From Greening to Meaning: Understanding the Content of Catholic Attitudes towards the Ecological Crisis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper makes a valuable contribution to the study of the relationship between Christianity and environmental activism by helpfully complexifying the question of the relationship between "green faith" and "environmental action". The identification and characterisation of "clusters" in the research sample, in particular, offers a promising starting-point for future empirical studies of the relationship between Christianity and environmentalism at the "grassroots" level. The contrast identified from the data, and discussed at some length, between believing that environmental concern is an important part of Catholic faith and believing that it is an important part of one's own faith is indeed interesting and deserves further exploration, but I am not convinced by many of the possible explanations advanced by the authors (especially the suggestion that this somehow points to interfaith awareness, or a sense of one's own faith as somehow not Catholic). Rather, this looks like a straightforward contrast between fides qua creditur and fides quae creditur; the participants don't think that care for the environment is central to the Catholic faith as presented and represented by the institution (which isn't that surprising, given how old they are and assuming they are cradle Catholics - they won't have been taught it as "Catholic faith" for most of their lives), but it is central to their own faith as Catholics today.  I also think that more should have been said earlier about the possible significance of education or social class - as a variable that doesn't seem to have been accounted for in the study, and that is (as the authors acknowledge in the final paragraph) a significant predictor of environmental concern. 

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful review. We are especially grateful for your insights on possible explanations for the relationship between participants’ apparently disconnected experience of personal vs organised faith as correlate of ecological action. We thought carefully about your analysis, and found it both parsimonious and intuitive. Consequently, we have dedicated a large part of our now rewritten discussion to the fides qua creditur and fides quea creditor distinction. All the reviewers identified the discussion to be the weakest section, and we believe that your analysis now forms the basis of a much stronger discussion, which we hope satisfies all the reviewers. Thank you also for your points on the role of education and other societal variables. We have tried to draw these out more explicitly in the rewritten discussion, revisiting some of the reviewed literature on independent variables in a little more detail, in light of the findings.  

Reviewer 2 Report

I would urge the authors of this exemplary study to elaborate and nuance the heuristic distinction they employ between "ecological attitudes" and "environmental concerns" (qua "actions," "conduct," and "activity). The former are, so the authors contend, are theologically constructed, such as, by the papal encyclical Laudatio Si'. It would be helpful were the authors to cite, if but briefly, this document and perhaps comment critically on its language and articulation of its values in support of "environmental concern."

Author Response

Thank you for your kind words of appreciation. We have explained in the Introduction that Laudato Si’ starts by expressing deep concern for the environment based on observation of the effects of the environmental crisis, attributes its causes to humans, links the crisis to Scripture and Church Tradition, and finishes by recommending actions including - and importantly - those relating to spiritual eco-education. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript considers a relevant and important topic: analyzing the relationship of Roman Catholic teaching on the connection between faith and care for the environment and the faithful's perception of this connection and their actual practice of faith and care for the environment. The manuscript convincingly proposes that the consistency of the prevailing results of past studies on this question may be due to the lack of refinement in research questions, methodological approach selected and analysis. The research questions and methological approaches adopted for this study are appropriate, the results are coherently and compellingly presented, highlighting a number of significant findings. The less compelling part/section of the manuscript is the discussion of the results (including the conclusion). Further discussion of the originality of the results obtained, their significance and implications in terms of revising the prevailing consensus on the issue and the need to conduct further research building on these new findings is needed. Considering the limitations described in the same section with respect to the non-generalizable character of the results, the original contribution of the manuscript directly depends on such a cogent discussion. The manuscript needs to demonstrate clearly that despite these limitations, the results are distinctive and compelling enough to warrant further investigation that would admit such generalization. Specifically, the manuscript should indicate under which particular conditions such generalizability could be achieved in testing the validity of the results obtained. Please see attached file for grammatical and syntactical suggested changes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the constructive comments and suggestions. In spite of the significant methodological limitations, we have now highlighted the strengths that make our research interesting and relevant for future research which is more generalized in its scope. 

Additionally, we conclude our work with a "Conclusion" section which summarizes the potential implications of this research by suggesting new trends and directions between Catholic and environmental studies, which, we hope to have demonstrated, are multiple, strong, and in productive ferment.  

We have discussed all points identified by the reviewers in the "Discussion" section of the manuscript. 

Reviewer 4 Report

This article seeks to add nuance in our understanding of how Catholics (of a specific UK diocese) view, feel, and act with regard to environmental concerns. Whilst previous studies may rely upon rough generalisations (due to their methodological approaches), this article adds further granularity through cross-sectional surveys. The methods used are standard for the field, but the particular application of them to a particular participant set is a welcome contribution. Important insights include the conclusion that the specificity of one's faith as Catholic may not contribute to increased environmental engagement/concern. It poses a question to Catholic faith leaders --- whether lay or clerical --- about the content and distinctiveness of their theologies with regard to this issue. This is an important question to wrestle with: perhaps the Church does not want to be different than others on the issue, or perhaps it does. The current paper of course will not answer this question, but it does raise the question, which is an important point of departure. For this and other reasons (discussed below), I would recommend that the journal consider this paper for publication. 

The cluster analysis was particularly strong. I might recommend adding the terms 'naive', 'expert', and 'informed' in the actual Figure (Figure 1) and then give the Figure a more descriptive title (or sub-title). This will help the reader interpret the figure more readily/easily than having to slog through the main body of the text for interpretive guidance.

 

Table 4 could use some more rows within cells for visual clarity. For example, in the row entitled 'Variables as to what causes a parishioners to not take eco action', the main point of subsequent three columns (that 'some significant' variables exist) is lost by the sheer amount of text in their respective cells. Perhaps the words 'Some significant' could be in a 'sub-row' of their own, within the main row of course, and thus be separated from the numerical results. This may aid in visual clarity, specifically by bringing the analysis to the fore more clearly. 

Perhaps in the Discussion and Conclusion section, it may help to mention the demographics stats of the Catholic Church in Britain, more generally. This may help contextualise the present study's population sample a bit more, as well as inform the conclusions in the limitations part of the discussion. For this information, you may wish to consult the research of Prof Stephen Bullivant, a sociologist and theologian. Here is a link to one relevant piece of work: https://academic.oup.com/book/44048/chapter-abstract/371930653?redirectedFrom=fulltext  

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the constructive comments and suggestions.  

Here below the points discussed: 

• The cluster analysis was particularly strong. I might recommend adding the terms 'naive', 'expert', and 'informed' in the actual Figure (Figure 1) and then give the Figure a more descriptive title (or sub-title). This will help the reader interpret the figure more readily/easily than having to slog through the main body of the text for interpretive guidance. 

We added the names of the three clusters, thank you 

• Table 4 could use some more rows within cells for visual clarity. For example, in the row entitled 'Variables as to what causes a parishioners to not take eco action', the main point of subsequent three columns (that 'some significant' variables exist) is lost by the sheer amount of text in their respective cells. Perhaps the words 'Some significant' could be in a 'sub-row' of their own, within the main row of course, and thus be separated from the numerical results. This may aid in visual clarity, specifically by bringing the analysis to the fore more clearly.  

The words ‘Some significant’ were placed in a row of their own, separated from the numerical results. 

• Perhaps in the Discussion and Conclusion section, it may help to mention the demographics stats of the Catholic Church in Britain, more generally. This may help contextualise the present study's population sample a bit more, as well as inform the conclusions in the limitations part of the discussion.  

We have added some national data and compared it with our study in order to emphasize the applicability and the strengths of our study. Thank you. 

 

• For this information, you may wish to consult the research of Prof Stephen Bullivant, a sociologist and theologian. Here is a link to one relevant piece of work: https://academic.oup.com/book/44048/chapter-abstract/371930653?redirectedFrom=fulltext 

We have included some information relating to Catholics in Britain from the source suggested above, thank you.