University of St. Thomas

Sustainability is central to our mission at the University of St. Thomas.  The UST Mission Statement says in part: “St. Thomas educates morally responsible leaders who . . . advance the common good.”  

One of the most critical moral issues facing us is how our daily decisions and lifestyles affect the shared environment.  Our “common good” rests to a large extent on whether we are thoughtful stewards or thoughtless consumers of the earth’s resources.

Scripture gives a clear summons to be caretakers: 

The earth is the LORD'S and all it holds, the world and those who live there.                                                                             –Psalm 24:1

The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.                             –Genesis 2:15

We recognize the earth belongs to God.  The Creator has provided us with wonderful abundance.  But this gift comes with a charge to take care of it.  When we care for God’s creation, we honor and express gratitude to our Maker.  As well, our care blesses all people and creatures, both present and future, since all share dependence on continuance of the earth’s bounty. Sadly, human greed has often made a mess of “the garden”: our technologies have polluted the air, earth and water; our economies have focused on present profits without regard to any resulting degradation of our planet.  Time is running out to undo the damage.

We face a fundamental question which can be described as both ethical and ecological.  How can accelerated development be prevented from turning against man?  How can one prevent disasters that destroy the environment and threaten all forms of life, and how can the negative consequences that have already occurred be remedied?                                       -Pope John Paul II,
           Speech to the European Bureau for the Environment, 1996

If humanity today succeeds in combining the new scientific capacities with a strong ethical dimension, it will certainly be able to promote the environment as a home and a resource for … all … and will be able to eliminate the causes of pollution and to guarantee adequate conditions of hygiene and health for small groups as well as for vast human settlements. Technology that pollutes can also cleanse, production that amasses can also distribute justly, on condition that the ethic of respect for life and human dignity, for the rights of today's generations and those to come, prevails.                                                       -Pope John Paul II,
                                  Conference on Environment and Health, 1997

This web site is a resource for the St. Thomas community to celebrate what is being done at St. Thomas and elsewhere to take care of “the garden” and to examine what still needs to be accomplished.  Our present choices determine the common good we share now and in the future.