A Theological View, Apologetic And Critical, Of The Social Phenomenon “Kardashians”

Abstract

Exacerbated consumerist lifestyles damage the social and environmental fabric. In times of crisis, socio-cultural phenomena such as the reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” have the potential to numb socio-environmental awareness and feed the “consumerist culture” of the global North and the “throwaway culture” of the global South. Television and other media could build bridges between such opposing realities. However, socio-environmental suffering is made invisible in order to make opulence and excess visible. Through an apologetic and critical theological essay, this article aims to highlight unsustainable vicarious and virtual consumption patterns in the context of the unprecedented socio-environmental crisis we are experiencing. It also presents different types of responses of the Catholic Church maintained over time or rescued from the Holy Scriptures, the magisterium of the Church, ecotheology and the spirituality and contemplation of the mystics. All this is at the service of pro-environmentalist actions within the framework of Integral Ecology.