The Orthodoxy of Catholic Ecology | William L. Patenaude | Catholic World Report
Christianity challenges the world with the unique dignity of not just the human person, but all of creation.
When Pope Benedict XVI addressed Germany’s parliament last September, he brought up a topic that would have delighted its Green Party members had they not been boycotting the talk: the Pontiff acknowledged and even praised the ecological motivations for the party’s inception in the 1970s. He did so, of course, not to endorse the entirety of their platform, but because he and members of the Green Party share a similar concern for the natural world. By speaking of this shared concern, the Holy Father linked the laws of nature to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, turning his podium into a pulpit.
Magisterial references to ecology are noteworthy because the subject appears to be a new species within Catholic social thought. This “newness”—and the unfortunate politicization of such issues as climate change and the use of fossil fuels—have led to confusion and more than a few heated debates about whether a good Catholic should be discussing ecology at all—and if so, how.
But given that Benedict XVI is a good Catholic, one can assume that his flock can also speak of ecological concerns from a foundation of revelation and magisterial teachings as well as scientific discoveries. Catholics throughout the Church’s ideological continuum can and should engage in ecological discourse because, in part, it is a topic that evangelizes, unites, and teaches what it means to be human.
While environmental issues may be a recent addition to formal magisterial documents, the Catholic appreciation of ecology is not a new phenomenon, as some would claim. Just as Christ would retreat to the wilderness to fast and pray, so monks and hermits would do likewise, from the first centuries of the Church until today. Moreover, Catholicism’s sacraments proclaim how the physicality of creation partners with grace—not because grace needs a partner, but because its Source chooses that this be so. After all, are not the bread and wine offered in the Mass the stuff of agriculture—of vegetation, water, air, soil, sun, and the work of human hands?
i love our Holy Father but he makes a mistake when he thinks the consumption of food, even if it were gluttonous affects what some one else in the world recieves in food.
The world produces more food than the entire 6 or 7 billion people can consume. The problem here is not selfishness on the part of an individual but political.
Posted by: Steve | Wednesday, June 20, 2012 at 07:39 AM