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Dec 14, 2010

The Pope and youth get it right

December 2008

The mainstream media delights whenever Pope Benedict XVI weaves environmental protection into his preaching, as he did this July in Australia before some 200,000 young Catholic pilgrims from across the planet.

 Add to this the Vatican’s recent success in becoming the first carbon-neutral state or its installation of solar panels and some find a curiosity—as if such activities were the whim of an aged, eco-eccentric German theologian who happens to be the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

But Catholic appreciation of creation predates this pope, as well as his predecessor—and his too, and so on—by millennia. Catholic ecology is rooted within the faith’s Jewish roots, deep within the Torah, as far back as Genesis, where in the beginning it is revealed to humanity that God created the world and life both orderly and good. Caring for creation isn’t novel for Catholics (or for our Jewish cousins); it derives from and enlightens the center of our faith. For Benedict, this all helps him discuss other weighty matters.

A close look at...
Dec 14, 2010

No one is perfect, especially me.

August 2008

A few hours before Benedict XVI preached at Australia’s World Youth Day about global ecological crises, I was at a supermarket checkout line in America not using reusable shopping bags.

There I was exiting Shaw’s market clutching 11 plastic shopping bags, a few of them holding only one or two items because I do my own bagging and am not very good at it.

For the record, I do own reusable shopping bags. Good friends and even my mother (who uses them faithfully) have given me plenty. Five are perched right now on the back seat of my Subaru Forrester—which, yes, is an automobile that gets decent mileage for what it is (just short of an SUV), but certainly isn’t a hybrid or a Smart Car (one of those tiny Mercedes-Benz eco-autos that’s about the size of a good riding lawn mower).

One reason I don’t use cloth supermarket bags is I’m forgetful—okay, lazy. When I remember I have them, I’m about three steps from the supermarket doors. And by then it’s too late. Maybe...
Dec 14, 2010

Pontifical Prophecy on Ecology

June 2008

It is no coincidence that in this age of worldwide social and moral crises — with the fundamentals of life and social foundations under attack — that we’re witnessing the drastic disappearance of species after species after species.

Of course, over the hundreds of millions of years of life on earth, naturally- occurring shifts in climate, volcanic activity or the occasional asteroid strike have caused rapid and irrevocable losses of a few or a great many forms of life. Science tells us that vast, planet-wide periods of extinction have occurred some five times since life’s beginnings. Number six is occurring right now, at rates projected to be thousands of times faster than ever before. But this time the causes aren’t natural.

Humanity’s use and abuse of natural resources, its patterns of development and its hunger for wealth (among other desires) is wiping out a good many forms of life...

Dec 14, 2010

Mercury's Place in a Fallen World

May 2008

We’ve been born into a world that fell along with humanity, and so our best plans—more often than not—go off course. Still, we wake up every morning and must make the best of things. It is only with God’s grace that we can hope to make our corner of creation some small degree better.

All this is prologue to an issue raised by a writer to this paper responding to a column I’d written mentioning the use of a certain type of lighting to reduce energy consumption, and so lessen energy bills and greenhouse gas production. While I’ve written before about climate change, and our Holy Father’s very real concerns on the matter, the lighting issue raised in that letter deserves particular attention because it not only teaches good ecological (and economic) lessons, but theological ones, too....

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About the Blog

Catholic Ecology posts my regular column in the Rhode Island Catholic, as well as scientific and theological commentary about the latest eco-news, both within and outside of the Catholic Church. What is contained herein is but one person's attempt to teach and defend the Church's teachings - ecological and otherwise. As such, I offer all contents of this blog for approval of the bishops of the Church. It is my hope that nothing herein will lead anyone astray from truth.