Berkley Center

Background: In this exchange on July 20, 2012 in Rome, Fr. Xavier Jeyraj, S.J., and Colin Steele discussed the concept of ecological justice. Fr. Jeyraj argues that ecological justice has significant impart on the population, economic, and spiritual crises of out time. They also discuss mobility of knowledge and the Jesuits "getting back to basics."

When and why did you join the Jesuits?

I grew up in a Catholic family in southern India—by chance, in the same town that the Portuguese Jesuit St John de Brito lived and worked in. There were plenty of Jesuits in town, and I went to Jesuit schools as a child. After I finished my schooling, I had not made up my mind to join the order, but wanted to leave for the city, so I went to Calcutta to begin university; I ended up joining the Calcutta province in 1982 at the age of 20. While in the city, I got my B.A. in law and an M.A. in social work, and I’ve been doing social work of some kind the entire time I’ve been a priest. Eventually, that turned into working with the social justice secretariat, where I became South Asia director in 2007. I held that position until January, when I took on my current role at the head of SJES.

Describe the work of the Secretariat.

This got started as the Secretariat for Social Justice, to which ecology was added after General Congregation 35. Also following GC35, a decision was made to integrate the social justice and ecology apostolate into the work of all other secretariats: instead of being one portfolio by itself, this work is now folded into the missions of every other Jesuit apostolate across the globe. There had been Jesuits working on social justice and ecology before GC35, but after the clear mandate to make this apostolate a Society-wide priority, we convened a task force on ecology that produced a report called “Healing a Broken World” that was essentially the foundational document of the new secretariat. Ever since, we’ve been collecting expertise from Jesuits and collaborators all over the world and trying to help all Jesuits do their individual work with a local and global perspective on social and ecological justice.

And how would you describe ecological justice? What’s the underlying theology and spirituality of this concept, which is a fairly trendy cause right now?

The most important thing to understand is that ecological justice involves a radically different understanding of the scope of justice than traditional notions of inter-personal justice do. Namely, ecological justice is inter-generational justice; it’s not about right relationship between you and me, but between us and future generations. That’s a concept that can be pretty hard to grasp—especially for more individualistic cultures—but it’s imperative that we learn how to do it. It’s also built on a much better understanding of the Genesis story as a bequeathal of a resource (the earth) to be cherished, maintained and passed on, not domineered or exploited for maximum short-term gain.

The next critical thing to note is that ecological justice is inherently a holistic undertaking: it’s not about saving X number of polar bears or trees but about the overall care of creation with a view towards allowing all life to flourish. In the last few decades, the Church has really woken up to this reality and started teaching more and more explicitly that we’re not masters of the universe but part of the universe. Teilhard was instrumental in bringing this about; his thought is a great starting point for a moral theology of just ecology. It’s an increasingly hot topic within the Society, too; we’re seeing more and more thought and emphasis on ecology filtering up even as the curia is emphasizing it more from the top.

What are the biggest factors either in favor or opposed to just ecology? How do you propose we set about creating a better system?

Much of the problem has to do with distributive justice: there’s enough “stuff” in the world for everyone to live pretty comfortably, but we’re not doing a good job ensuring that everyone actually gets enough. When resources are monopolized by a few people or interests, they are naturally over-pressured and badly distributed. Think about it: what’s going to happen to the extractive model of resource acquisition when we tap out the last well or chop down the last tree? The extraction companies aren’t ignorant; their incentive is to extract everything as fast as possible and hoard it so they can sell it at profit.

How about population?

I don’t think population is a major question. It’s really the monopolization of resources in extraction and distribution that is creating difficulties. If we wanted to distribute the world’s resources equitably, we could do it—even in a world of seven billion people.

How does this tie into the economic crisis? Wouldn’t a “just ecology” and a just distributive theory have some implications in the economic sphere?

The crisis we’re facing right now is created. Don’t forget for a moment that this didn’t have to happen—people made certain choices, and now we’re facing the consequences. Ecological and distributive justice are sort of like the “third way” between capitalism and communism that the Church was supposed to have offered, but we’ve come a ways in our thinking since the Cold War days. Now, I’d say that the openness of economic systems and poor people’s ability to access them are what matters most to provide just distribution. We also need to think about what level of income is necessary to allow human life—why are there minimum wages but no maximum ones? By setting minimum wages, we legislate a certain minimum conception of economic existence; it’s only logical that we do some thinking about how much is enough at the other end of the spectrum.

Let’s get back to the underlying spirituality and theology of ecological justice. You’ve said it’s not about the number of polar bears in the Arctic or a few cents either way on the minimum wage standard. What does make up the foundation of your conception of human development and flourishing?

That’s just it—the necessary thing is to allow people to live fully human lives. That’s not question of pennies or polar bears, but of their ability to realize their human nature.

It’s in the realization of human nature that we realize the divine nature. That’s what being created “in the image and likeness” of God really means: God’s not “away up there,” God’s right here in the depths of our own souls (where it too often remains, unacknowledged and uncultivated). When you approach the question of justice from that perspective, you start asking questions like, “If we’re going to the moon and stars, why are so many people living on less than a dollar a day?” Take India, for example: half the people there are living in abject poverty, but the country is home to 153,000 millionaires. What’s going on there? What does that say about realization of humanity as a societal-cultural value?

Ironically, we’ve developed a concept of “freedom” that has too often rendered us inhuman to our fellows. When what’s incentivized and prized in society and economics is to take as much as you can, of course you don’t want to recognize the humanity of your neighbor as yourself. We haggle over minimum wages instead of establishing a just wage or a human wage. We’re unwilling or unable to make decisions with respect to humanity. Again, we need to re-read Genesis: it’s not about having “dominion” over the earth in some sort of zero-sum extractive sense, but about being constituent caretakers in and of the totality of creation. And being created in the divine image and likeness also means that we need rest and reprieve, just like God did on the seventh day. That was the whole idea behind the jubilee year, when we were meant to cancel debts, do some re-distribution of our resources and re-examination of our values, and try to help everyone realize the favor of God. Sadly, the world didn’t carry it out fully, especially in terms of debt forgiveness. The developing world is still toiling away to pay off its debts.

How does the global purview of the secretariat translate into the spiritual and cognitional reality of the Society? Surely acting with respect to the realization of others’ humanity involves some calls to conversion for the Order and the Church.

That’s right. Christianity isn’t really practiced in Western Europe any more, and we’re wrestling now with the reality of ever-declining faith around the traditional centers of that very faith. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The Superior General, Fr Nicolas, has said that for the Church today, Asia is the way, Europe is the truth and Africa is the life. Each has certain strengths and weaknesses; we need to bring all three into conversation and dynamic in a way that allows each to recognize that it has something to teach and something to learn. Vatican II had a lot of good things to say on this subject and really emphasized the necessity of mutual respect amongst religions and cultures; we’re still living our way into the spirit of the council today. There’s an increasing recognition that the Church is not so much the magisterium as the entire people of God. It’s important that the Church continue to realize that; we have to look within ourselves (individually and collectively) to find what we are called to be. Thankfully, there are some encouraging signs on that front, in particular a growing tendency for to identify as Jesuit, Catholic or Christian rather than a member of a specific province, parish or country. That’s a change from a decade or two ago, and it’s great.

From an administrative perspective, how do you go about bringing the secretariat’s vision to the whole Society (and societies)? How does the vertical dynamic work?

From an administrative standpoint, each province now has a coordinator for social justice and ecology, who essentially does my job at the provincial level. I’m in contact with all of those men, who are in contact with their respective provincials and the Jesuits of their provinces to encourage work and pastoral action on social justice and ecology. It’s important to understand that we’re not really a one-way vertical structure, though: we highly encourage individual Jesuits at whatever level to come up with ideas for this apostolate and to pass them around to their brother Jesuits and to their superiors. Many of those ideas filter their way upwards, and our job as administrators is to connect their originators with other Jesuits who may be able to collaborate in their implementation, as well as to disseminate those ideas throughout the Society.

To keep the lines of communication open, we have a yearly meeting of all the regional and provincial social justice and ecology coordinators; at the same time, we encourage year-round collaboration via technology. Incidentally, that’s a great example of positive globalization: the information revolution has enabled us to stay in much closer contact with Jesuits all over the world and to spread ideas far and wide at the speed of light. Imagine the maximum speed at which news, ideas, and instructions could travel in Ignatius’s day!

Do you actively encourage upward mobility of knowledge? In other words, if some Jesuit “on the margins” somewhere has an idea, how likely is it that it will cross your desk?

I’d say it’s quite likely, and I do promote upward information and idea flow as actively as possible. I’m personally invested in the idea of two-way learning—I have certain reach and oversight from this office, but I recognize that I don’t have the level of personal experiential knowledge that Jesuits “on the margins” have. I trust that knowledge immensely—no matter how much I’ve learned in books and classrooms, I have always regarded experience as the best teacher. Growing up in rural India and travelling more of the world as a Jesuit taught me things that no book or class was ever going to teach me the same way.

Keep developing that—could you describe your personal process of learning and spiritual growth throughout your time in the Society?

I still have much to learn. Compared to all the knowledge that exists in all of Creation, I won’t possess even an iota of the whole, no matter how much I know! As I mentioned, India has deeply shaped who I am and how I see the world. I’ve learned so much from indigenous and “untouchable” people there about happiness and hospitality—these are people who have absolutely nothing, and yet they offer whatever they have in welcome and have an abiding faith that is really amazing to come in contact with. I’ve also learned that some of the best communication happens beyond the realm of words. Language doesn’t matter, hearts do. When hearts are united, language is totally superfluous. I remember going to very rural Brazil once to a village where none of the inhabitants or even the local Jesuit could speak any English (I had no Portuguese), but I felt after a day of eating, dancing, laughing and praying with these people that I had genuinely come to know them. It’s moments like that when I learn how little I know.

Another thing you have to understand is that I might be here in the Curia, but I don’t think of my “career” as going up, up, up—rather, I’ve gone deeper and deeper into the God-dwelling within myself. Whatever my job at the moment, I’m just trying to do God’s will for me and the world. It’s not always easy to pick up and leave, but I’m prepared to go where I’m sent—today I’m in this office, tomorrow I could just as easily be sent to a tiny village somewhere. Both the administration and the periphery of the Order are vital and mutually reinforcing; neither one would be as effective without the other.

In terms of my daily spirituality and willingness to discern and do God’s will to the best of my ability, wherever I am and whatever I do, it’s the process of daily prayer, spiritual examination, and Eucharist that keep me humble, flexible, open and available to new experience. Without having daily access to the tools of Ignatian spirituality and to periodic retreats to do some deeper discernment, I would be just another corporate striver. With these things, I’ve grown ever deeper into the consciousness of the Society precisely as a society that requires openness and flexibility from all of its members. For it all to work, we all need to follow the process of discernment that Ignatius set up in order to be open but obedient. Neither of those means getting shipped aimlessly around the world, which wouldn’t be constructive for anyone. Rather, we’re to be honest with ourselves and our superiors to determine the best (not always the easiest!) mission for us.

I’ve heard almost all the Jesuits I’ve interviewed so far say that the Society is “getting back to basics.” As a member of the Curia, what does that mean to you?

They’re absolutely right. We’re getting much deeper into the depth of the spirit in ourselves and the Society as a whole. I’d say we’re getting better and better at discerning God’s will in and for the order, and that’s in turn helping us to do our work better and better. One of the spiritual practices I’ve always liked the most is Ignatius’s contemplation of God contemplating the world and deciding to become incarnate in that world. Individually, that gives me a much better perspective of the awesome variety of human life and experience, and I think the increasing centrality of that contemplation in the spirituality of the Society as a whole has really helped us do a better job determining what we are called to do and be in the world today. In spirituality, the way forward is the way inward: it’s not about going faster or farther, but deeper. That’s a critical attitude for the order to maintain today. Our biggest challenge is to do what God wills us to do, not what the world wants us to do. Going back to the contemplation of the world, remember that the result of God’s beholding the world is His decision to send the Second Person into it. Our job is to ask why God did that and what He wanted that Second Person to work in the life of the world. We are called to discern and continue that work.