Xavier de Bénazé SJ reflects on how the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and Pope Francis’s concept of ecological conversion (from Laudato Si’) intersect, inviting a deeper, relational way of viewing the world.

He begins by proposing integral ecology as a relational paradigm. Rather than thinking of the world as a machine, this paradigm sees reality as woven by four fundamental relationships: with God, with ourselves, with others, and with the natural world. Faith, he argues, grounds and orients all these relationships.

Bénazé critiques the dominant technocratic paradigm — the idea that the world is just a machine to be manipulated and optimized. He highlights how this reductionist worldview has contributed to ecological crises, using plastics as a key example: once heralded as technological progress, plastics now pollute ecosystems and even enter human bodies, demonstrating the limits of purely technical solutions.

He says that only a shift to integral ecology, where everything is seen as interconnected, can help us grasp how environmental issues like plastic pollution tie into broader systems of harm (eg. fossil fuels, human health, inequality).

Bénazé also explores conversion in a spiritual sense: converting from the machine-paradigm to a relational worldview requires a transformation of how we perceive, understand, and live in relation to the earth.

Importantly, he highlights dialogue as central to this conversion. By adopting integral ecology, Christians can more easily engage with non-religious ecological thinkers. He gives examples of French figures — including atheist philosopher Edgar Morin and politician Delphine Batho — who resonate with parts of this relational worldview even if they don’t share the same faith basis.

Bénazé outlines six gateways (via a guide from the FORTES research group) through which people can begin their ecological-conversion journey: Oikos (science and our physical home), Ethos (ethics), Nomos (structures and governance), Logos (word view), Praxis (action), and Dunamis (spiritual reconnection).

He concludes by quoting Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Mass on the World, using it to evoke a spiritually grounded, universal offering: seeing the world itself as an altar, and uniting human labor, suffering and hope in a prayerful act of ecological love.

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