shall cite three authoritative warnings from the scientific community in this regard.
                                                            The first is the study of “planetary boundaries” carried out by a group of scholars
                                                        associated with the Stockholm Resilience Centre, among them prominent Earth scien-
                                                        tists like the Nobel laureates for chemistry Paul Crutzen and James Hansen of NASA.
                                                        In this paper that appeared first in the September 2009 issue of Nature,5 the authors
                                                        identified planetary boundaries in nine key areas: climate change, rate of biodiversity
                                                        loss, interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, stratospheric ozone deple-
                                                        tion, ocean acidification, global freshwater use, change in land use, chemical pollution,
                                                        and atmospheric aerosol loading. The 2009 study showed that with regard to the areas
                                                        of climate change, rate of biodiversity loss and biogeochemical cycles, humanity has
                                                        already transgressed the limits. A 2015 update of the study published in Science6 has
                                                        shown that we have now transgressed a fourth area, namely, land system change.
                                                        Climate change and biosphere integrity are what the scientists call “core boundaries”
                                                        which we transgress at our own peril as they can drive the Earth System into unprec-
                                                        edented states.
                                                            A second authoritative indicator from the scientific community about the alarming
                                                        state of our common home concerns the consumption of natural resources. A yardstick
                                                        that is being increasingly used to measure human impact on the planet is that of the
                                                        Ecological Footprint Analysis.7 While economies, populations and resource demands
                                                        grow, the size of the planet remains the same. So there is a natural limit to the re-
S. Kureethadam - Conservation of our planetary home




                                                        sources that Earth can provide and the waste it can absorb each year. The problem is
                                                        precisely that human demands on planet’s services are exceeding what it can provide.
                                                        Till very recently, humanity’s use of nature’s services was within the means of what
                                                        nature could regenerate. But, sometime in the mid-1970s, humanity appears to have
                                                        crossed the critical threshold. Overall, humanity’s Ecological Footprint has doubled
                                                        since 1966. According to the Global Footprint Network, the Ecological Debt Day, also
                                                        known as the Overshoot Day, in 2014 fell on 19th August. By this day, just in eight
                                                        months, humanity had used up all the resources nature could provide for the current
                                                        year. Globally, human beings now demand the biological capacity of nearly 1.5 planets,
                                                        i.e., the rate of overshoot is up to 50 percent more than what the planet can renewably
                                                        supply.8 It is calculated that we are on track to require the resources of two planets well
                                                        before mid-century. We are using up more than what the common habitat that sustains
                                                        us can provide. We are living beyond our means. It is a totally unsustainable situation
                                                        which cannot continue indefinitely.
                                                            The most authoritative pronouncements to date regarding the sustainability threat
                                                        facing our planetary home have been made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
                                                        mate Change (IPCC) – a co-recipient of the Nobel prize for peace for 2007 – which
                                                        draws on the work of nearly 2,500 scientists from 130 nations. According to the 2014
                                                        Fifth Assessment Report from the IPCC, global temperatures are likely to rise by 0.3C
                                                        to 4.8°C, by the end of the century depending on possible carbon emission scenarios.9
                                                        It may also be recalled that the 2007 IPCC report had warned that up to 30 per cent of


                                                  166
plant and animal species so far assessed are likely to be at increased risk of extinction
if increases in global average temperatures exceed 1.5-2.5°C.10 Climate change is the
defining issue of our time, which some have described as the world’s greatest chal-
lenge and our greatest collective threat to civilisation.11
    Humanity lives in a profoundly disharmonious relationship with the very womb of
life that sustains it along with other species. All human activities and subsystems like
economy are entirely dependent upon and constrained by the geophysical limits of
our finite home planet. We will need to rediscover harmony with the rest of creation, of
which we are an integral part, if we are to survive and flourish in our common planetary
home.


   2. Human solidarity

    We have not only rendered our common physical planetary home unsustainable.
The common household of our human family, also, finds itself in a totally unsustain-
able situation. It is true that humanity has made remarkable strides in the last few
centuries. “We are the inheritors of two centuries of remarkable waves of technological
change: steam power, railroads, the telegraph, electrification, automotive transport,
aviation, industrial chemistry, modern medicine, computing, and now the digital revolu-
tion, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies.”12 However, our globalized world is more
divided and unequal than ever. Globalization along with its “economy of exclusion”
(Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium) has left hundreds of millions of people behind: 1.2
billion lack access to electricity, 870 million are malnourished, and at least 748 million
are without access to clean, safe drinking water.13
    The world economy grew twentyfold in the last century alone.14 But economic growth
has not benefited everyone in society equally. Significant inequalities remain and many
of the most vulnerable groups in society have been left behind. According to the re-




                                                                                                   CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
cent Oxfam Report published on the occasion of the 2015 Davos World Economic
Forum, the gap between rich and poor is alarmingly widening all over the world.15 In
2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries where economic inequality was worse
than 30 years ago, and in 2014 just 80 people owned as much wealth as the poorest
half of humanity (in 2010 it took 388 billionaires to equal the wealth of the bottom half
of the world’s population).16 According to the Report, the share of the world’s wealth
owned by the best-off 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014, while the least
well-off 80% currently own just 5.5%. It is predicted that by 2016, the top 1% will have
more than 50% of total global wealth.17 Inequality entrenches wealth and power in the
hands of a few, creating structures that represent the interests of the elite minority at
the expense of the majority of society. Ultimately, growing economic inequality denies
people their dignity and their voice, which deepens social frustration and the likelihood
of conflict.
    The economic apartheid that is being erected around the world is also an eco-
logical one. It is evident in the divide between the rich and the poor when it comes to
the ‘ecological footprint’ of nations and individuals. There exist huge disparities in the
consumption of natural resources across the globe which are conspicuously evident
in the scandalous differences in the ecological footprint of individuals and communi-
ties. As the noted American scientist Jared Diamond has noted “the average rates at
which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics


                                                                                             167
                                                        and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe,
                                                        Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world.”18 According to Diamond,
                                                        the estimated one billion rich people who live in developed countries have a relative
                                                        per capita consumption rate of 32 while the rest of world’s population have per capita
                                                        consumption rates below 32, mostly down towards 1. We may cite from the 2012 Living
                                                        Planet Report some examples of the discrepancy in the ecological footprint of citizens
                                                        around the globe.

                                                               If all of humanity lived like an average Indonesian, for example, only two-thirds
                                                           of the planet’s biocapacity would be used; if everyone lived like an average Argen-
                                                           tinian, humanity would demand more than half an additional planet; and if everyone
                                                           lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required
                                                           to regenerate humanity’s annual demand on nature.19

                                                            We are also living in what Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called an era of ‘climate
                                                        apartheid’.20 As a recent Bulletin from the World Health Organization points out: “the
                                                        greenhouse gases that cause climate change originate mainly from developed coun-
                                                        tries, but the health risks are concentrated in the poorest nations, which have con-
                                                        tributed least to the problem.”21 In the case of climate change, the world’s richest half
                                                        billion people – about 7 percent of the global population – are responsible for about
                                                        50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.22 Instead, the carbon footprint of
                                                        the world’s poorest 1 billion people is about 3% of the world’s total carbon footprint.23
                                                        However, these populations, along with future generations, will be the ones most af-
                                                        fected by climate change.
                                                            The great ethical tragedy of our times is that a large majority of the members of
                                                        our common household suffer on account of the greedy actions of a minority. As de-
                                                        nounced by the Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara, the ecological crisis is caused
S. Kureethadam - Conservation of our planetary home




                                                        because “greedy or thoughtless people destroy what belongs to all.”24
                                                            We live in a profoundly unequal and unjust world. Solidarity appears to be the sole
                                                        solution to heal such wounds of division. Solidarity is more than responsibility. It is
                                                        co-responsibility for our common home and for all the members of our common house-
                                                        hold, especially the poor and most vulnerable. As Pope Paul VI wrote in Populorum
                                                        Progressio: “God intended the Earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings
                                                        and peoples. … created goods should flow fairly to all.”25 Solidarity springs from the
                                                        profound conviction, as Pope John Paul II wrote in his social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei
                                                        Socialis, that “we are all really responsible for all.”26 More recently in Caritas in Veritate,
                                                        Pope Benedict XVI defined solidarity as “first and foremost a sense of responsibility on
                                                        the part of everyone with regard to everyone.”27 Solidarity means working to ensure the
                                                        welfare of ‘all’, especially of the weakest who are unjustly denied access to the common
                                                        goods of our planetary home. As Pope Francis reminds us time and time again, we
                                                        need to work for a more just redistribution of the world’s resources and the elimination
                                                        of the structural causes of poverty, performing those small daily acts of solidarity.28


                                                           3. Peace with the Creator

                                                           The unsustainable situation of our common home, and of our common household,
                                                        is ultimately caused by a profound rupture in our relationship with the Creator, the


                                                  168
ground of all being, who has brought the entire material universe into existence and
lovingly sustains it along with all forms of life. Humanity cannot expect to live in har-
mony with creation, if they are not at peace with the very Creator. Pope Benedict XVI
offers some very poignant reflections in this regard:

       The brutal consumption of creation begins where God is missing, where matter
    has become simply material for us, where we ourselves are the ultimate measure,
    where everything is simply our property … The waste of creation begins where we
    no longer recognize any claim beyond ourselves, seeing only ourselves.29

    Is it not true that an irresponsible use of creation begins precisely where God is
marginalized or even denied? If the relationship between human creatures and the
Creator is forgotten, matter is reduced to a selfish possession, man becomes the ‘last
word’, and the purpose of human existence is reduced to a scramble for the maximum
number of possessions possible.30
    The ecological crisis reveals how the gods of secular reason, technological prow-
ess and economic profit have displaced faith in a divine Creator and sacred respect for
the order of creation. As Michael S. Northcott writes: “the excess greenhouse gases
produced by industrial capitalism are the fruits of the modern devotion to the gods of
secular reason, technological power and monetary accumulation, and the sidelining of
traditional understandings of community, justice and the sacred.”31
    The contemporary ecological crisis, it appears, arises precisely from our inability to
perceive the physical world as God’s creation, to love it as the Creator does, to respect
its integrity, and to appreciate its intrinsic goodness and beauty, beyond mere consid-
erations of utility and consumption. The various manifestations of the ecological crisis
are not mere ‘natural disasters’ as they are still largely seen by the general public. No
ecological imbalance comes about by itself. The ecological crisis is a consequence
of our own values, beliefs and of our conscious choices, and ultimately of our sinful




                                                                                                         CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
behaviour. The contemporary ecological crisis thus amounts to sin, in the widest sense
possible, as it ruptures the bonds of divine, human and cosmic fellowship.
    It is only within a relational view of reality, where everything is inter-related and inter-
dependent, that the concept of ecological sin makes sense. Nothing in creation exists
in isolation. There exists a physical and spiritual interconnectedness between all of
Creation. Sin is precisely the distortion of this underlying and all-embracing relational
unity. Sin is the rupture of relationships and of communion between created realities
and with the Creator. The contemporary ecological crisis results ultimately from our
refusal to see ourselves as creatures.

       At the heart of the pathology of ecological crisis is the refusal of modern humans
    to see themselves as creatures, contingently embedded in networks of relation-
    ships with other creatures, and with the Creator. This refusal is the quintessential
    root of what theologians call sin. And like the sin of Adam, it has moral and spiritual
    as well as ecological consequences.32

   The contemporary ecological crisis reveals the unbridled human desire to be the
arbitrary dictator of the whole of creation, leaving out any reference whatsoever to
God, the Creator. From a theological point of view, the roots of the ecological crisis lie
in modern anthropocentrism which makes the human being the measure of all things,


                                                                                                   169
                                                        with no accountability to any higher Being. Modern anthropocentrism, along with the
                                                        hubris associated with it, appears to have substituted the traditional theocentrism of
                                                        the Christian scriptures and of other religious traditions of humanity. From a theological
                                                        viewpoint, all creation proceeds from God and is destined to return to God. Creation’s
                                                        alfa and omega is God, and God alone!
                                                           Ecological sin is not only an offence against the Creator, but against one’s own fel-
                                                        low humans and to the very creation. To devastate the natural world, as in the case of
                                                        the human-induced contemporary ecological crisis, is a sin against God, humanity and
                                                        the world. The ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I writes:

                                                              It follows that to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin. For human
                                                           beings to cause species to become extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of
                                                           God’s creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing
                                                           changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests, or by destroy-
                                                           ing its wetlands; for human beings to injure other human beings with disease; for
                                                           human beings to contaminate the earth’s waters, its land, its air, and its life, with
                                                           poisonous substances – all of these are sins before God, humanity and the world.33

                                                            The ecological crisis reveals how we have betrayed the ‘eucharistic’ vocation of
                                                        human communities, namely to ‘share’ the gifts of creation with all the members of our
                                                        common household in a spirit of communion (koinonia), like the one bread broken and
                                                        shared at the table of the Lord. The earth is indeed humankind’s common table laid
                                                        by God for all. Around that table we gather, in a spirit of conviviality, not in competitive
                                                        scramble but in joyful fellowship, nurturing and sheltering one another.
                                                            The unequal distribution and consumption of our home planet’s life-essential re-
                                                        sources, and the tragic fact that nearly one in seven of our fellow humans goes to bed
                                                        hungry every day, are indeed grave moral sins against the eucharistic nature of human
S. Kureethadam - Conservation of our planetary home




                                                        communities.
                                                            From a theological point of view, there exists a significant link between human sin
                                                        and the state of the physical world. Sin literally defiles the land. A fundamental prin-
                                                        ciple in the Bible and in life is that sin has consequences. “God created us to live in
                                                        harmony with him, and in a comfortable web of relationships within his creation. Any
                                                        break in those relationships – sin – results in consequences.”34 This fundamental truth
                                                        is evident from the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis. As we read in the third and
                                                        fourth chapters, both the sin against God – the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and
                                                        the sin against one’s own fellow human being – Cain’s assassination of Abel, lead to
                                                        negative repercussions for the land. The pattern is tragically repeated throughout the
                                                        Old Testament, and in our own days, as evident in the contemporary ecological crisis.
                                                        The sin against God (theocide) and our own fellow human beings (fratricide) indeed
                                                        have negative repercussions for the land (ecocide).
                                                            As Pope John Paul II pointed out in Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of
                                                        Creation, if humanity is not at peace with God, then Earth itself cannot be at peace.

                                                              When man turns his back on the Creator’s plan, he provokes a disorder which
                                                           has inevitable repercussions on the rest of the created order. If man is not at peace
                                                           with God, then earth itself cannot be at peace: “Therefore the land mourns and all
                                                           who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and
                                                           even the fish of the sea are taken away.” (Hos 4:3)35


                                                  170
   “The wages of sin is death,” wrote St Paul in the Letter to the Romans (Rm 6:23).
This truth is conspicuously evident in the unsustainable situation of our common plan-
etary home. Our continued sin, our persistent sinful behaviour is preventing the healing
of Earth.


   4. Reclaiming Sabbath

    To arrive at total sustainability we need to regain once again harmony with the Crea-
tor, with our fellow human beings, and with creation itself. We need a genuine ecologi-
cal conversion today that requires a return to the Creator, to one’s own fellow humans,
especially the poor and vulnerable, and to the very adamah, Earth itself. In this return
(metanoia) to creation, humanity, and God, we have a wonderful heritage in the biblical
institution of Sabbath.
    The telos of the physical universe, right from the dawn of creation, has been to enter
ultimately into God’s Sabbath. The creation saga as narrated in the Book of Genesis
does not end with the creation of the human being on the sixth day, but only on the
seventh day, when God, together with all of created realities, including humanity, en-
ters into Sabbath, the divine rest. Sabbath is the supernatural destiny of all creation. As
Pope Benedict XVI reminds, “the whole of creation, in the end, has been thought of to
create the place of encounter between God and His creatures, a place where the love
of the creature responds to the divine love.”36
    It is only the Sabbath which completes and crowns creation. It is only in his Sabbath
rest that the creative God comes to His goal. In fact, on the Sabbath and through the
Sabbath God ‘completed’ his creation. The Sabbath is not a casual day of rest follow-
ing six working days, like our modern fashionable weekends. “On the contrary: the
whole work of creation was performed for the sake of the Sabbath.”37 As the Catechism
of the Catholic Church teaches, “Creation was fashioned with a view to the Sabbath




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
and therefore for the worship and adoration of God. Worship is inscribed in the order
of creation.”38 The Sabbath is the final destiny of creation, creation’s own meaning and
goal.39 On the Sabbath the redemption of the world is celebrated in anticipation.40 The
Sabbath opens creation to its true future, namely, to rest in God, to be with God. As
the ultimate telos of creation, the Sabbath is the hope and future of every created be-
ing. Creation can find its true existence and ultimate rest only in the very Creator. On
account of the Sabbath, creation is aligned towards its redemption already from the
very beginning. Creation is thus teleologically oriented, from a theological perspective,
towards the peace (Shalom) of God’s own Sabbath.
    The teleological destiny of all creation to enter into God’s peace (Shalom), how-
ever, is to be realized in time. The eternal, eschatological dimension of Sabbath is to
be accomplished in the temporal order, spanning the rhythm of the days of the week,
the cycle of seven years, and the great jubilee cycle of 49 years, as the institution of
Sabbath went on to assume definite contours in the history of the people of God. It is
important to note that observance of the Sabbath is structured at a triple level, involv-
ing God, fellow humans and the whole of creation, with all these levels interlinked
among themselves.
    To celebrate Sabbath is, first of all, to be at peace with God. The Sabbath is the
day of worship of the Creator par excellence. It is the hallowed day to contemplate
God in the beauty and goodness of His own creation, to partake in God’s own delight


                                                                                              171
                                                        in His creation, and to bow in adoration before the Creator. In the hallowed light of the
                                                        Sabbath, all creation acquires a loveliness of its own. “Questions about the possibility
                                                        of ‘producing’ something, or about utility, are forgotten in the face of the beauty of all
                                                        created things, which have their meaning simply in their very selves.”41 The Sabbath is
                                                        to be lived in a spirit of thanksgiving, in gratitude towards the Creator for the very gift
                                                        of existence conferred on every created being. “Just as the Sabbath is sanctified by
                                                        God’s resting presence, so men and women also sanctify the Sabbath through their
                                                        recollection of their existence, and their grateful expression of that existence.”42
                                                           To celebrate Sabbath means also to be at peace with fellow humans, especially the
                                                        poor – the anawim of Yahweh, and with the whole of creation, including animals – do-
                                                        mestic and wild, and with the land itself. The Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue
                                                        that deals with the observance of the Sabbath “requires not only your rest, but the rest
                                                        of all of your household, including everyone who works for you and all of your animals
                                                        – and the land itself. It demands that we do not push to the limits our ecological sys-
                                                        tems or the people who work for us.”43 The observance of Sabbath assumes very con-
                                                        crete and down-to-earth implications in the Old Testament as evident in the Sabbath
                                                        commandment given in the book of Exodus, where respect for Yahweh’s sovereignty,
                                                        care for the earth, concern for the poor, sensitivity to the needs of both wild and farm
                                                        animals, are all intricately woven together.44 In Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, God
                                                        commands to set aside one day in seven as a day of rest for people and for animals.
                                                        In Exodus 23:12, we read:

                                                              Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; so that
                                                           your ox and your donkey may have rest, and your homeborn slave and the resident
                                                           alien may be refreshed. (Ex 23:12)

                                                           In the Book of Exodus, and later in the Book of the Leviticus, it is clearly stated that
S. Kureethadam - Conservation of our planetary home




                                                        the land also must have its time of rest. Nothing in all creation must be relentlessly
                                                        pressed. The Sabbath year is given to protect the land from relentless exploitation, to
                                                        help it rejuvenate, to give it a time of rest and restoration, and to guarantee sustenance
                                                        for the poor of the land and for wild animals.

                                                              For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year
                                                           you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what
                                                           they leave the wild beasts may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and
                                                           with your olive orchard. (Ex 23:10-11)
                                                              … in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a
                                                           sabbath for the LORD; you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You
                                                           shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned
                                                           vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. (Lev 25: 4-5)

                                                           In the context of the observance of Sabbath which allows the land to recuperate and
                                                        the poor to recover, the concept of the Jubilee Year assumes particular significance.
                                                        According to Leviticus 25: 8-55, after seven Sabbath years, on the Day of Atonement,
                                                        the trumpets were to sound throughout the land, to proclaim the fiftieth year as ‘God’s
                                                        year of release’. The liberation associated with the Jubilee Year consists in the resto-
                                                        ration of the original harmony of human communities and of creation. It was the time
                                                        to wipe out debt, to set free slaves, and to restore liberty to every member of God’s


                                                  172
chosen people as well to the foreigners. The land was also to find rest in the Year of
Jubilee so that it too can recuperate and celebrate. The Jubilee commandment (Lev
25; Dt 19:14; Prov 23:10-11; Mic 2:1-5) clearly links care for land and care for people.
In leaving land fallow and in forgiving debts of the poor, there is an integration of the
social and ecological concerns, so as to recreate the original peace and harmony as-
sociated with the primordial Sabbath of creation. “There is release for the ground, that
is given a year of recovery from farming. There is release from the build-up of capital
only in the hands of the few, and every jubilee it reverts to its original owner … There
is the release of hired labourers from their servitude, because, they, too, belong to the
Lord.”45 The Sabbath laws were God’s ecological strategy to preserve the land and
protect the inhabitants of the land.
    Today, we seem to have forgotten that creation’s ultimate destiny is God’s own Sab-
bath. The sorry state of our home planet today is due to our neglect of the supernatural
destiny of creation to share in God’s Sabbath. Our society has forgotten a vital aspect
of God’s creation: the need for Sabbath. We deny Sabbath to the very Creator – the
giver of all gifts, including our very existence – by not sanctifying time, and setting
apart time and space, to worship God. Modern hectic life styles have largely pushed
the Creator God out and created the new pantheon of the false gods of profit and con-
sumerism, as evident, for example, in the sprawling shopping marts and malls, open
day and night and every day of the week.
    We have denied Sabbath also to the poor of the land. We over-exploit our fellow
human beings as evident in the increasing prevalence of cheap labour, factory supply
chains and call centres where people work round the clock to increase the profits of a
minority. Modern society appears to have understood rest only in terms of entertain-
ment, often possible only for the wealthy. While the super-rich live lavishly, holidaying
in exotic places, millions of our fellow men and women toil day and night to eke out a
living, with nearly a billion going to bed with empty stomachs, in spite of all the growth
churned out by an economic system that does not respect the Sabbatical rhythms of




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
creation and of fellow human beings.
    We deny the Sabbatical rest to God’s creation as well. Sabbath rest is about redis-
covering the rhythms of creation, conferred by God. It is vitally important to respect
these rhythms, “if we are to live at the pace of the planet, living as part of a healthy
creation rather than separate.”46 We deny the Sabbatical rest to the land and to our
planet’s life-sustaining ecosystems, as evident in the increasing degradation of the
land and in the over exploitation of the natural resources beyond their capacity for
regeneration.


   5. Conclusion

    The path towards the conservation of our planetary home through total sustainabil-
ity is three-fold. It requires that we regain a profound sense of harmony with the rest
of creation and return to the land (adamah) as commanded by God to the first parents
(Gen 3:19). It also calls for a real sense of solidarity with our fellow-humans, especially
the poor and weak among us. True sustainability can ultimately be founded in peace
with the Creator, the very ground of our being, who holds all things together and sus-
tains them in His infinite love. The dream of total sustainability is not a utopian vision,
but a true praxis, as evidenced in the millennia-long tradition of the Sabbath.


                                                                                              173
                                                            In the wake of the contemporary ecological crisis, the rediscovery of Sabbath is vi-
                                                        tally important, if we are to protect Earth – our common planetary home –for ourselves,
                                                        for future generations, and for the rest of the biosphere.


                                                           Acknowledgements

                                                           The author would like to thank Prof. Salvatore Lorusso for the invitation to publish
                                                        the present article in this prestigious journal.


                                                           Notes
                                                        1
                                                           Meadows D.H., Meadows D.L., Randers J., Beherens W.W., 1972, The Limits to Growth, Uni-
                                                        verse Books, New York.
                                                        2
                                                           Brundtland G. (ed.), 1987, Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
                                                        3
                                                           See the 2005 World Summit on Social Development. United Nations General Assembly, 2005
                                                        World Summit Outcome, Resolution A/60/1, adopted by the General Assembly on 15 September
                                                        2005.
                                                        4
                                                           This original meaning continues to be preserved in the Italian sostenere, Portuguese suster,
                                                        Spanish sostener, Catalan sostenir, English sustain, French soutenir.
                                                        5
                                                           Rockström J., A Safe Operating Space for Humanity in Nature 461 (2009), pp. 472-75. A more
                                                        detailed version of the same study came to be published later in Ecology and Society. See
                                                        Rockström J., et al., Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity in
                                                        Ecology and Society 14 (2009), pp. 32ff.
                                                        6
                                                           Steffen W. et al., Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet in
                                                        Science 347 (8 January 2015): [DOI:10.1126/science.1259855].
                                                        7
                                                           The Ecological Footprint Analysis was pioneered by William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel.
                                                        See Rees W. – Wackernagel M., 1996, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the
S. Kureethadam - Conservation of our planetary home




                                                        Earth, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, PA.
                                                        8
                                                          WWF International – Institute of Zoology – Global Footprint Network, 2012, Living Planet Report
                                                        2012: Biodiversity, Biocapacity and Better Choices, WWF, Gland, p. 8.
                                                        9
                                                           Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Sci-
                                                        ence Basis: Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovern-
                                                        mental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 20.
                                                        10
                                                             Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Re-
                                                        port. Contribution of Working Group I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergo-
                                                        vernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Geneva, p. 48.
                                                        11
                                                            See Hillman M. – Fawcett T. – Rajan S.C., 2008, How We Can Save the Planet: Preventing
                                                        Global Climate Catastrophe, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, p. 1; Kirstin D. – Downing T.E.,
                                                        2006, The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World’s Greatest Challenge, Earthscan, London.
                                                        12
                                                            Statement of the Joint Pontifical Academy of Sciences / Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
                                                        Workshop on Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility (Vatican City, July
                                                        2014).
                                                        13
                                                            Data from World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/mdgs/environment.html (accessed on 07 Fe-
                                                        bruary 2015).
                                                        See Maddison A., 2004, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD, Paris; United Nations
                                                        Environment Programme, 2012, Global Environment Outlook 5: Environment for the Future of All,
                                                        UNEP, Nairobi, p. 5.
                                                        14
                                                            Christian Aid, Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More (19 January 2015).
                                                        15
                                                            Ibid., p. 3.
                                                        16
                                                            Ibid., p. 2.
                                                        17
                                                            Diamond J., 2008, What’s Your Consumption Factor? in The New York Times (2 January 2008).
                                                        18
                                                            Global Footprint Network et al., Living Planet Report 2012, p. 43.

                                                  174
19
   United Nations Environment Programme, 2007, Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fac-
ing Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World, Macmillan, New York, p. 166.
20
   Campbell-Lendrum D. et al., Global Climate Change: Implications for International Public He-
alth Policy in Bulletin of the World Health Organization 85 (March 2012), p. 235.
21
   United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 2011, p. 94.
22
   United Nations Environment Programme, Human Development Report 2007/2008, 43.
23
   Camara H., 2008, Sister Earth: Creation, Ecology and the Spirit, New City Press, New York, p. 7.
24
   Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, n. 22.
25
   Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 38.
26
   Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, n. 38.
27
   Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 188.
28
   Pope Benedict XVI, Meeting with Priests, Deacons, and Seminarians of the Diocese of Bolza-
no-Bressanone (6 August 2008).
29
   Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience (26 August 2009).
30
   Northcott M.S., 2007, A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming, Darton, Longman, and
Todd/Christian Aid, London, p. 14.
31
   Ibid. See also pp. 5 and 16.
32
   Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Address during the Environmental Symposium in Santa
Barbara, November 8, 1997 in CHRYSSAVGIS J. (ed.), 2009, Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer:
The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch Bartholomew, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids (MI), p.190.
33
   Brown E., 2006, Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation, Doorlight
Publications, South Hadley (MA), p. 58.
34
   Pope John Paul II, Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation, n. 5.
35
   Pope Benedict XVI, Meditation at the First General Congregation of XII General Ordinary As-
sembly of the Synod of Bishops (6 October 2008).
36
   Moltmann, J., 1985, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, Harper
and Row, San Francisco, p. 277.
37
   Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 347.
38
   Rosenzweig F., Der Stern der Erlösung, Pt. III, Book 1, Heidelberg, pp. 65, 69.
39
   Motlmann, God in Creation, p. 276.
40
   Ibid., p. 286.
41
   Ibid., p. 285.




                                                                                                            CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
42
   Cohen-Kiener A., 2009, Claiming Earth as a Common Ground: The Ecological Crisis through
the Lens of Faith, Skylight Paths Publishing, Woodstock (VE), p. 38.
43
   See McDonagh S., 1990, The Greening of the Church, Orbis Books, New York, p. 127.
44
   See Atkinson D., 2008, Renewing the Face of the Earth: A Theological and Pastoral Response
to Climate Change, Canterbury Press, Norwich, p. 83.
45
   Bookless D., Planet Wise: Dare to Care for God’s World, Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham, p. 109.



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                                                  176
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  Biographical Notes

   Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam, a Catholic Priest and a Salesian of Don Bosco, is
Professor and Chair of Philosophy of Science at the Salesian Pontifical University in
Rome. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome.
He was earlier a Research Scholar at Campion Hall, University of Oxford, where he is
currently an Academic Visitor. He has published in the areas of philosophy of science,
history of philosophy, ecology and environmental philosophy. His most recent publica-
tion is Creation in Crisis: Science, Ethics, Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 2014).




                                                                                               CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE




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