How Our Earth Came To Be

The first segment of the three-part global climate change presentation is about the origin and evolution of the earth-climate system. This is one of the most intriguing aspects of our atmosphere because--as the presentation states--it has not always been inhabitable.

Before getting into the theology of our planet, let's briefly summarize how our modern atmosphere came to be. When Earth began, it was literally just a rock in space with a thin atmosphere devoid of oxygen and water (most of the hydrogen and helium was lost due to solar radiation). Scientists say that, over millions of years, frequent seismic activity caused a mass outgassing from volcanoes, which primarily spew H20. With water vapor being introduced into the atmosphere, weather started occurring; over billions of years, the oceans were formed as more and more water was added to and precipitated out of the atmosphere. Once the oceans were formed, life sparked. Photosynthetic organisms evolved in the oceans and started emitting oxygen! Early on, life was still unable to exist on land, as the direct UV radiation from the sun was still too strong for species to survive. However, as the plant-emitted oxygen reached the stratosphere, the molecules were torn apart by the UV and came back together in the form of ozone, thus forming the protective ozone layer!  Finally, life was able to evolve on land and the rest is history.

The Church and the Climate

A large constituency of American Catholics — like the American public at large — prize highly those things which they hold to be matters of personal freedom. Many of them would much sooner tell the Church to mind her own business than to allow her teachings to guide what goes on in their bedrooms, Internet histories, or ovaries. Such Catholics will not be comforted to learn that the Church has something to say about their gas tanks, too.

Al Gore warns of the imminent threat of the ManBearPig

In the United States, we hear such a varied and erratic collection of voices surrounding the issue dealt with in this week's post that we hardly know where to start. Not even the nomenclature is settled. Sometimes we hear it called climate change, other times global warming. Sometimes qualifiers like man-made and anthropogenic are tacked on to the front; oftentimes, dirty words like hoax or swindle are tacked on to the back. We're not sure who to trust. From time to time we hear a dubious term like greenhouse effect be thrown around, and it's sometimes difficult to distinguish the global warming  thing from the ozone layer thing that everyone used to talk about. First we hear people say that global warming will fry us up in a great ball of flame 10 years down the road. Then another seemingly trustworthy source will inform us that there has been no warming trend and there's nothing to worry about at all. Finally, another earnest voice lets us know that all that about the ball of flame might be true, but there's no need to concern ourselves with it because it's all a part of a natural cycle and there's nothing we can do about it anyway. First we hear that scientists made it all up to win some grant money, and then we hear that oil companies only made up that it was all made up. And then when we hear that an "independent investigation" settled the matter once and for all, we balk at idea of trusting an investigation done by that organization, breathlessly deploring the intergovernmental organization, university, or think tank in question as the one most worthy of our disdain. We begin to wonder if there is such a thing as a third party at all. The roots of this insanity run deep.

Gratitude in Action

This film, called "The Story of Stuff," has been circulating among environmentalists for the past few years and can help us make sense of what's wrong with consumerist culture:

I would encourage you NOT to watch the whole thing for now, as it would distract from our discussion, but just focus on the footage from 10:37 to 16:45.

The tone is quite biting, but it nicely lays out some realities we live with every day but don't recognize. As  Ms. Leonard says, our economy relies on waste. The intent of advertising is to make us feel discontent with what we have so we buy more. Economic growth relies on waste of resources, on constant production for production's sake.

The Other Abstinence

It's not the kind you learned about in Sunday School (well, maybe you did). It's definitely not the kind you learned about in health class (if you learned about any kind at all). This kind of abstinence is the spiritual practice of abstaining from meat. The Church gives it to us as a requirement on Fridays during Lent. It is a discipline that, when done in a spirit of charity, brings us closer to Christ.

Keeping regular days of abstinence from meat, especially on Fridays, has been practiced and enforced by the Church from the very beginning. It is so essential for the life of the Church because of its many benefits: it is an act of penance in communion with all of the faithful; it reminds us of the flesh of Christ sacrificed for us; and it helps us to prepare ourselves for the celebration of His resurrection every Sunday.

¡Viva Papa Francisco!

Oh hey, has anyone noticed our new Pope took the name FRANCIS, Vita Pura's patron? And he's all about simple living and care for the poor? Well, the Wisconsin State Journal picked up on it...

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/profile-of-pope-francis-humble-intellectual-jesuit/article_896bda86-8c16-11e2-b817-001a4bcf887a.html

Some highlights from the article:

Bergoglio often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina's capital. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

He accused fellow church leaders of hypocrisy and forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

“Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit,” Bergoglio told Argentina's priests last year.

Fortitude in the Esther season

Vita Pura!

Hey everyone, welcome to another great week in Lent! As you all know, one of the major things that Vita Pura promotes is self-sacrifice or mortification, so this week we want to elaborate on that idea through the story of Esther and the great cardinal virtue of fortitude in her story.

The Story of Esther:

The book of Esther is about an orphan Jewish woman (Esther, duh) who becomes a queen. Then Esther's adoptive father Mordecai (who is hanging around the palace because he's worried about Esther), refuses to bow to the king's evil right-hand man Haman (think Jafar from Aladdin) because Mordecai is Jewish and obviously will not worship false idols. This makes Haman so mad that he decides to kill all the Jews. Like every Jewish person ever.

Boy, that escalated quickly...

On Knowledge of Creation through Work

As we discussed last week, the Christian view of nature involves a commandment for humans to work the land and to utilize its resources. But does this vision collide with the ability to truly respect nature? Are human work and environmental protection inevitably at odds with each other? The historian Richard White addressed this question in his 1995 essay, 'Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?": Work and Nature. "How is it that environmentalism seems opposed to work?" he asks. "And how is it that work has come to play such a small role in American environmentalism?"

To begin with, White makes clear that "virtually no place is without evidence of its alteration by human labor." The idyllic image of a pristine and virgin land is a myth. If we are to think of human beings as the enemies of nature, then we must resign ourselves to the fact that hardly a place on the face of the earth has remained unconquered by the work of human hands. The good news is that the fate of the environment is not doomed by the ubiquity of human influence. The social doctrine of the Catholic Church tells us that "in the Creator's plan, created realities, which are good in themselves, exist for man's use" (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 255). Furthermore, rather than viewing human beings as nature's enemies, we may instead view ourselves as part and parcel of the earth itself. We are dirt and to dirt we will return (Genesis 3:19). Ultimately, human work that is rightly ordered encourages rather than undermines our appreciation for nature.

"let them have dominion"

Please read Genesis 1:26-31 and paragraph #48 Caritas en Veritate (this encyclical can be found here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html)

How does the Church view nature? This is a basic question, but a complex one. Knowledge of the Church’s teachings is essential for leading environmental stewardship initiatives; if we are unaware of doctrine we won’t know when we deter or contradict it.

Eulogy for the Green Papacy

As we remember the Church's last eight years under the direction of Pope Benedict XVI, let us not overlook the Holy Father's consistent plea to safeguard the gift of Creation and to forge sustainable communities in the 21st century. In a segment called "Environmental Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI," this week's email update from the Catholic Climate Covenant highlights this aspect of his papacy:

Since his election to the papacy in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI has become known as the “Green Pope” for his prophetic words and actions urging all people, especially Christians, to recall their duties toward Creation. In his writings and addresses, the Holy Father reaffirms many traditional ecological teachings of the Church, including the giftedness of creation, the vocation of stewardship and the universal destination of created goods. In addition, Pope Benedict XVI has offered profound insights on the environment in view of contemporary challenges in the modern world: the need for an international climate treaty, advocacy for renewable energy technologies, and attention to environmental refugees.