A Catholic Rural Ethic for Agriculture, the Environment, Food, and the Land Since 1923, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference has applied Catholic Social Teaching to rural life. Within the Catholic Church we have a rich heritage of developed reflection, an ethic which relates Catholic teaching to rural communities. That tradition is long, rich, and profound. We do not need to reinvent an ethic for rural Catholicism. It has been developed over the ages. When developing economic, social, and environmental policies for rural communities, the following can be used as principles for reflection, criteria for judgment, and directives for action. These principles are drawn from the Gospel and from Catholic tradition: 1. Human dignity 2. Subsidiarity 3. Solidarity 4. Universal Destination of Goods 5. The Common Good 6. The Integrity of Creation 7. The Option for the Poor 1. Human beings are created in the image of God. Any diminishment of that dignity violates Catholic conviction. As related to the economy, Catholics believe that the economy is for the human person, the person is not for the economy. Any reduction of the human self to a commodity or a cog in a machine violates that dignity. Humans are called to "rise to full stature." 2. Human dignity requires that persons and communities should exercise responsible self-governance. No higher community should strip a person of local community of its capacity to see, judge, and act on its own behalf without serious and good reason. Local control and democratic participation are supported by the principle of subsidiarity. Centralization can subvert subsidiarity and violate appropriate good order. 3. The virtue of solidarity carries individuals and communities beyond narrow selfishness to care for their neighbors, their regions, and the world beyond their borders. Corporate and personal responsibility require going beyond self-interest or private advantage. This virtue motivates us to care for the earth and the human community. 4. The earth is the Lord's and has been created for the well-being of all. Greed, excess profits, control by a few of goods meant for the many are contrary to God's desire that creation is for the good of all. The good of private ownership has a social and ecological mortgage. Excessive profits violate the divine intention. 5. The common good encourages individuals and communities to act on behalf of the good of all. Included among the elements of the common good are individual goods, the good of order, and values. Values exist on an ascending scale: vital, social, cultural, personal, religious. Where the common good is ignored, social, economic, personal, ecological disharmonies grow. 6. The web of life is one. Creation has an integrity which has an inherent value beyond its usefulness to human beings. Humans are to be responsible stewards of creation, in that activity they work in harmony with God as co-creators. Sustainable communities are socially just, economically beneficial, environmentally healthy. 7. The option for the poor includes threatened land, nature, and people. A fundamental moral measure of any society, economy, or ecology ask how the poor and vulnerable are faring. The poor bring profound questions about the world order. The sources for this framework include the Catechism of the Catholic Church, papal encyclicals, statements of bishops, NCRLC publications. They reflect the Church's teaching. A fundamental image for a Catholic rural ethic is the Web of Life: nature and people in one Communio, one common community. National Catholic Rural Life Conference 4625 Beaver Avenue Des Moines, IA 50310-2199 Phone: (515) 270-2634 Fax: (515) 270-9447 ncrlc@aol.com