Nature in Roman Catholic Tradition

It is often suggested in contemporary anthropology that Western views of nature are fundamentally different from those in "societies of nature," supposed to conceptualise the environment in non-dualistic terms. The author questions this view by discussing in some detail three different views on nature in Roman Catholic tradition. Firmly rooted in a dualistic worldview, although not as rigid as sometimes assumed, this tradition conceptually separates nature, humankind, and the divine. However, many features assumed to characterise non-Western views of nature, such as animistic beliefs and images of communion with nature, form an integral part of scholarly Roman Catholic thought as well as of popular religious practices. Roman Catholic tradition emerges as a dynamic tradition of ideas which allows the relationships between nature and other domains to be construed in diverse ways. [nature, religion, cosmology, Europe, Christianity]