Integral Conversion: A Catholic Pedagogical Framework for Teaching Environmental Sustainability and Ecological Citizenship from Japan

As Vatican efforts expand to move awareness of environmental sustainability from the peripheries to the center of public consciousness, Catholic schools face the challenge of instilling in the next generation of graduates a distinctly Catholic sense of ecological citizenship. To this end, Catholic educators are faced with the challenge of presenting complex environmental problems in a manner that honors both the data of science and the transcendental worldview the Church proclaims. This paper offers a framework for examining environmental sustainability issues in the classroom from the perspective of Catholic social teaching. The author’s professional context of teaching Catholic social ethics and Christian humanism at a major Catholic Jesuit university in Japan revealed the need for and inspired the creation of the following pedagogical framework in an effort to help students see the bigger picture of environmental sustainability as understood by Pope Francis, his predecessors, and the entire Catholic Church. The framework may also be a help within contexts of high familiarity with the Catholic faith since it provides a birds-eye view, so to speak, of the various inputs consequential to thinking about ecological issues as a Catholic