In response to God's work of reconciling all things in Christ, human beings are called to repentance for abusing the earth and to the restoration of their broken relationships with all creation. Reforms must be designed to improve the quality of human life, preserve the natural environment, respect all creatures and ensure the ability of future generations to meet their own spiritual and material needs. In practice, we have seen and heard that economic reform measures too often have had the effect of accelerating soil degradation, water pollution, watershed disruption, the destruction of critical habitat and the loss of other renewable and nonrenewable natural resources. We see that reform has often weakened governments' ability to protect the environment. We observe that the need for growth in impoverished countries must be balanced by world- wide efforts to end environmentally unsustainable production and consumption, especially in the industrialized countries.
Sin is social and institutional, as well as personal.
Social sin is present where there are growing economic disparities, increasing concentrations of economic power, and accelerating environmental abuse. Only God is ultimate. It is a form of idolatry when any given economic model or system is viewed as complete or fully adequate. They should be flexibly adapted to specific social, economic and environmental contexts and open to innovative designs responsive to popular and democratic needs and initiatives. We observe that adjustment measures based on this model have not adequately taken into account individual countries' particular sets of needs and circumstances or to the social and environmental consequences of such reforms.