Originally published on the CGS blog on July 6, 2015.
I’ll never forget the time in eighth-grade religion class when one of my classmates asked why our school didn’t participate in neighborhood cleanup days. My teacher replied, “It’s not fair to worry about things like that when souls are going to Hell every day.”
She elaborated, “The earth can save itself.”
Seriously. A human being actually uttered that sentence without irony.
This teacher would also frequently stress the importance of following everything the Catholic Church teaches without question. (You can’t just pick and choose!)
Which, of course, begs the question of how she and others from this line of thinking are responding to Pope Francis’s new encyclical on ecology and climate change.
Entitled Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, the official statement of church teaching calls on all of humanity to do their part to stop environmental deterioration; to “recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption in order to combat this warming” and protect our shared home.
However, protecting the environment and acting as stewards of the earth are not new concepts for the Church. In 1981, the U.S. Catholic Conference even issued a statement that recognized the threat of climate change and the need for clean energy.
So while the encyclical may be increasing global consciousness and moving the sympathetic to act, it’s probably not troubling the deniers as much as you’d think.
I also remember back when Pope John Paul II changed the order of the Mass so that the congregation would stand up before the offertory prayer instead of after. My school promptly implemented this change in their daily Mass. It was around the time JPII also spoke out against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This went unacknowledged; however, teachers and students alike rallied around George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection, enthusiastically endorsing his foreign policy.
On the encyclical, we’re already seeing a huge backlash from U.S. politicians, including Catholics.
“I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” said Jeb Bush. “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.”
Republican energy lobbyist and political consultant Michael McKenna declared,
This pope is selling a line of Latin American-style socialism. This guy is not in sync with the American Catholic Church. Guys like Jeb and Rubio are more in line with the American Catholic Church than the pope.
Couple of important points here:
- Climate change cannot be written off as a political issue; in fact, it constitutes a moral crisis. The world’s poorest countries—the ones who have contributed the least to climate change—are the ones being hit hardest by emissions from big polluters. Serving the poor and caring for the most vulnerable among us is a pretty key part of the Catholic faith. One I think would fall under the category of “things that make us better as people.”
- Even if a slight majority of American Catholics disagree that climate change is dangerous and human caused, guess what? Catholic doctrine doesn’t depend on public opinion. If a poll found that a majority of Catholics didn’t believe in helping the poor, that wouldn’t change Church teaching either. The “American Catholic Church” is not somehow exempt from papal authority.
Denouncing the Pope for promoting environmental responsibility is not bolstering anyone’s credibility—religiously, politically, or morally.
Tell your members of Congress to stand with Pope Francis and support U.S. climate leadership.
Originally published July 6, 2015.
