“The lack of ecological commitment in our monastic communities can slow vocations”

10 years after the publication of the encyclical Laudato Si ‘, how many monasteries have committed to taking these calls for ecological conversion in their community life?

Sister Nathanaëlle: To date, there are twenty-six monasteries who have made the process of being labeled Green Church. In 2019, a meeting of monastic superiors to the Carmel of Peace in Mazille aroused the desire to advance together. The Covid 19 pandemic then slowed down this momentum, preventing the holding of a planned regional meeting. Several communities, including those absent at the time, have since asked us: a new meeting is in preparation for early 2026.

What are the brakes that do you think? Do you feel a generational effect?

Advanced together in community can sometimes seem to put brakes in the sense that, for example, in certain communities, the younger sisters can be motor while the oldest can be less sensitive to these questions.

The lack of vocations also contributes to slowing down commitment since it is first necessary to accompany the aging of communities. But we also realize that if a community, today, does not take into account ecological commitment, this can slow down the reception of new vocations. Finally, being fewer in communities often leads to a drop in local agricultural activity. Consequently, this also leads to a lesser consideration of ecological issues, since there is less and less direct confrontation with the living.

Even today, monastic life is perceived as being in contact with nature, and therefore attentive to contemporary questions of ecology. Is this the case?

Yes, even if this is very different from one community to another. Some monasteries, which are already well advanced in ecological reflection continue to innovate and remain open to change and reflection.

For example, the Vire stone abbey, which has embarked on an eco -responsible approach since the 1960s, is still looking for new projects. Another example is the ecumenical community of Taizé which has chosen to adopt a basic vegetarian menu now. The Abbey of Echourgnac also welcomed a whole series of television programs devoted to integral ecology (six episodes Generations laudato if ‘).

In your own commitment as a delegate Green Church for Monastic Life, what are your most important levers to move forward?

This label is a good lever to move forward, by offering to carry out two new actions per year, and by offering various tools that allow you to stay along the way. Another lever is to link the communities between them and thus be able to stimulate healthy emulation between us, especially during intermonastic meetings. It will be important in the future that ecological questions are not reduced to that of agroecology, but also tackle all relational aspect, especially within communities and with their entourage. The challenge is to experience an integral ecology to the end.

A word on the progress of your own community in this area?

Concretely, in my community in Martigné-Briand, we experience, through Woofing, to meet a expectation of young and old. For a given time, these people, believers or not, experience a simple relationship with nature through work in the garden, but also with the community in which they feel welcomed without judgment or prejudice. They also discover, through silence, a path to their own interiority. As for their relationship to God, it is the king’s secret … but who can say that nothing happens?