CSDC 464

A vision of man and things that is sundered from any reference to the transcendent has led to the rejection of the concept of creation and to the attribution of a completely independent existence to man and nature. The bonds that unite the world to God have thus been broken. This rupture has also resulted in separating man from the world and, more radically, has impoverished man's very identity. Human beings find themselves thinking that they are foreign to the environmental context in which they live. The consequences resulting from this are all too clear: “it is the relationship man has with God that determines his relationship with his fellow men and with his environment. This is why Christian culture has always recognized the creatures that surround man as also gifts of God to be nurtured and safeguarded with a sense of gratitude to the Creator. Benedictine and Franciscan spirituality in particular has witnessed to this sort of kinship of man with his creaturely environment, fostering in him an attitude of respect for every reality of the surrounding world”.⁹⁷⁵ John Paul II, Address to participants in a convention on “The Environment and Health” (24 March 1997), 4: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 9 April 1997, p. 2. There is a need to place ever greater emphasis on the intimate connection between environmental ecology and “human ecology”.⁹⁷⁶ John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 38: AAS 83AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 841.