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Jul 27, 2011

Nature and relationship

“Society is absolutely dependant for its vitality and existence on its ability to bring about adequate friendships among its people,” writes the Jesuit James V. Schall in his essay “The Totality of Society.” He’s writing about the commonalities between Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas in understanding how relationships—“friendships,” as a catchall term for all loving bonds—underpins what it means to be human.

Schall takes some of the best of pagan antiquity and Western medieval thought and finds them completing each other’s sentences. We learn that the human soul is made to reach outward, to be in relationship with someone else—ultimately and perfectly, we are only fully human when in relationship with everyone else.

Schall notes elsewhere that this grand, universal vision of relationship troubled Aristotle. But for St. Thomas, with his Triune God of relation and love—in whose image all humanity was created—such a vision made absolute sense. St. Thomas wrote that “all precepts of law, especially those ordered to the neighbor, seem to be ordained to this end, that men love one another.”

But people and cultures can...
Jul 18, 2011

Bring back Friday’s fast

Recent news about the global impacts of blighted local ecosystems spotlight how human consumption—especially in the developed world—can have significant impacts elsewhere, and everywhere.

This goes particularly for food consumption.

For instance, widespread cattle ranching in and around the Amazon Rainforest is causing dire effects to one of the planet's most critical ecosystems. NASA has a terrifying array of information on the issue here, as does the National Science Foundation.

And this recent story from the Kansas City InfoZine reports on work by Marcelus Caldas, an assistant professor of geography at Kansas State, who worked in conjunction with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Michigan State University. The group published “Statistical confirmation of indirect land use change in the Brazilian Amazon" in the journal Environmental Research Letters. In part below, we read just a little of the complexities and the seriousness of the issue—such as the relation of changing food and biodiesel markets and how the global demand for soybeans and for beef play off one another, and the effects of it all.
...
Jul 13, 2011

Reflecting on Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha

One of Catholic Ecology's most popular posts is on this humble and beautiful saint of the Americas

July 14 is the Memorial for Blessed [now Saint] Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), the Native American daughter of a Christian Algonquin woman (who herself had been captured by the Iroquois) and a non-Christian Mohawk warrior-chief. Blessed Kateri is a patron of ecology and ecologists, of the environment, environmentalism, environmentalists, exiles, orphans, the exiled, those ridiculed for their faith and for World Youth Day.

Our friends at the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Conservation Center (formerly the Catholic Conservation Center) provide a comprehensive biography of this amazing young woman—the first Native American on the path to sainthood. In this biography we hear from Bishop Stanislaus Brzana of Ogdensburg, N.Y.:

Kateri was a child of nature. Her sainthood will raise the minds and hearts of those who love nature and work in ecology.

As you read more about this woman, you’ll see the intimacy with which Kateri found God in the natural world. She was this “child of nature” in her birthplace—what is now upstate New York—and in her later home of refuge, near what is now Montreal. For this intimacy, the Church declared her the patroness of ecological and environmental causes.

Of course, as a Native American, Kateri would have...

Jul 11, 2011

What he said

It's always nice to know that you're in line with the Pope. And so I was glad to read the last paragraph of this VIS story, especially in light of yesterday's blog post.

POPE SPEAKS OF MARITIME WORLD AND OF RESPECT FOR NATURE

VATICAN CITY, 10 JUL 2011 (VIS) - After praying the Angelus at midday today from the central courtyard of the Apostolic Palace at Castelgandolfo, the Pope mentioned the fact that today marks the "Day of the Sea", in other words "the day dedicated to the apostolate in the maritime world".

The Holy Father addressed a special greeting to "chaplains and volunteers who work to being pastoral care to seafarers, fishermen and their families. I also give assurances of my prayers for those seafarers who, alas, find themselves as hostages of pirates", he said. "My hope is that they be treated with respect and humanity, and I pray for their families that they may remain strong in the faith and not lose hope of soon being reunited with their loved ones".

Turning...
Jul 10, 2011

The nature of today's readings and the Holy Father's eco-speak

Some still lament when the Holy Father or anyone else connects ecology to theology, or to our battle with the culture of death. Let us consider, then, today’s Mass readings (or just scroll to the commentary at the end).

The opening reading is from Isaiah (55:10-11) and is one of my favorites) . . .

Thus says the LORD:
Just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
and do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
so shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
. . . next comes the Responsorial Psalm (65:10, 11, 12-13, 14), which takes us to Paul’s interconnectedness of creation and...
Jul 9, 2011

Sin, science, and letting there be light

A new report on the dangers of broken compact fluorescent light bulbs (“CFLs”) is again sounding alarms about what was once seen as a white knight in the eco-friendly world.

As noted earlier in these pages, a concern with these bulbs—which in the United States will slowly be replacing the more familiar but energy-hungry incandescent light bulb—is that, when damaged, CFLs release small but hazardous amounts of mercury, a known neurotoxin. (Mercury is needed to make the bulbs work, just like the more common fluorescent lighting used in almost every office building in the Western world. To learn a little about these bulbs and why they need mercury, visit here.)

But is the amount of mercury in a CFL really dangerous if the bulb breaks?

Based on the new study by Yadong Li and Li Jin of Jackson State University in Mississippi, the short answer is yes, there really is a concern about mercury from a damaged CFL, but maybe not as much as once feared.

UPI has a straightforward summary of what the new study is...

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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.