Finding my feet in ecology
I am not a specialist on climate matters or, for a matter of fact, on any matter particularly. So how on earth did I become the Ecology Advocacy Officer at the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC)? It’s an interesting question which I only seriously asked myself when ordered (by my director) to write this testimony!
It seems clear to me that my interest in ecology stems from searching for justice. It is obvious that this search stems from my faith, and that the Society of Jesus played a big part in this. The Jesuits were always there, if even at first in a rather opaque way. In the church my family went to there was, what seemed at the time at least, a huge painting above the altar of two very ‘Spanish’ looking figures. They looked heroic, and as I enjoyed holidays to the Costa Del Sol and had a school art project on Salvador Dalí It seemed only right to take the name Francis Xavier as the additional name I took on my confirmation. It was not until I went to my Jesuit boarding school the next year that I came to love these two Spaniards, and in particular the other one, Ignatius of Loyola.
Learning about the story of St Ignatius, his conversation, and his call for us ‘to give, and not to count the cost’ was an unmatched moment of inspiration in my life. Suddenly faith was transformed from saying prayers and going to mass to something deeper in everyday life. My classmates and I were reminded daily of our purpose in life, and that was to be ‘men and women for others’. So as I grew older, I came to know the exercises and understand the need to live a life where the poorest come first and where justice is paramount. However I knew that in the Counter-Reformation world in which St Ignatius lived, he had causes to act on, whereas I remained causeless. That was until a rainy day when I was 17.
By virtue of being a senior student of Geography, I was unenthusiastically enrolled to be a member of the school environmental society. I was not particularly motivated in my participation and did not connect this at all with my search for justice. They were two separate things. But on that rainy day, our priest-chaplain pulled out a newly published encyclical from our Jesuit Pope. I remember being shocked by that line which declared that ‘the Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth’. It was the shock which I badly needed! The climate crisis affects every single person and the poorest the most. Finally here was a cause I could devote my time to!
Unfortunately, whilst I was at university I spent more of my time specialising in beer than ecology, but I never fell away from the church and spent my summers volunteering with people with disabilities and the elderly in Lourdes. It was in Lourdes where my inspiration came back. I’d spent all day working in a hospital with sick and elderly pilgrims and I bumped into a Jesuit on the street whom I remembered from school. We sat down for a coffee and as I left the cafe after our catch up, he shouted at me down the street ‘and remember, if you’re going to live a life of faith make sure it’s also a life of justice’. Suddenly the excitement I first had when I heard the story of St Ignatius came back, and despite a hiccup or two, that excitement has lived inside me ever since.
It was still an unexpected coincidence however that my first job out of university was for the Jesuits at their international development office in London. This connection between the global south and ecology really made the crisis seem real and the next time I saw that Jesuit was two years later in Scotland for the COP26 Conference. I was leading a group of 28 young adults on a pilgrimage from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The solidarity amongst young people and the sense of urgency felt by us all to do something in the name of climate justice was insatiable and I knew that I belonged in this movement.
Now in my second job for the Jesuits, and based in Brussels, I feel a move in the right direction because of the opportunity which the framework of the European Union gives. The ecology team here is pushing for the rights of future generations amidst the climate crisis and this is very motivating.
I am grateful for the Jesuits for inspiring me, and then giving me a job! I pray mostly for those in the global south which suffer the most from this crisis but St Ignatius gives me hope. Amongst despair he set an example to follow for centuries. Now it is for all of humanity to do the same, and use this crisis as a way of searching for justice.
Colm Fahy
