"The scientistic mentality has succeeded in leading many to think that if something is technically possible it is therefore morally admissible." (Encyclical Fides et Ratio 88, Saint John Paul II).

While valuing and relying on science, the Church's Social Teaching criticises scientism for, as St. John Paul II quotes, this mentality is intended to make us accept the idea that anything technically achievable is in itself morally acceptable.

Pope Francis also addresses this question by alluding to the technocratic paradigm, that is, "it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm" (LS 106). This technocratic prototype appears as the dominant colonizer of minds, behaviours and culture to the point where it is very difficult to get out of it because it becomes "omnipresent" (LS 122). This paradigm conditions people's lives and the functioning of society; for this reason, the Pope insists, it is necessary to encourage and broaden "a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm" (LS 111).

Human intervention on nature has always existed but, for a long time, it had the characteristic of accompanying or supporting the possibilities offered by things themselves. It was a matter of receiving what natural reality allows itself to give, such as reaching out. Today, what matters is to extract all that is possible from things through the imposition of the human hand, which tends to ignore or forget the very reality of what lies before it. This is why humans and nature have stopped walking hand in hand, becoming contenders. From here, it is easy to move on to the idea that infinite or unlimited growth is possible, which leads to lying about the infinite availability of the planet's resources, leading to "squeezing it" to the limit and beyond. The false assumption is made that "there is an unlimited amount of energy and usable means, that their immediate regeneration is possible and that the negative effects of nature's manipulations can be easily absorbed".

Throughout the publication of the principles of the Decalogue, following the guide offered by Laudato Si', we have tried to reflect on the realities of environmental and social deterioration that we feel; and on the paths of correction that are offered to us from our humanity.

Pero no nos servirán de nada estas consideraciones y propósitos si no reconocemos la raíz humana de la crisis ecológica. "A certain way of understanding human life and activity has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us" (LS 101).

Almost two years have passed since the beginning of the campaign "Care of the planet, fight poverty" and a bit longer since the publication of the encyclical Laudato Si', in which Pope Francis launched ""The urgent challenge to protect our common home...to seek a sustainable and integral development" (LS 13). He invited us to look not only at the symptoms but also at the deepest causes of the present situation (LS 14). He proposed "guidelines for human development to be found in the treasure of Christian spiritual experience" (LS 15) to overcome the new paradigm and forms of power that derive from technology. And, although it may seem very distant to us, the achievements made and the work done are still scarce. So, we must try to put aside the urgency of the times we live in and continue to reflect and work on this "urgent challenge" of which Pope Francis speaks to us.

Overcoming the technocratic paradigm means recovering or finding the value of the human being in itself as a person. A value that is not based on having, on science, technique or power; but on being. Acknowledging and assuming that the essential of the human being is alien to him, that it is a gift that has been given to him. His conscience, his intelligence, his capacities, - innate or acquired - his dependence, his capacity to be in solidarity, to share, to give himself to other people, which, in short, makes it possible for him to live; everything is a gift and as such does not belong to him. What we have do not cease to be tools that we have been acquiring and that, nevertheless, forgetting what we are, we are turning them into an extension of our being, losing sight of the fact that they are transitory and circumstantial, subject to change and evolution, to overcoming or disappearance.

Don, and not property, is also everything that surrounds us in nature, to be wisely administered and not to "lay our hands on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them...the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology" (LS 106).

The mandate and the need to share do not refer only to material things, but also, and perhaps above all, to our capacities and to what we can obtain through them, in clear advantage over our brothers and sisters, who have not been able or have not been able to develop them.

Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of short-term responses to problems arising in relation to environmental degradation, depletion of natural resources or global pollution. It must be the sum of all this; it must offer a different outlook, a way of thinking, a policy, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality that address another way of living, one that is more austere and coherent in the face of unlimited consumption, in the face of the advance of the technocratic paradigm. Seeking only a technical remedy for each environmental problem that arises, means isolating things and do not forget that everything is connected and that it is necessary to face and give solutions to the real problems of the system. It is possible to broaden the view and direct the technique to the service of another type of progress, more sustainable and integral. In this way, when the technique is turned towards the concrete problems of the most needed, with the commitment of helping them to live with more dignity and less suffering, we place the technique at the service of human beings and their environment.