A Study of Pope Francis’ Integral Ecology in the Universal Catholic Church and Ecological Movements in the Korean Catholic Church as a Local Church

Abstract

This study examines how Pope Francis’ vision of integral ecology has been received, interpreted, and translated into practice within the Korean Catholic Church as a local Church. It advances three related arguments. First, integral ecology operates through two analytically distinct but mutually reinforcing dimensions: cultural conversion, involving changes in values, ecological spirituality, education, and ways of life, and structural transformation, involving ecclesial institutions, administrative practices, public engagement, and environmental policy. Second, ecological engagement within Korean Catholicism did not originate with the promulgation of Laudato Si’. Rather, the encyclical encountered pre-existing local ecological traditions and provided them with a renewed theological vocabulary, ecclesial legitimacy, and global horizon through which earlier practices could be reinterpreted, coordinated, and institutionally intensified. Third, this interaction is best understood as a historically layered process of receptive adaptation and religious glocalization, whereby universal Catholic teaching is locally appropriated, reinterpreted, and embodied in culturally and institutionally distinctive forms. Drawing on papal and ecclesial documents, peer-reviewed theological and Korean scholarship, and purposively selected case materials, the study demonstrates that the reception of integral ecology is neither a simple top-down transmission of universal teaching nor merely a process of institutional implementation. Rather, it emerges through the reciprocal interaction of universal teaching, pre-existing local traditions, cultural formation, and structural change. The study thereby contributes to a more dynamic understanding of the relationship between the Universal Church and local Churches in contemporary Catholic ecological engagement.

1. Introduction

One of the most pressing challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century is the climate crisis and the ongoing destruction of ecosystems. Global warming, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and the inequalities associated with environmental degradation are no longer issues confined to particular nations or regions; rather, they constitute a global crisis that threatens the human community as a whole. Yet this crisis is not only environmental or structural. It is also cultural, insofar as patterns of consumption, social imaginaries, criteria of value, and prevailing understandings of human flourishing shape the ways in which societies relate to creation. An adequate ecological response therefore requires both changes in social, economic, political, and ecclesial structures and a deeper transformation of the cultural values and ways of life that sustain them. In this context, religions are increasingly being called upon to provide meaningful social responses to ecological challenges (Haluza-DeLay 2014; Beling 2023).

In particular, Pope Francis marked a significant turning point in the ecological discourse of the Universal Catholic Church with the promulgation of the encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015. Integral ecology, as developed in the encyclical, does not collapse cultural change into social–structural reform, even though the two are closely related. It calls for ecological conversion in the spheres of values, education, spirituality, and everyday life while also demanding transformation in economic, political, technological, and institutional arrangements. This distinction is important for understanding how a universal ecclesial vision becomes locally embodied: cultural reception may reshape ecological consciousness and ways of life, while structural reception institutionalizes those commitments in organizations, policies, and public practices.

Previous scholarship has developed along several complementary lines. Theological and ethical studies have clarified the foundations and implications of integral ecology, including its liberationist, ecclesiological, and creation-centered dimensions (Castillo 2016; Gruber 2017; Deane-Drummond 2023). Other research has examined the history and characteristics of ecological engagement within the Korean Catholic Church, demonstrating that Catholic ecological activity preceded Laudato Si’ and developed through grassroots movements, papal social teaching, and the emergence of ecological spirituality (Yoo 2008). More recent scholarship has shown that post-Laudato Si’ Korean Catholic ecological discourse gradually expanded from personal repentance and lifestyle change toward more explicit engagement with political, economic, and public-policy dimensions of the ecological crisis (Yang 2024). Nevertheless, insufficient attention has been given to how pre-existing local ecological traditions interact with universal Catholic teaching, and to how cultural conversion and structural transformation operate as distinct but mutually reinforcing dimensions of local reception. This gap is especially important for understanding the relationship between the Universal Church and a local Church without reducing that relationship to one-directional diffusion.

Accordingly, this study advances three related arguments. First, Pope Francis’ integral ecology operates through two analytically distinct but mutually reinforcing dimensions: cultural conversion and structural transformation. Second, the ecological engagement of the Korean Catholic Church did not originate with Laudato Si’; rather, the encyclical encountered pre-existing Korean Catholic ecological traditions and provided them with a renewed theological vocabulary, ecclesial legitimacy, and global horizon. Third, the resulting interaction is best understood as a process of receptive adaptation and religious glocalization, through which universal teaching is locally appropriated, reinterpreted, and embodied in culturally and institutionally distinctive forms.

To examine these arguments, this study adopts a qualitative research design combining documentary analysis, literature review, and purposive case study. At the level of the Universal Catholic Church, it analyzes major magisterial texts, including Evangelii Nuntiandi, Evangelii Gaudium, Laudato Si’, Laudate Deum, and relevant documents of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, together with peer-reviewed theological scholarship. At the level of the Catholic Church in Korea, it examines official documents of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, diocesan pastoral letters and declarations, and organizational materials concerning Catholic ecological initiatives. Peer-reviewed Korean scholarship is used to reconstruct the historical development of ecological engagement before and after Laudato Si’. Journalistic and other web-based sources are retained only where necessary to document specific dates, organizational developments, or public activities not adequately recorded in scholarly sources.

The primary documentary corpus focuses on the period 2015–2023, when integral ecology became a central pastoral agenda following Laudato Si’.1 Earlier materials and peer-reviewed historical studies are used to contextualize pre-existing Korean Catholic ecological activity. And the Archdiocese of Seoul and the Diocese of Suwon were selected through purposive sampling not as statistically or institutionally representative cases of the Korean Catholic Church as a whole, but as information-rich and comparatively advanced cases that make visible two analytically distinct modes of reception: cultural-formative reception in Seoul and structural–institutional reception in Suwon. The analysis combines Avery Dulles’ understanding of ecclesial communio with the concepts of receptive adaptation and religious glocalization. In this study, religious glocalization refers to the process through which a universal or translocal religious vision is selectively interpreted and embodied through local cultural, ecclesial, and socio-political conditions rather than simply reproduced unchanged (Roudometof 2016, 2018).

2. Pope Francis’ Integral Ecology in the Universal Catholic Church

2.1. The Development of Catholic Ecological Thought from John Paul II to Benedict XVI

It was not until the latter half of the twentieth century that the Universal Catholic Church began to address contemporary ecological issues explicitly through papal documents.

Pope John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis called upon the world to undergo an ecological conversion (Pope John Paul II 1987), while his Message for the Twenty-Third World Day of Peace, Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation (Pope John Paul II 1990), urged humanity to recognize the close connection between peace and ecological concerns. In this message, he emphasized that the ecological crisis is fundamentally a moral issue that demands shared responsibility. The Church’s ecological perspective is also evident in the 1991 social encyclical Centesimus Annus (Pope John Paul II 1991), in which Pope John Paul II points out the connection between excessive consumption and ecological problems, and calls for greater attention to natural ecology, human ecology, and the social ecology of work.

His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, also carried forward and deepened this perspective. In his Message for the Fortieth World Day of Peace, The Human Person, the Heart of Peace (Pope Benedict XVI 2007), he referred to a “peace ecology” and reaffirmed the importance of natural, human, and social ecology. More explicitly, Caritas in Veritate linked environmental deterioration to the culture that shapes human coexistence and cautioned against assuming that environmental problems could be resolved by economic incentives or regulatory mechanisms alone (Pope Benedict XVI 2009, no. 51). This emphasis is important because it anticipates the cultural dimension that Pope Francis would later integrate more systematically with economic, technological, political, and institutional questions.

Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI thus established important moral, anthropological, and cultural foundations for Catholic ecological thought. John Paul II framed the ecological crisis as a moral question and called for ecological conversion, while Benedict XVI emphasized human ecology and the cultural conditions of responsible development. Pope Francis inherits these trajectories but brings them into a more explicit integral framework in which environmental degradation, poverty, technology, economic organization, political institutions, culture, and spirituality are treated as interrelated without being reduced to a single explanatory level (Deane-Drummond 2023).

2.2. Evangelization of Culture and the Cultural–Structural Logic of Integral Ecology

The cultural dimension of integral ecology can be situated within the longer Catholic tradition of the “evangelization of culture.” In Evangelii Nuntiandi, Paul VI describes evangelization as a transformation not only of individuals but also of the criteria of judgment, determining values, lines of thought, sources of inspiration, and models of life through which societies understand themselves (Pope Paul VI 1975, nos. 18–20). Pope Francis develops this perspective in Evangelii Gaudium, where culture is understood as the concrete way in which a people relates to others, to other creatures, and to God, and where the evangelization of cultures is presented as a central ecclesial task (Pope Francis 2013, nos. 68–69, 115–122).

Laudato Si’ extends this cultural perspective into ecological theology. Francis argues that an “ecological culture” cannot be reduced to a collection of technical responses; it requires a distinctive way of looking at reality and must encompass patterns of thought, policies, education, lifestyles, and spirituality (Pope Francis 2015, no. 111). His discussion of cultural ecology further emphasizes that local cultures are living and participatory realities that cannot simply be displaced by uniform technical or regulatory solutions (nos. 143–146). Integral ecology therefore begins with a cultural and moral conversion concerning the good life and humanity’s relationship with creation, while simultaneously requiring social structures capable of sustaining transformed practices.

This distinction clarifies the analytical contribution of integral ecology. Cultural conversion and structural transformation should neither be collapsed into one another nor separated as independent projects. Rather, values, spirituality, education, and everyday practices provide normative energy for institutional reform, while institutions and policies can stabilize, reproduce, and extend ecological culture. Castillo (2016) similarly identifies political and cultural conversion as central dimensions of integral ecology, while Gruber (2017) emphasizes that Laudato Si’ itself carries ecclesiological implications for the relationship between Church and context. This cultural–structural distinction provides the framework for examining how integral ecology is received and reconfigured within the Korean Catholic Church.

From his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis frequently visited impoverished neighborhoods and practiced a pastoral ministry of solidarity with the poor. Already during this period, he intuitively recognized the correlation between structural injustice that threatens human dignity and ecological destruction—an insight that later became the foundation of the concept of integral ecology articulated in his encyclical Laudato Si’. For the Pope, ecological issues went beyond the realm of environmental protection, constituting an ethical problem that threatens the suffering of the poor and the survival of future generations (Adam 2023, pp. 179–81; Sawa 2024).

This awareness is also clearly reflected in the name “Francis” that he chose upon his election as Pope. By taking St. Francis of Assisi as his model and embracing a way of life grounded in fraternal relationships with all creatures, the Pope demonstrated that his ecological commitment is not merely a matter of policy, but an existential choice rooted in the spirituality of a saint.

The spiritual foundation of the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) is rooted in Laudato Si’, the encyclical promulgated by Pope Francis in 2015 (Pope Francis 2015).

As the first encyclical on ecology to emerge within the historical continuity of Catholic social teaching, this document holds particular significance in that it offers an integrated theological and ethical reflection on the ecological crisis confronting modern civilization and systematically articulates the Church’s response to it.

At the heart of the encyclical lies integral ecology as a new ecological paradigm that encompasses a dialogical perspective engaging science, philosophy, and civil society (Pope Francis 2015, nos. 137–62). Accordingly, the Pope does not confine the ecological crisis to a merely environmental issue, but presents it as a common task for all humanity—one that calls for comprehensive transformation across every sphere, including the economic, political, cultural, and social realms, as well as the most ordinary dimensions of human daily life. Pope Francis’ integral ecology is not merely an environmental ethic; rather, it represents a new ecclesiological and pastoral paradigm through which the Universal Catholic Church redefines itself as a responsible global community called to care for our common home.

He emphasizes that, in order to care for the earth, the common home created by God, what is required is not merely environmental protection but an “ecological conversion” that calls for a transformation of human ways of life and systems of values (Pope Francis 2015, nos. 216–21). He further makes clear that “religions can make towards an integral ecology and the full development of humanity” (Pope Francis 2015, no. 62), and by proclaiming a “dialogue with all people about our common home” (Pope Francis 2015, no. 3), he articulates a pastoral orientation in which the Church is called to stand as a subject of responsible solidarity through collaborative dialogue with society, academia, and civil society.

Such an orientation represents a theological and pastoral effort to redefine the Christian Church not as a closed and self-contained institution, but as a community of responsible solidarity committed to caring for our common home in an age of ecological crisis. Consequently, Pope Francis’ ecological movement extends far beyond the scope of environmental protection alone. It has emerged as a form of faith-based global citizenship grounded not only in Christian ecumenism but also in dialogue and cooperation with the wider world, fostering collaboration among religions, civil society, international organizations, and diverse social actors in addressing the ecological crisis (Beling 2023).

Indeed, shortly after the promulgation of Laudato Si’ in 2015, the GCCM was established as an international Catholic network dedicated to addressing the ecological crisis. Subsequently, on 29 July 2021, the organization officially changed its name to the Laudato Si’ Movement (LSM) in order to reflect more explicitly the identity and mission of the Catholic Church (Lee 2023). This development may be regarded as significant evidence that Pope Francis’ vision of integral ecology has evolved beyond a mere concern for environmental issues and has increasingly come to function as a fundamental principle for rearticulating the mission and identity of the Universal Catholic Church.

In order to formulate and implement a coordinated plan at the level of the universal Catholic Church, Pope Francis established the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development through the motu proprio Humanam Progressionem on 17 August 2016 (Pope Francis 2016). With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pope proclaimed the Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year 2020–2021 (from 24 May 2020 to 24 May 2021). Under the leadership of this Dicastery, a series of common initiatives was proposed, explicitly emphasizing the practice of ecological conversion by taking the encyclical Laudato Si’ as a guiding milestone, and all people were invited to participate under the theme “All of Us Together, Here” (The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development 2020). Immediately following the conclusion of the Anniversary Year, in May 2021, the Dicastery took the lead in launching the Seven-Year Journey of integral ecology inspired by the spirit of Laudato Si’, guiding families, dioceses, schools, universities, hospitals and healthcare centers, businesses and agricultural sectors, as well as religious institutes to commit themselves to this long-term process (Bae 2021).

At the ecumenical level, Pope Francis has also built sustained solidarity through dialogue and joint statements with leaders of other Christian traditions and religions, thereby affirming before the international community that responding to the ecological crisis is not the concern of any single religious tradition but a common task for all humanity. In the year 2015, when the encyclical was promulgated, Pope Francis established the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This day had long been observed annually on 1 September within the Orthodox Church. Its adoption by the Catholic Church thus signified not only a concrete commitment to addressing the ecological crisis, but also an explicit gesture of unity and solidarity with the Orthodox Churches.

Furthermore, on 1 September 2017, Pope Francis issued a Joint Message on the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation together with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Church (Pope Francis 2017). In addition, in September 2021—on the eve of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), held from 1 to 12 November 2021—the leaders of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion released a joint statement on climate change entitled Hear the Cry of the Earth, issuing an urgent appeal for the future of the planet (Palermo 2021).

Finally, Laudate Deum, the apostolic exhortation issued by Pope Francis on 4 October 2023, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, emerged as the second major ecclesial document continuing the ecological vision inaugurated by Laudato Si’ eight years earlier in 2015. In this exhortation, the Pope compares the present climate crisis to a world war, urging people across the globe to pray for an end to this conflict so that life may once again flourish. Through this document, he repeatedly identifies technocratic paradigms and anthropocentrism as the fundamental causes of the human-induced ecological crisis, while persistently calling for renewed dialogue at multiple levels and for the revitalization of “ecological education” as an essential response to the crisis (Catholic News 2023b).

Pope Francis’s practical initiatives gradually expanded in scope, developing into an active engagement with cooperation and solidarity at the global level. Around 2020, he placed particular emphasis on collaboration with international organizations such as the United Nations and UNESCO, repeatedly underscoring the need for the Church to respond as a responsible moral actor to crises of global significance. These initiatives demonstrate that his ecological commitment extends beyond the Church’s involvement in environmental issues as such, revealing instead a core mode of praxis that permeates his entire life, pastoral identity, and evangelical spirituality.

In particular, from 2019 to 2023, Pope Francis proposed and actively advanced the Global Compact on Education in collaboration with the international community, thereby positioning education as a central arena for addressing the ecological crisis (Global Compact on Education n.d., Seven Commitments to Change the World). In a video message delivered at the symposium “Education Is an Act of Hope,” co-hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the United Nations in December 2020, he emphasized the urgent need for a new form of education capable of overcoming the globalization of indifference and the throwaway culture (Masotti 2020). This perspective reveals his understanding of education not merely as a process of knowledge transmission. Rather, it is conceived as an ethical and spiritual praxis through which human persons and societies can be transformed amid the challenges of the global crisis.

The Pope’s particular emphasis on global solidarity and cooperation in the field of education is grounded in a theological insight that understands education as a source of hope enabling a despairing humanity to move toward the future. For Pope Francis, such hope can be concretely realized through the formation of Catholic global citizens endowed with mature civic consciousness, which in turn signifies the cultivation of faith-based subjects who have internalized ecological responsibility and global solidarity. In this respect, Pope Francis’ ecological initiative constitutes an integral pastoral strategy that connects faith and life, as well as the Church and the world, through the medium of education.

Based on the preceding analysis, the significance of Pope Francis’ integral ecology within the context of the Universal Catholic Church may be summarized as follows.

First, Pope Francis redefined ecological concerns as a central mission of the Universal Catholic Church. Through the encyclical Laudato Si’, he presented environmental issues as fundamental challenges that demand a theological response from the Church. As the first encyclical in the history of Catholic social teaching to address ecological issues in a comprehensive and systematic manner, Laudato Si’ marked a significant turning point in the theological and pastoral orientation of the Catholic Church.

Second, Pope Francis’ most significant contribution lies in his articulation of integral ecology as a relational paradigm that joins, without conflating, cultural conversion and structural transformation. The ecological crisis is understood not as an isolated environmental problem but as a distortion in relationships among human beings, society, and the natural world. Cultural conversion concerns the values, habits, educational practices, spiritual dispositions, and social imaginaries through which these relationships are interpreted; structural transformation concerns the institutional, economic, political, and ecclesial arrangements through which such values become durable forms of collective practice. This integrative approach also invites a re-reading of catholicity in terms of relational reciprocity among persons, societies, creation, and ecclesial communities, echoing Dulles’ insight that catholicity is realized through a network of communio rather than through centralized uniformity.

Third, Pope Francis actively promoted practical ecological action at the level of the Universal Catholic Church. He did not merely promulgate an encyclical; rather, he undertook a variety of initiatives aimed at translating its vision into concrete practices and institutional reforms. Notable examples include the transformation of the GCCM into the LSM, the establishment of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the proclamation of the 2020–2021 Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year, and the launch of the Laudato Si’ Seven-Year Journey. Through these initiatives, Pope Francis sought to mobilize the entire Church as an agent of ecological action and transformation. In this respect, his ecological leadership may be regarded as overcoming a significant limitation of earlier papal environmental discourse, which often remained at the level of teaching and exhortation without developing into a sustained ecclesial movement.

Fourth, Pope Francis presented ecological concerns not merely as an issue of interest to the Universal Catholic Church, but as a universal challenge requiring a shared response from the whole of humanity. Representative examples of this commitment include the observance of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in cooperation with the Orthodox Churches and the joint statements issued together with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and Anglican leaders. These initiatives not only exemplify the practical realization of ecumenical cooperation in addressing ecological issues, but they also contributed significantly to reframing the environmental crisis as a matter of shared human responsibility and global solidarity rather than an internal concern of any particular religious tradition. Consequently, Pope Francis’ efforts underscored the necessity of international cooperation and global governance for the protection of creation, while expanding the Church’s role in ecological matters into one of public responsibility on a global scale. In this respect, his ecological vision marked an important turning point in situating the Church as a significant actor in addressing the global ecological crisis.

Fifth, Pope Francis has promoted the formation of ecological citizenship through education. Through the Global Compact on Education, he understands education not merely as a process of transmitting knowledge, but as a journey of hope capable of transforming both individuals and society. From this perspective, education serves as a vital means of cultivating ecological responsibility and sensitivity to the common good, while fostering citizens who are committed to sustainable ways of life. In this regard, the Global Compact on Education demonstrates that integral ecology extends beyond the sphere of the Church’s pastoral activity into the broader domains of education and cultural formation. It thus represents a significant example of how Pope Francis’ ecological vision seeks to shape not only ecclesial practice but also the ethical and civic consciousness of contemporary society (Beling 2023).

3. The Korean Catholic Church as a Local Church Responding to the Challenges of the Ecological Crisis

3.1. Ecological Engagement Before Laudato Si’ and the Encyclical as a Catalyst

Ecological concern within Korean Catholicism did not begin with the promulgation of Laudato Si’. Historical scholarship traces grassroots Catholic ecological engagement to the 1960s, particularly around rural communities, farmers’ rights, and questions of justice. During the 1990s, papal social teaching contributed to a more explicit ecclesial interest in environmental issues, while the 2000s saw increasing efforts to articulate a specifically Catholic ecological spirituality linking creation, justice, peace, and life (Yoo 2008). These developments created local cultural, spiritual, and organizational repertoires upon which later reception of Pope Francis’ integral ecology could build.

Accordingly, Laudato Si’ should not be interpreted as creating Korean Catholic ecological engagement ex nihilo. Its significance lies instead in providing a comprehensive theological grammar, renewed ecclesial legitimacy, and a global framework through which pre-existing local concerns could be reinterpreted, coordinated, and institutionally intensified. This historically layered interpretation strengthens the notion of receptive adaptation: reception occurs when universal teaching encounters an already existing local tradition and reshapes it while also being embodied through that tradition. Yang’s (2024) analysis of Korean Catholic environmental discourse supports this trajectory, showing a gradual movement from emphases on personal repentance, moderation, and lifestyle change toward more explicit engagement with social, political, and economic dimensions of the ecological crisis.

Against this pre-existing background, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ provided a crucial catalyst for the Korean Catholic Church to reinterpret the climate crisis and ecological concerns as integral dimensions of faith and pastoral mission. The special pastoral letter Let Us Learn and Practice Laudato Si’, promulgated by the Archdiocese of Seoul on 1 September 2023, illustrates how this universal theological vision was subsequently translated into local ecological spirituality, pastoral programs, and practical commitments in the daily lives of the faithful. The significance of Laudato Si’ therefore lies less in initiating ecological concern than in reframing, integrating, and accelerating existing strands of ecological engagement.

3.2. Institutional and Public Expansion After Laudato Si’

In particular, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK), which has played a leading role in the environmental movement of the Korean Catholic Church since the early 2000s, responded to the publication of Laudato Si’ by calling for greater ecclesial awareness of the ecological crisis. At its Spring General Assembly in 2016, the CBCK adopted measures to strengthen environmental education at the national level by elevating the existing Environmental Subcommittee of the Justice and Peace Commission to the status of a national committee and establishing it as the Committee for Ecology and Environment (CBCK 2016). This elevation reflected the recognition that ecological issues were no longer a matter of concern for a specific field of ministry alone, but had become an official pastoral responsibility of the Korean Catholic Church as a whole.

These developments became even more pronounced in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the invitation of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development to participate actively in the 2020–2021 Special Laudato Si’ Anniversary Year and the Laudato Si’ Seven-Year Journey, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea issued a special pastoral letter in 2020 entitled Before Our Mother Earth Who Cries Out. This document provided ongoing guidance for integral ecological conversion and called upon parishes and ecclesial committees to formulate concrete action plans and implement them within their pastoral ministries (CBCK 2020b). Indeed, pastoral letters issued by various dioceses after 2021 consistently identified “ecological conversion” and the “cultivation of ecological spirituality” as central pastoral priorities. By encouraging all members of the faithful to participate in the Laudato Si’ Seven-Year Journey, these initiatives expanded ecological responsibility from a matter of individual awareness to a communal and ecclesial commitment. As a result, integral ecology became firmly established as an official pastoral principle at the institutional level of the Korean Catholic Church (Catholic News 2021).

Integral ecology did not remain confined to an internal ecclesial movement. The Korean Catholic Church increasingly came to recognize the climate crisis as a challenge affecting society as a whole and consequently expanded its collaboration and solidarity with civil society.

First of all, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea has consistently issued official statements aimed at raising public awareness of the seriousness of the climate crisis and calling for active responses that extend beyond the boundaries of the ecclesial community. In 2020, the Korean bishops released a statement entitled The Climate Crisis: We Must Act Now, urging immediate and decisive action to address environmental challenges (CBCK 2020a). In 2021, the Chairperson of the Committee for Ecology and Environment of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea issued a further statement, We Urge the Enactment of Carbon Neutrality Legislation Capable of Effectively Addressing the Climate Crisis, emphasizing the need for substantive institutional and legislative responses at the national level (CBCK 2021). These statements demonstrate that the Korean Catholic Church understands the climate crisis not merely as an ecological concern but as a matter of social responsibility and public engagement. They further reveal the Church’s willingness to exercise a prophetic voice in addressing both civil society and the state regarding the urgent challenges posed by climate change.

The participation of Korean Catholic organizations in the Climate Crisis Emergency Action in 2019 marked an important moment in the public expansion of this ecological engagement. It should, however, be read as an intensification of a longer historical trajectory rather than as a wholly new beginning. As Yoo (2008) demonstrates, Catholic ecological movements had already developed through grassroots activism, engagement with papal teaching, justice-and-peace concerns, and ecological spirituality. In the late 2010s, these existing traditions increasingly converged with transnational climate activism and with the theological language of Laudato Si’, enabling ecological engagement to move more visibly from internally focused practices toward public solidarity with civil society. This development illustrates receptive adaptation as a cumulative process in which local histories and universal ecclesial teaching interact.

Within this context, the Korean Catholic Climate Action, which collaborates with the GCCM and the LSM, has emerged as a representative nationwide organization for ecological activism within the Korean Catholic Church. This organization operates under a co-representative leadership structure composed of priests, religious, laypersons, and youth. It also brings together representatives from various sectors—including farmers, women, labor, welfare, youth, media, and education—as well as officials from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and diocesan offices, thereby forming an integrated framework for ecological practice that encompasses both the Church and wider society (GCCM KOREA n.d., Articles of Incorporation, Chapter 2: Organization). After a preparatory process beginning in 2019, the Korean Catholic Climate Action was officially launched in February 2020. It has been recognized as the first climate action initiative within the religious sector in Korea (Kwon 2020). Since April of the same year, the organization has continued to hold regular Friday climate actions, thereby making the ecological engagement of the Korean Catholic Church visibly present at the societal level (Kyung 2023).

In addition, the JPIC (Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation) movement resonates deeply with Pope Francis’s concept of integral ecology and has become a central pillar of ecological engagement within the Korean Catholic Church. This movement emphasizes the close interconnection among the three themes of justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, recognizing issues of human development and the ecological crisis as inseparable aspects of a single integrated challenge. In this respect, it fundamentally corresponds to the perspective of integral ecology proposed by Pope Francis.

Originally, JPIC emerged as an ecumenical church movement proposed by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and adopted at the General Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in Vancouver in 1983 (Olivier 1991; Secular Association of the Blessed n.d.). It was introduced into the Korean Catholic Church in 1990, after which it gradually became active within diocesan structures as well as among religious orders. Today, it functions as an important practical foundation linking ecological pastoral ministry with the pursuit of social justice. In particular, JPIC actively participates in Climate Crisis Emergency Action in cooperation with Korean Catholic Climate Action, thereby expanding prophetic practice grounded in integral ecology both within and beyond the Church. Through these efforts, the JPIC movement has become a significant driving force enabling the Korean Catholic Church to reflect on ecological issues from the perspective of faith and to embody concretely the values of justice, peace, and the integrity of creation (Kyung 2023).

In this respect, the significance of GCCM Korea and the JPIC movement lies not merely in their activities as environmental organizations. Rather, they provided an important catalyst for the development of the Korean Catholic Church’s ecological movement, facilitating its transition from an internally focused ecclesial initiative to a socially engaged movement characterized by active participation in the broader public sphere.

3.3. Structural Embodiment: The Diocese of Suwon

Furthermore, as the ecological movement of the Korean Catholic Church entered a more mature stage of development, a notable characteristic was the gradual translation of ecological concern into concrete institutional practices. As Pope Francis’s pastoral vision of integral ecology began to be implemented concretely, ecological initiatives within the Korean Catholic Church gradually spread at the diocesan level and developed toward establishing more structured goals for practical action. A representative example is the “Carbon Neutrality Declaration” announced by the Diocese of Suwon in September 2021. Through this declaration, the Diocese of Suwon set forth a concrete and ambitious goal of converting 100 percent of the electricity used in its 222 parishes to renewable energy by 2030, and further achieving carbon neutrality for the entire diocese by 2040. This plan exceeded the level of reduction proposed by the government at that time and has been regarded as a significant case that exerted considerable influence not only within the religious sphere but also across broader civil society (The Hankyoreh 2021).

Whereas the earlier stages of the ecological movement were primarily focused on raising awareness and promoting environmental campaigns, this development demonstrates a transition toward structural forms of praxis capable of transforming diocesan administration and energy policies themselves. In other words, ecological conversion was no longer confined to changes in individual lifestyles but began to be translated into institutional and administrative reforms within the Church. In this respect, the Diocese of Suwon represents one of the most concrete and practical examples of the implementation of integral ecology within the Korean Catholic Church.

This institutional shift demonstrates the structural dimension of receptive adaptation. The universal call to ecological conversion is not merely replicated but translated into administrative and energy policies tailored to local institutional realities. The Diocese of Suwon therefore illustrates how cultural and theological commitments can acquire durability through organizational structures, measurable goals, and governance mechanisms. In this sense, the case resonates with Avery Dulles’ communio ecclesiology, in which catholicity is concretely expressed through mutual interdependence rather than uniform replication between the Universal Church and local Churches.

3.4. Cultural and Formative Reception: The Archdiocese of Seoul

More recently, the development of integral ecology within the Korean Catholic Church has entered a new phase, marked by an increasing focus on education and the active participation of the laity. The ecological initiatives of the Korean Catholic Church have continued to expand their scope through the promotion of lay-centered ecological education and the development of participatory structures for engagement. Founded in 2016 under the Committee for Environmental Pastoral Ministry of the Archdiocese of Seoul, the ecological apostolate organization the Haneul-Ttang-Mul-Beot (Sky–Earth–Water–Companions) has remained actively engaged in ecological ministry and education through the present day (Bae 2021). Furthermore, the Ecological Spirituality Practice Group, established in August 2023 under the Archdiocesan Council of Lay Apostolic Associations, has continued to promote ecological spirituality in a systematic and sustained manner by encouraging active lay participation at both the diocesan and parish levels.

The Haneul-Ttang-Mul-Beot movement of the Archdiocese of Seoul plays an important role in fostering sensitivity to ecological spirituality. As a spirituality-centered initiative, it seeks to awaken in the faithful a sense of responsibility toward creation and to encourage reflection on ecological issues from the perspective of faith. By contrast, the Ecological Spirituality Practice Group seeks to translate this spiritual foundation into concrete forms of education and action. In particular, the organization has articulated its commitment to “utilizing the strengths of a lay association to facilitate participation, operating an Ecological Spirituality Carbon Neutrality Academy, and cultivating ecological apostles who can serve as leaders in ecological ministry” (Catholic News 2023a). Through this vision, it presents a practical direction for the future development of ecological spirituality within the Church. A central initiative of the organization is the operation of the Ecological Spirituality Carbon Neutrality Academy, which enables participation by Catholics from dioceses throughout Korea. Moreover, by seeking collaborative partnerships with local governments as well as ecclesial communities, the organization extends the scope of its ecological mission beyond the internal life of the Church and into the broader public sphere (Lee 2023). This expansion highlights the horizontal dimension of ecclesial communio, proving that the local reception of integral ecology is not confined to a top-down hierarchical transmission. Instead, it is actively co-created by the laity as subjective agents who bridge the life of the local church and the civic duties of contemporary society.

Taken together, these cases reveal two mutually reinforcing trajectories of local reception. The first is cultural and formative: ecological conversion is cultivated through spirituality, education, lay participation, and the formation of ecological habits and identities. The second is institutional and structural: these commitments are translated into committees, pastoral priorities, public advocacy, administrative reforms, and carbon-neutrality policies. Seoul and Suwon are not presented as representative of every Korean diocese; rather, as information-rich and comparatively advanced cases, they make visible mechanisms through which cultural commitments can generate structural innovation and through which new structures can, in turn, reinforce ecological culture. The Korean evidence therefore suggests an iterative rather than linear relationship between cultural conversion and structural transformation.

These dynamics can be interpreted as a form of religious glocalization. In Roudometof’s account, glocalization highlights the ways universal religious forms become embedded in, and transformed through, local relations and cultural particularities (Roudometof 2016, 2018). Applied here, the concept does not imply that the Korean Catholic Church simply localizes a fixed Roman program. Rather, universal Catholic ecological teaching interacts with pre-existing Korean ecological traditions, ecclesial institutions, lay movements, and socio-political conditions. Religious glocalization thus complements ecclesial communio: communio provides a theological account of unity and reciprocity between Universal and local Churches, while glocalization offers a sociological language for the concrete processes through which that relationship acquires locally distinctive forms.

4. Discussion: Receptive Adaptation as Religious Glocalization

The analysis suggests that the relationship between universal teaching and local ecological action is better described as historically layered receptive adaptation than as diffusion or implementation alone. Korean Catholic ecological engagement possessed identifiable antecedents before 2015; Laudato Si’ subsequently supplied a more comprehensive theological grammar that connected these local concerns with the global mission of the Church. The resulting process involved both continuity and transformation: earlier practices were not simply displaced, but reinterpreted and coordinated within the broader paradigm of integral ecology.

The cultural–structural distinction helps specify how this adaptation occurs. The Seoul cases show how ecological spirituality, education, and lay participation cultivate cultural dispositions and ecological identities, while the Suwon case demonstrates how ecological commitments can be translated into administrative rules, energy goals, and institutional practices. Yang’s (2024) finding that Korean Catholic ecological discourse shifted from predominantly personal responses toward greater engagement with policy and socio-economic structures provides additional support for this movement. At the same time, the relationship is not one-directional: institutional structures can reinforce cultural formation by normalizing ecological values, creating educational opportunities, and making ecological commitments visible within ordinary ecclesial life.

This interpretation also clarifies the respective roles of communio and glocalization. Ecclesial communio explains why local creativity need not imply separation from the Universal Church; local embodiment can instead be understood as a concrete enactment of catholicity. Religious glocalization, by contrast, highlights the sociological process through which universal religious ideas are selectively translated through local histories and conditions. The analytical value of the Seoul and Suwon cases therefore lies not in their representativeness of the Korean Catholic Church as a whole, but in their capacity to reveal mechanisms of reception with broader comparative relevance. Future research should test these mechanisms across less institutionalized dioceses and across other Asian local Churches.

5. Conclusions

The principal finding of this study is that the reception of Pope Francis’ integral ecology cannot be adequately understood either as the adoption of an environmental doctrine or as the implementation of a set of institutional policies. The Korean cases examined here show a historically layered interaction among pre-existing local ecological traditions, universal Catholic teaching, cultural conversion, and structural transformation. Laudato Si’ did not create ecological concern within Korean Catholicism; rather, it reframed and intensified existing practices by providing a comprehensive theological vocabulary and a renewed ecclesial horizon. In this process, cultural commitments concerning spirituality, education, values, and ways of life became connected with institutional reforms, public advocacy, and organizational practices.

This study has important limitations. Its primary focus is theological and pastoral rather than ethnographic, and the Seoul and Suwon cases were purposively selected as advanced, information-rich cases rather than as representative of all Korean dioceses. Accordingly, the findings identify mechanisms and pathways of reception rather than the prevalence of those patterns across the Korean Catholic Church as a whole. Future research should examine dioceses with differing levels of ecological institutionalization and should investigate how ordinary believers understand and practice ecological conversion in parish life.

The analysis also points to a substantive tension between cultural aspiration and structural durability. Ecological initiatives may remain concentrated among highly motivated religious orders, specialized lay apostolates, or activist networks, while ambitious institutional commitments encounter financial, administrative, and political constraints. This tension reinforces the central argument of the study: cultural conversion without supportive structures may remain episodic, while structural reforms without cultural internalization may lack the participation and meaning necessary for long-term sustainability.

Comparative research across Asian Catholic Churches, and across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communities, could further clarify how different historical and cultural contexts shape the reception of integral ecology. Such studies would also allow the concepts of receptive adaptation and religious glocalization to be evaluated beyond the Korean cases and would contribute to a more differentiated understanding of the horizontal dimension of catholicity and interreligious ecological solidarity.

Ultimately, Pope Francis’ integral ecology is not a finished theological system but an ongoing ecclesial and social vocation. Its durability depends on the reciprocal relationship between cultural transformation and structural embodiment: ecological values must become practices and institutions, while institutions must continually nourish the cultural and spiritual dispositions that give them meaning. The Korean cases examined in this study illustrate one significant pathway through which a local Church can participate creatively in the mission of the Universal Church, receiving a universal ecological vision while reconfiguring it through its own history, culture, and institutional life.