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.

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.