Resonance and integral ecology

diagnosing the present and designing institutions

Abstract

This article brings Hartmut Rosa’s time sociology into dialogue with Catholic integral ecology to diagnose the present and propose criteria for institutional renewal. Building on Rosa, it reads social acceleration across technical, social, and experiential registers that compress the present and erode democratic responsiveness. It then develops resonance as a relational ethic in which subjects and world are mutually affected without control, organized along horizontal, diagonal, and vertical axes. From Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum, the article retrieves a moral horizon that binds the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, names the technocratic paradigm as a cultural deformation, and calls for verifiable pathways of ecological conversion. The bridge aligns integral ecology with Rosa’s axes and operationalizes two evaluative conditions—callability and answerability—as institutional design features for non-domination. An illustrative reading of a diocesan Laudato Si’ Action Plan shows how participatory governance, material care, and liturgical formation can move organizations from resource optimization to relation transformation. The discussion offers policy and pastoral criteria that widen windows for responsive encounters, lower systemic time pressure, and reorient ends toward communion.