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Oct 17, 2011

The Keystone Pipeline and Occupying Hope

Courtesy of NWFblogs
It’s not every day that the Tea Party and the Sierra Club  join forces. But the growing debate over the Keystone oil pipeline expansion has done just that. Others are taking their protest to the streets.

Haven’t heard of Keystone? Wikipedia has a good summary of the proposed pipeline, and Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson at the Washington Post have an excellent summary of the eco-political debate about it. From their story comes the following snippets to show us a little of the Keystone fallout: 

In mid-October, [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton told an audience at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club that she and others in the administration were “inclined” to give TransCanada the permit [to construct Keystone], adding, “We’re either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada.”
In many ways, her comments were simply a blunt version of the argument made by TransCanada and ...
Oct 11, 2011

Made in China religious goods: To buy, or not to buy?

On December 16, 1958, five years to the day before I was born, Pope John XXIII denounced China’s treatment of Roman Catholics. At a consistory to elevate new Cardinals, the Holy Father noted that
"for a long time Catholics throughout China have been living under the most difficult circumstances. Missionaries, archbishops, and bishops have been accused of false crimes, thrown into prison, and finally sent into exile. Even bishops who are Chinese by birth have been put into places of confinement, and not a few have been expelled."
Little has changed in five decades, as we read below from this Catholic News Service story:
Rome, Italy, Dec 10, 2010 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Bernardo Cervellera, a longtime observer of Sino-Vatican affairs, is deeply troubled by recent moves made by China’s communist authorities.
"We are back in the 1950s,” said Fr. Cervellera, a missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and editor of institute’s influential Asia News website.

"Honestly, I would say that with these elections we are taken...
Oct 8, 2011

A little Lectio Divina: from creation to the Creator

Today’s Mass readings show us the great influence of creation within Holy Scripture. From the first reading’s intertwined use of the natural world and agriculture—that which is physical, which allows us physical life—to the Psalm’s imagery of all creation rightly giving Him praise, we hear that ancient refrain of our relation with creation speaking of our relation with God.

But wait, there's more: Both in the reading from Joel and the Psalm we hear of a connection between the ordered beauty of the cosmos and the characteristic of being just.

This prepares us for the Gospel, which points us beyond the natural world. A woman praises Jesus’ mother, the natural, human mother of the Christ. But Our Lord reminds the woman, and us, that what is ultimately more important is the Word that brought creation into existence and the invitation it offers—which, of course, asks for a response.

Read through these readings and ponder their stunning imagery and their momentum. Allow them to lift you from the known world to a conversation with a higher, greater glory.
Reading...
Oct 3, 2011

St. Francis: beyond the garden statues

At a Franciscan Transitus ceremony at my parish this evening, it struck me that St. Francis—the patron of ecology and animals, as well as people who promote ecology—is not quite the romantic figure that is portrayed in so many backyard shrines. Those loveable garden statues and birdfeeders tell us little of the man and the interior and exterior struggles he fought during his journey to the Triune God.


And so as we celebrate the feast of this great saint and Doctor of the Church—one to whom I give thanks for helping me in my road back to the Church some twelve years ago—we should know him for who he truly was, as best we can.

Let us begin at the end, at an account of his death from a text by Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure:

St. Francis spent the last few days before his death in praising the Lord and teaching his companions whom he loved so much to praise Christ with him. He himself, in as far as he was able, broke out with the Psalm: I cry to the Lord with my voice; to the Lord I make loud supplication....
Oct 2, 2011

The quest for truth and meaning

September 2011

Pope Benedict XVI had a few surprises when he spoke to Germany’s parliament last week. One was an apparent reference to the Green Party to illustrate the human quest for truth and meaning.

During the grandfatherly discussion on law and politics, Pope Benedict XVI said that “the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s . . . was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives. In saying this, I am clearly not promoting any particular political party—nothing could be further from my mind. If something is wrong in our relationship with reality, then we must all reflect seriously on the whole situation and we are all prompted to question...
Sep 28, 2011

Science takes a hit with EPA climate report

The latest eco-buzz comes from criticism by the Office of Inspector General for the US Environmental Protection Agency about the agency's oversight of climate-related research. According to the inspector general’s report, technical information used by the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation for a report on climate-change impacts was a “highly influential scientific assessment,” and thus required a significant level of peer-reviewed evaluation.

EPA counters that the technical information used did not meet the definition of a highly influential scientific assessment, and thus they did not break any internal policies with their reduced level of oversight.

The findings in question are about the extent to which certain air pollutants—known commonly as greenhouse gases—are affecting public health. To make this determination, EPA used documents from three research groups: the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC). EPA took reports from these groups and developed what is known in scientific-bureaucratic lingo as a “technical support document” or TSD. (Have you been keeping track of the acronyms? Welcome to the world...

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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.