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By Marine Lamoureux | France
A French summer school on 'integral ecology', an issue championed by Pope Francis, has become the subject of controversy.
Some of the invited speakers apparently fear they will identified with what they regard as conservative currents of thought, given that the meaning of the term has become ambiguous.
On June 7, Dominique Bourg, leader of the Emergency Ecology candidates in the last European parliamentary elections, decided to shut the door.
The philosopher had been invited to speak at the summer school of the "citizen's collective for an integral ecology". The event is scheduled for Aug. 19-23 at Notre Dame de L'Ouÿe, which is located in the Diocese of Paris.
He ended up preferring to decline, after initially giving his consent.
His reason? The presence among the planned speakers of Alliance VITA's director, Tugdual Derville, who is known for his militant opposition to abortion and other conservative social stances.
Others fear they could be seen as supporting opinions espoused under the banner of 'integral ecology.'
"The expression is now trapped," said Bourg, who worries about any association with diametrically opposed fundamentalist views.
He does not equate the summer university organizers with conservative outlooks, but he regrets a certain alleged "naïveté" in their desire for dialogue.
"You don't debate anything with just anyone," said Bourg in a June 8 tweet.
Derville saw this as a knee-jerk response.
"His reaction is to put a label on me when he doesn't know me," said Alliance VITA's director.
"A label I don't identify with."
Not so long ago, the expression "integral ecology" seemed to be self-evident.
Bourg himself entitled one of his books Écologie intégrale: pour une société permacirculaire (Integral ecology: for a permacircular society; 2017).
Delphine Batho in 2019 published a manifesto called Écologie intégrale (Integral ecology), which Bourg prefaced.
The expression, translated into English as 'integral ecology' was cited in the wake of the 2015 encyclical Laudato si' as the inter-weaving of social and environmental issues.
This had been linked by Pope Francis as the "cry of the Earth and that of the poor."
Since then, confusion has crept in.
So much so that in 2018, a group of Christian intellectuals, including the economist Gaël Giraud and the philosopher Cécile Renouard, complained about selective adaptation of the pope's words to support conservative Catholicism and extreme right ideologies.
They said this was none by a noisy minority not representative of most Christians.
However, for Bourg, the damage is done.
The term "integral ecology" has become so ambiguous that it would be a waste of time, in his opinion, to try to restore its originally intended meaning.
However, Lucile Schmid, vice-president of the think tank La Fabrique Ecologique (The ecology factory), takes a different view.
"It is because there is a cultural battle here that we must meet and debate," she said.
"This event is a great opportunity to clarify things."
Between controversy and dialogue
For his part, Derville warns against a "truncated" reading of the encyclical.
"When the pope calls for the protection of the common home, - the planet, the biosphere - he does not forget that man came from it," he said.
"What is also at stake is the protection of man from his beginning to his end, the respect of the embryo, of life.
"To deny it is to not understand the scope of the message."
Organizers of the summer school say facilitating dialogue, rather than pursuing an agenda, is the aim of what will be an open meeting not reserved for Christians.
"This summer school is conceived as a place for discussion, but also for training and reflection on absolutely major issues," said Martin Choutet.
He notes that ecological awareness is not yet accompanied by a profound change in economic and environmental models, even though scientists view this as necessary.
In addition to social and environmental issues, the organizers have included 'bioethics' as a topic.
"Questions surrounding genetic manipulation, the exploitation of the human body, and its transformation, are indeed closely linked to other issues," said Choutet.
As such, he defends the invitation to Derville because as an 'expert' in his subjects he could have contributed to a constructive exchange of ideas.
And he sees in the controversy as showing the need for dialogue, rather than the other way around.
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