Laudato Si’ and the Eco-social Footprints of Extractive Industries in Africa

Abstract

This essay discusses Laudato si’ from the perspective of the impact of extractive industries in parts of Africa, like the
mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Here, as in many other African countries, the poverty of the poor is aggravated
by a system of private and exclusive property rights promoted by the neoliberal market system. While this system benefits the political and business elite, its eco-social impacts unfairly undermine ordinary Africans and their capacity to live fully and/or compete with foreign entities and markets. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis rebukes the inverse relationship between the technological mindset and its attendant market insensitivity to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. His clarion call for ecological conversion gives a good grounding for a relational covenant ethic which, when followed through, would engender a new
appreciation of the dignity of all human persons created in God’s image, their environments and communities directly affected by the extractive process.