When the words “to have and to hold” are spoken in the matrimonial rite, they are not an assertion of ownership, but a declaration of co-responsibility, faith and commitment. They signify custody, fidelity, restraint, and care, an agreement not to exhaust, dominate, or abandon, but to nurture, protect, and sustain. To frame our relationship with the Earth in these terms is both profoundly theological and urgently political.
With the task of creation done, God said: Let us make man in the image and likeness of ourselves. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over the animals and over all creeping things…God blessed them and said to them; Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over every living creature that moves on the ground (Gen. 1: 27-28).
To subdue and rule the earth and its creatures is not a call to conquest. It is rather a call to man to bring creation to order, to align it with the will of God. It is a call for man to nurture and ensure that creation fulfils that for which it was meant by God. To this extent, by being called to increase and multiply, God is calling man to a special union, a co-creator. It is to enable man perform this responsibility that he was created in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:260).
As such, the earth, like a spouse, was not given to us for plunder or abuse with arrogance. Like a union, this relationship is a covenant for mutual nourishment and growth. Stewardship is rooted in service and sacrifice not sovereignty. Ownership is not domination or selfish possession. Humanity was not granted dominion as license for destruction, but stewardship rooted in accountability. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). To till and to keep, to use and to preserve are inseparable moral obligations.
Yet today, we live in a world where use has devoured preservation, and where extraction has been severed from ethics. From open-pit mining scars that outlive generations, forests felled faster than they can regenerate, to rivers poisoned in the name of profit, the Earth is treated not as a sacred trust but as a disposable commodity. This is not development; it is moral failure disguised as progress. In Laudato Si: On the Care for our Common Home [2015] Pope Francis in 2015 warned us by saying: We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7).
In Africa, we have related with the earth and creation from the point of view of domination, subjugation and oppression. We have come to believe that the earth and all therein was meant to serve us to feed our appetite, often insatiable. Thus, we have lost a culture and a sense of care or restitution. We do not reclaim used lands, we do not nurture rivers or the soil. We have no concern about animals and other creatures that are not like us. Our dominion is merely defined by their utility to us. Thus, in relation with other creatures outside us, we treat everything only by how it can serve us no matter the cost to their welfare. We do not believe that animals have any form of rights.
Thus, in Nigeria, we believe animals and other creatures are meant to satisfy us. Almost all animals are meat for us. For example, Nigerians have reacted with derision at the thought that they have any obligation to preserve certain animals or even trees. We refer to all animals outside the home as bush meat, meant for our consumption. Its prohibitive cost is a testimony to this. We do not believe that we have an obligation to feed animals, even those at home. Thus, our goats, dogs, pigs, and other domestic animals are only released to, look for food.
Their food is in the dung heap, grass, human faeces, or the pile of waste outside our homes. We hardly know or care when they are sick. We only deliberately fatten the cow, goat, ram, or even dog for slaughter, ahead of our feasts and ceremonies. Our dogs are fed by what we throw away, hence, we say, the patient dog eats the fattest bone. I have watched as my domestic staff have always recoiled at the thought that a dog should have food cooked for it and even to have meat served. This is treated as a great scandal by Africans!
Along with our careless and selfish appetite, the culture of consumerism has produced that Pope Francis referred to as “throwaway culture”. This culture reduces both people and nature to instruments of economic gain or things that can be dispensed of or treated only according to their immediate utility. What we witness today, particularly in resource-rich but institutionally fragile states, is the triumph of capitalist greed unmoored from conscience and a disrespect for creation. The battle of indigenous people over poisoned environment, the threats of deforestation have taken their toll on communities who have lost not only their livelihoods but often, their own lives whether in the Amazon forests or in the resource endowed communities in Africa. The story of our people in the Niger Delta and their oil is with us. Appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005, I spent almost seven years in and out of Ogoni-land to secure some respite. Together with the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP, we were able to secure the scientific response that has led to the remediation programme in the Niger Delta. The result of my work is documented in my latest book, Witness to Reconciliation: My Personal Journey Towards Reconciliation in Ogoni-land. As a machine that fuels the wheels of capitalism, the resource war has taken the greatest toll on our environment and is responsible for most of the conflicts in Africa, Latin America and the developing world.
The Challenges of Capitalism and Its impact on the Environment
From the beginning of colonial exploitation of Africa and Asia through slavery and into the industrial revolution, the manipulation and the exploitation of the environment has been tied to profit motives. Today, Trump’s agenda of making America great by outright modern day banditry clothed as peace making fits that model and shows that the spirit of exploitation is not dead.
In 1652, the Boers invaded Zululand and settled in what is today South Africa. Ten years later, in 1662, King Charles 11 granted a Royal Charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers into Africa. The name of the Company itself was fitting. In 1901, the Royal Africa was formed. This will later set the pace for the process of the so-called discovery and the scramble of Africa, lay the foundation for slave trade and set in motion a machinery for the systematic despoilation, naked rape and exploitation of Africa. These series of brutalities have left their scars on the continent of Africa and account for the violence and volatility on the continent.
The fruits of adventure into Africa later set the pace for its exploitation as reports about the incredible wealth of the continent began to emerge across Europe. For five hundred years, the search for the mythical Prester John, the imaginary Christian king whose wealth was impossible to calculate sent European explorers around the world. Works like Mungo Park’s Travels into the Interior of Africa provided inspiration for exploitation of Africa.
Again, today, African students are familiar with some of these stories through such works as Walter Rodney’s epic, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Thomas Pekham’s The Scramble for Africa, Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, Patrick Bond’s, Looting: The Economics of Exploitation, Adam Hochschild’s phenomenal work, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa up to Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. Using literature, most of the first generation of African writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ayi Kwei Armah, TM Aluko, Mongo Beti, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and a host of others dwelt largely on these themes of exploitation of Africa today.
Although Africa now has flag independence, then as now, most of our countries still do not have any serious control over our resources. The literature suggests very clearly that the discovery of these resources during the colonial period played a great part in the delineation of the colonial boundaries that created our new nations. Most of the conflict on the continent today is tied to the control of these resources with African countries lacking the ability to alter these colonial boundaries. As such, African leaders have largely been reduced to presiding over the collection of these rents, thus driving the culture of patrimonialism, prebendalism and feudalism which have made it almost impossible for Democracy to take roots. This is why African politics has become so violent and the management of resources at best a looting game of the elites.
In many parts of the Global South, resources are removed not to uplift local communities but to enrich distant markets and concentrated elites. The land is left wounded, livelihoods destroyed, water sources contaminated, and social fabrics torn apart. These are not merely environmental crimes; they are sins against justice, against the poor, and against future generations. Where the Earth is exploited without restraint, fragility follows, and fragility breeds conflict. Mining without restoration. Extraction without consent. Profit without justice.
Environmental destruction does not occur in isolation. It erodes trust, legitimacy, and social cohesion among peoples. When communities watch their lands taken, their waters polluted, and their futures mortgaged without consent or compensation, grievances accumulate and wait for a trigger. These grievances are often misnamed herder-farmer clashes, ethnic conflict, cattle rustling, religious violence and communal tension, but at their core lies a deeper wound: ecological injustice. A state that cannot protect its land cannot protect its people. When ecological funds are diverted, when environmental impact assessments are treated as formalities, when regulatory institutions are weakened or politicized, the state forfeits moral authority. When state laws and rules lose their meaning and resonance, citizens disengage and survival replaces solidarity. We then have cases of diffusion of circles of violence of; one against all and all against one!
This is where religion and religious leaders step in. This is where the devil must be called by his right name. Moral clarity becomes a substitute for subterfuge and dubious synonyms. The need to call out a verdict becomes urgent. Religious leaders, therefore, are not spectators in the environmental crisis; they are custodians of moral clarity. Their mission is to interpret the mind of God. Their task is not only to preach conservation, but to name exploitation for what it is “a violation of divine trust”. Faith demands restraint in consumption, equity in distribution, and accountability in governance. It insists that progress without justice is regression. Blind accumulation that produces hunger is morally reprehensible.
“To have and to hold” means we must resist the temptation to consume today what belongs to tomorrow. We are holding a trust based on rules and regulations. Moral limits must be imposed where markets refuse to do so. The rich and powerful must be made to understand that ownership is not absolute, and reminding the state that policy without morality is empty. The Earth is patient, but not infinite. The trust given to humanity is sacred, but not unconditional. To care for the Earth is to care for peace. To protect ecosystems is to protect livelihoods. To govern resources justly is to prevent conflict before it ignites. Creation may seem silent. Creation may seem patient. Creation may seem even dumb. However, creation is not deaf. Creation is not blind. Creation has rage. Creation can become vengeful in response to our provocation. Creation is a harsh tax collector. We provoke creation when we replace love and care with selfishness. Judgment day will come. We must pause and think.
The notion of what is called, Integral Ecology insists that “everything is interconnected” and that human, economic, cultural, and ecological systems form a complex, interdependent whole.” It insists that environment, society, economy, culture, and ethics are inseparable. It foregrounds justice as integral to ecological solutions, recognising that environmental harms disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable. Integral ecology bridges scientific, social, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of climate and environmental policy. It says that; when one part of the body is hurt, the whole body suffers (1 Cor. 12: 26).
In all of this, we are not helpless and hopeless. Society evolves and develops as human consciousness improves with education. Human civilisation has evolved in response to new realities and new consciousness based on law, religion and good politics. Although the end of slavery gave Africa some reprieve, (many might argue it has not even ended), the reality is that new moralities emerged from education, civil society advocacy new laws protecting human dignity. We therefore should not spend too much time blaming the past. It is what we do today that is important for this and future generations. So, going forward, what should we do? There are many things to be done and all the world’s problems will not be solved by one generation. If we use yesterday’s mistakes to make today better, then tomorrow is better guaranteed. I therefore propose the following among many other options.
One, we must frame a concrete response to what has come to be known as; the Cry of the Earth: This calls for protecting our common home by addressing the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, ecological degradation, access to clean water, and environmental justice for all creation. Nigeria needs to scale up its national efforts to address climate change, environmental degradation, and ecosystem loss, particularly through the climate changet witnessed in the accelerating impacts of desertification in the Sahel belt, deforestation in the Middle Belt, coastal erosion in the Niger Delta, and widespread biodiversity loss. However, our response towards environmental protection is not merely acts of compliance with international obligations, but as a moral duty of stewardship, emphasizing prevention, restoration, and long-term ecological integrity rather than reactive mitigation alone. This is not a cry of mercy but a warning for us to avoid its revenge which often comes with the disasters that we see daily from floods to erosion.
Two, is the need for us to respond to the Cry of the Poor. It is morally reprehensible that our countries which have been so blessed by God have become oceans of poverty amidst little islands of stupendous and unearned wealth by a corrupt elite. By bending the rules, the powerful extort immoral rents from multinational corporations, subsidise their gargantuan appetite while the poor wallow in indignity. What we see is not economic plans to end poverty, but the ubiquity of men in dark suits and suitcases who have turned the private sector in a huge casino. The Church cannot continue with moral exhortations. There needs to be a partnership of advocacy that finds allies in civil society, the judiciary and the media who can begin seek redress and means of bringing this shame to the public light. If we cannot win in their courts, we can at least win in the courts of public opinion or the courts of divine justice. We should move beyond welfare-based responses toward structural justice, land security, and livelihood restoration, reinforcing the principle that poverty eradication cannot occur without environmental justice and equitable access to land and resources.
Three, there is need for the adoption of Sustainable Lifestyles: Grounded in the concept of sufficiency and sobriety, promoting lifestyles that reduce resource consumption, decrease waste, favour ethical food choices by extension farming practices, also encouraging sustainable mobility and energy use. In Nigeria, unsustainable consumption patterns such as deforestation for fuelwood, inefficient energy use, waste mismanagement, and unregulated urban expansion are driven by poverty, weak infrastructure, and policy gaps.
Nigeria’s social landscape does not connect with the realities of the daily lives of its citizens. A young man came to me because he said he was on the verge of losing his job in a night club. During the week, a gentleman had come and consumed ₦3.5 million worth of alcohol in the nightclub where he worked. The gentleman had feigned a problem with his phone and said he would return to pay the money the next morning. He was a familiar face and so they let him go. Two days later, he had not showed up and hence my son was now on the verge of losing his job. ₦3.5 million? I shouted. That is madness. How can someone spend ₦3.5 million in a night club. Uncle Bishop, he said gently, calming down an ignorant old man: By normal standards of club life today, ₦3.5 million is nothing. People spend between ₦15 million and ₦20 million a night on a table in the club, he said. I looked on sheepishly and ended the conversation.
Four, we need to rethink the Land Use Act of 1976 which was meant to hold land; “in trust for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians.”. For us in Nigeria and I believe across Africa, the environment has not received the kind of attention it should receive. I recall when President Obasanjo set up the Ministry for Environment, Nigerians were cynical. The first Minister who was appointed was ridiculed because people wondered, what did he do to be appointed to such a ministry. A second Minister who had accepted his nomination turned it down when he was assigned the Ministry for Environment! This part of a culture in which public officers do not bother about what they can bring to their jobs, but what the jobs can bring to them.
Despite all the efforts of government, Nigerians are still not doing well in the area of care of the environment. The Land Use Act which has placed all responsibilities for land in the hands of State governors is a grave mistake. This abnormally has produced many distortions and blurred the lines of duty and responsibilities between the states, communities and the federal government over land and mineral resources. Governors have taken their power over land as a license and as such, displacement of communities by land acquisition often for cronies or businessmen and women generates community conflicts where ordinary people feel totally powerless.
The Act intended to unify diverse customary land systems but instead created a system where land access depends heavily on bureaucratic approval rather than traditional occupancy, often marginalising the poorest land users. This has limited investment in agriculture by smallholders, reduced incentives for long-term land stewardship, and made land vulnerable to discretionary allocations that favour elites and investors over local communities. What we find today is a rehash of the colonial legacy of the state accumulating power and merely co-opting unscrupulous traditional rulers who, for crumbs are often ready to barter away the ancestral lands of their communities to the highest bidder.
Five, the need to adopt a culture of Ecological Spirituality and awareness based on our traditional cultural views of the sacredness of creation: On November 9th, 2019, the holy father, Pope Francis of blessed memory came under heavy criticism and charges of idolatory over his blessing of the statute of the Pachamama and allowing it to be placed in the Church of Sancta Maria on the Transportina during the Synod on the Amazon.
The Pachamama, (Mother goddess) is the goddess of agriculture and fertility among the Indians of the Andes. Of course, Africans are familiar with this idea and while avoiding the heresy of pantheism, the belief in the sacredness of the land as entrusted to us through our ancestors, the sacred bond that binds communities to the land, our obligation to reverence it because it feeds and protects us all predispose us to the principles of the sacred commitment to have and to hold.
In Nigeria, the connection is there. We celebrate the harvest seasons in different ways but the celebrations are those of gratitude to God for good weather, for the rains, for the safe harvest of the crops, all a guarantee of protection from hunger. Today, the annual new yam festivals are celebrated among the Igbos with a lot of fanfare. We can take advantage of these celebrations and help our people appreciate the land from where the harvest has come by encouraging them to care for it. As such, the idea of our sacred commitment to the protection of the environment can only find resonance in our cultural ecosystems.
Nigeria has made some considerable progress in the area of the Environment. However, much of the good intentions captured in international agreements and domesticated locally find very little traction and impact due to the corruption in the Nigerian bureaucracy. Generating local consciousness about environmental issues is not getting much traction. Therefore, courses on the care of the environment should enter the syllabus at the early stages of education for children. The military introduced an Environmental day when once in a month, individuals and communities committed time to environmental hygiene. This has all dimmed now. Care of the environment should start from our homes, communities and then the nation. This will give us the building blocks for a strong environmental culture of care.
Six, we come to the theme of what the Catholic Church teaches as the principles of the Universal Destination of Goods. The warning here is that the land and natural resources thereof have a Social Mortgage. Here, our obligation, our duty of accountability and the consequences of infringement are highlighted again. But in a world consumed by greed, the Catholic Church’s voice has resonated through its teachings through papal encyclicals, papal letters and other writings.
For example, on 11th April 1963, Pope John XX111 issued the historic encyclical, Pacem In Terris, [Peace on Earth], in which he called attention the fact that: Every person has the right to life, to bodily integrity, to the means which are suitable and proper for the development of life, these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care and finally the necessary social services. In 1967, Pope Paul V1 followed up by issuing the encyclical, Populorum Progressio, [Progress of Peoples] making a case for the moral foundations of human progress beyond the mechanics of machines, production and profit.
The leading pope of these teachings, what now constitutes what we call the Social Teachings of the Catholic Church is Pope Leo XIII who, in 1891 responded to the emergence of capitalism, its corrosive exploitation of the poor and labour by issuing the encyclical, Rerum Novarum [Of New Things], arguing that a new earth will only emerge if we accept a new way of looking at life, the connection between labour and justice. Workers, Pope Leo said, are not to be treated as slaves, justice demands that the dignity of the human personality be respected….It is shameful and inhuman to use men as things of gain….the oppressed workers above all ought to be liberated from the savagery of greedy men who inordinately use human beings as things of gain. This is why, when Robert Cardinal Prevost was elected pope on May 8, 2025, and he chose the name, Pope Leo XIV my excitement was ignited by the prospects of the return to the urgency of the church’s urgent return to the social question in the footsteps of Pope Leo X11[ 1878-1903]. He provided a moral guide for a world ravaged by war and greedy for profit. He laid the foundation for workers’ rights and attacked the excesses of capitalism which sought to diminish the human person by placing profit above human dignity. This should serve as impetus for a new form of social engagement by the Church in a world where capitalism is showing its corrosive face with severe consequences of yawning gaps of inequalities that are fueling violence around the world.
Seven, the world needs to understand that it is the social teachings of the Catholic Church that laid the foundation for the emergence of the Christian Democrats across Europe after the second world war. It is the inspiration of these teachings that laid the moral foundation for the emergence of International Labour Organisation ILO, in 1919, the emergence of the United Nations in 1945, the codification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Even the setting up of such social and health safety nets as the National Health Services in the UK in 1948 and across Europe arose from the inspiration of the sacredness of human life..
I recall that ahead of the promulgation of the new Code of Canon Law in 1983, secular and cynical western media reacted by alerting the world that the Vatican had added a new list of sins to the ones the world was already familiar with. Their cynicism was not empty. It was based on the fact that the new Catechism had provided deep insights into our notion of sin. Taking the Ten Commandments one by one for example, it placed many things in their proper historical context and as such, Catholics were exposed to the deeper meaning of what it meant to break say, the seventh commandment. Thus, stealing included the injunction, One ought not to take the smallest thing that is not one’s own, else he will think that stealing is no great offence!
Eight, the Catholic Catechism speaks of what it calls, the Universal destination of Goods. In Canon 2402, it states that: In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits.186 The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. the appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men.This is why the earth should be our common home where we share its benefits.
Nine, let us note that Christianity has given the world a moral compass with which the navigate through life successfully. However, as the Catechism says, the earth is divided up among men. The consequences of this division are found in the wars that now produce the injustice that is the hallmark of our lives both as families and communities. It is difficult to surpass the summary of this by James when he said: Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that is at war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain (Jas: 4:1).
Ten and finally, I will end by calling on us all to return to what the Catholic Church calls the four Cardinal virtues, the anchor or cornerstone on which a stable moral life depends. Prudence, this is the virtue that serves to inspire us to a life of moderation, it calls our attention to a measured view of life, it helps to contain the excesses of greed and offers us sound judgment over what is right and wrong and how to treat others. Justice ensures that we restrain our greed and give everyone his or her due, that we treat others well and that we do not abuse the power entrusted to us. Fortitude helps guide us through life’s difficulties and challenges. Our quest for vengeance is restrained when learn and know how to change the things we can change, to accept the things we cannot change and then the wisdom to know the difference. Temperance gives us a life of balance, self-control and helps put a break on our excesses. These virtues should inspire us to take seriously the responsibility to have and to hold a creation that God entrusted to us.
Let me leave you with a few of the timeless and inspirational words of wisdom known as the Desiderata written by the American poet, Max Erhmann (1872-1945). He said:
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Matthew Hassan Kukah is the Catholic archbishop of Sokoto Diocese and founder, The Kukah Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.
This is the text of a lecture delivered at the 24th S.L. Edu Foundation Lecture Series on 30th January at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Hall, 16, Yar’adua St. Victoria Island, Lagos
