This research deals with the regulation of the ecological crime in the Spanish legal system and, at the same time, the position of the Magisterium of the Church regarding the ecological issue. Thus, attending to the normative antecedents - from the most remote to the closest - that have made possible the defense of the environment from the penal order, the complicated inclusion and determination of the penal type will be made clear, overcoming the anthropocentric conception and articulating a mechanism of penal protection that develops art. 45 of the EC and its future projection from the theological point of view.