Christ Assigns As A Duty To Every

See Everything. Ignore A Lot. Improve A Little.

The Lord Has Given You A Heart Open To Great Horizons; Do Not Be Afraid To Commit Your Life Completely To The Service Of Christ And His Gospel! Listen To Him As He Says Again Today: 'the Harvest Is Abundant, But The Laborers Are Few.

Man, Especially In Our Time, Has Without Hesitation Devastated Wooded Plains And Valleys, Polluted Waters, Disfigured The Earth's Habitat, Made The Air Unbreathable, Disturbed The Hydro-geological And Atmospheric Systems, Turned Luxuriant Areas Into Deserts And Undertaken Forms Of Unrestrained Industrialization, Degrading That 'flower Bed'-which Is The Earth, Our Dwelling Place.

Side By Side With The Miseries Of Underdevelopment...we Find Ourselves Up Against A Form Of Superdevelopment, Equally Inadmissable. This Superdevelopment Consists In An Excessive Availability Of Material Goods For The Benefit Of Certain Social Groups And Makes People Slaves Of "possession" And Immediate Gratification, With No Other Horizon Than The Multiplication Or Continual Replacement Of The Things Already Owned With Others Still Better. This Is The Civilization Of Consumption, Or "consumerism," Which Involves So Much Throwing Away And Waste.

Certain Elements Of Today's Ecological Crisis Reveal Its Moral Character. First Among These Is The Indiscriminate Application Of Advances In Science And Technology. Many Recent Discoveries Have Brought Undeniable Benefits To Humanity. Indeed, They Demonstrate The Nobility Of The Human Vocation To Participate Responsibly In God's Creative Action In The World. Unfortunately, It Is Now Clear That The Application Of These Discoveries In The Fields Of Industry And Agriculture Have Produced Harmful Long-term Effects.