¡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.