Protect God's creation: Vatican issues new green message for world's Catholics

[Pirate Smile]

Source: The Guardian

Protect God's creation: Vatican issues new green message for world's Catholics


· Pope addresses climate change conference
· US church leaders lobby Bush on global warming

John Vidal and Tom Kington in Rome
Friday April 27, 2007
The Guardian

The Vatican yesterday added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the one billion-strong Catholic church must become far greener.
At a Vatican conference on climate change, Pope Benedict urged bishops, scientists and politicians - including UK environment secretary David Miliband - to "respect creation" while "focusing on the needs of sustainable development".

The Pope's message follows a series of increasingly strong statements about climate change and the environment, including a warning earlier this year that "disregard for the environment always harms human coexistence, and vice versa".

Observers said yesterday that the Catholic church is no longer split between those who advocate development and those who say the environment is the priority. Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, head of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, said: "For environment ... read Creation. The mastery of man over Creation must not be despotic or senseless. Man must cultivate and safeguard God's Creation."
According to Vatican sources, the present Pope is far more engaged in the green debate than John Paul. In the past year Benedict has spoken strongly on the need to preserve rainforests. In the next few weeks he visits Brazil.

"There is no longer a schism. The new interest in climate change and the environment is not surprising really. Benedict comes out of 1960s Germany, where environment and disarmament were major issues. It's conceivable that his ministry could even culminate in a papal encyclical on the environment," said one analyst. This would be the most powerful signal to the world's Catholics about the need for environmental awareness at every level.





Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2066711,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

[truthisfreedom]

1. Italy is in serious trouble as a result of global warming.

This is self-preservation of the Catholic Church running on all cylinders.

[struggle4progress]

2. Or perhaps the current Catholic Church has a respect for materialism and natural phenomena

that you did not expect

[firefox_fan]

17. This is a pathetic attempt of coopting the Green movement.

Nothing more. The Evangelicals are trying this in the US and it's working. Italy is not worse off than any other European country in terms of global warming.

[lovuian]

26. Thats a wonderful speech but alas the church supported Bush

in all his elections even though he took us to war and didn't sign the Kyoto agreement

but hey its a start Good for him

[SpiralHawk]

32. Pope Ratzinger is totally tight with the Skull & Boner Bush boyOs

What's with that ?

[Ilsa]

33. One Catholic I know says Italy's problems come from having

their population shrink. They need more babies. Therefore we all do.

This Catholic woman wouldn't recognize global warming as an issue. At least not until Ratz does.

[DeSwiss]

3. So does this mean....

...they've given up on Armageddon like they did with limbo?

:shrug:

[Pirate Smile]

6. (Most) Catholics aren't into this Armageddon stuff. They also don't read the bible literally.

I think sometimes people confuse Catholics with some fundamentalist Protestant sects.

I remember a nun at school telling me that a lot of those stories in the old testament are parables used to teach a lesson and not to take them literally.

[YOY]

12. I KNOW sometimes people confuse Catholics with fundamentalist Protestant sects

I've had to explain that Catholics do indeed believe in evolution and not that creationist bunk several times here. Not what I would expect for usually well-informed DUers.

I've got my problems with mother church as a jaded Catholic/semi-Agnostic but I won't tolerate misinformation about it.

[Beausoleil]

13. I hear you!

But sometimes even my very Catholic, Bush-worshipping relatives have to be reminded about the Church's teachings againt war, the death penalty, neglect of the poor, among other issues and now anthropogenic causes of global climate change.

[YOY]

14. I also like to remind "Catholic Republicans" that President Dippy Dog

is a "Born Again Christian" and by definition and creed does not consider them (Catholics) to be Christian at all (ergo They are being used like a cheap gasoline in SUV country.) I really only have one relative that is a Pub, but several old Catholic highschoolmates with minimum real world exposure and comfortable (daddy provided) careers.

I also find it rather interesting that the one relative who thinks Bush is the greatest is the only one of us (big Italian American family) with no higher education and seems to know a shitload about foreign relations considering he's never left Ohio...or at least oh so much more than his multilingual well-educatiod well-travelled cousin (That'd be me).

[Beausoleil]

20. I had to forward a link to this article to my Dad

who sent me this yesterday:

Global Warming Heresy
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Most climatologists agree that the earth's temperature has increased about a degree over the last century. The debate is how much of it is due to mankind's activity. Britain's Channel 4 television has just produced "The Great Global Warming Swindle," a documentary that devastates most of the claims made by the environmentalist movement. The scientists interviewed include top climatologists from MIT and other prestigious universities around the world. The documentary hasn't aired in the U.S., but it's available on the Internet.

Among the many findings that dispute environmentalists' claims are: Manmade carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 5 percent of the total; the rest are from natural sources such as volcanoes, dying vegetation and animals. Annually, volcanoes alone produce more carbon dioxide than all of mankind's activities. Oceans are responsible for most greenhouse gases. Contrary to environmentalists' claims, the higher the Earth's temperature, the higher the carbon dioxide levels. In other words, carbon dioxide levels are a product of climate change. Some of the documentary's scientists argue that the greatest influence on the Earth's temperature is our sun's sunspot activity. The bottom line is, the bulk of scientific evidence shows that what we've been told by environmentalists is pure bunk.


Link to the BBC "documentary":

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=The+Great+Global+Warming+Swindle

It turns out that most of the "findings" are "pure bunk" (So I sent him this link):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle

The cool thing about all this is that he had CC'd his congressman on the original email, so John Carter (R-TX-31) got a copy of both my responses.

[Bozita]

4. A rude US senator from Oklahoma ain't gonna like this

[upi402]

5. Pointy-hatted pervert supported the Bushistas too!

Religions should be personal and local for fellowship. Stay off the world stage you fruitloopin' freaks!

[cmkramer]

19. No he didn't

Again, there was never ever any directive to priests not to give communion to pro-choice politicians. It was left up to the discretion of the priest. Also, while the church does condemn abortion, there was no directive that Catholics had to vote for Bush because he was pro-life. What they said was that Catholics should take the whole of a candidate's positions in consideration. If you agreed with a candidate's positions and pro-choice was one of them, it was fine. However, if the only reason you had for voting for a candidate was that (s)he was pro-choice, that would be against church teachings. Since I'm figuring most Democratic Catholics would fall into the first category, there would be no problem. Now Republican pro-choice Catholics, that might be a different story!

[upi402]

22. This says the Pope intervened against Kerry, and FOR Bush

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/10489

"Washington - German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry..."



(more locally, and may be what you refer to)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/politics/campaign/02KERR.html?ex=1396242000&en=96bef180b1bb9073&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

"The task force Bishop Ricard heads was formed last year after the Vatican released a forceful 'doctrinal note' on Catholics in public life, which said, 'A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.' ...

President Bush signed the legislation on Thursday, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops immediately issued a news release applauding him."

[struggle4progress]

23. Catholics Can Vote for Kerry ( Andrew Greeley / 2004)

A top Vatican cardinal agrees: Catholics are not obliged to vote on one issue, no matter how important that issue might be.

Print Page

Catholics can vote for John Kerry. They don't have to, but it would not be a sin to do so, according to a distinguished theologian:

"A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

These are not the words of some radical liberal Catholic theologian who is unconcerned about killing babies. Rather, they were written by the Cardinal President of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith (once the Holy Office of the Inquisition), Joseph Ratzinger. It is as close to an official statement on the subject as one is likely to get. It says that Catholics are not obliged to vote on one issue, no matter how important that issue might be. They may vote for John Kerry "for other reasons" so long as they are not supporting him merely for his pro choice stance. ~snip~

That ought to settle the matter. Catholics who have been confused by the insistence of a few bishops, some priests and some pro-life laity that they must vote against Senator Kerry, now know that they are free to make their choice balancing all issues--just as they always have been. ~snip~

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/149/story_14944_1.html

The wingnut liars, of course, set outin their usual way to misrepresent matters and confuse people ...

[upi402]

24. Did Ratzinger contradict Papa?

[struggle4progress]

27. I don't know what your question is: the truth-out article you posted ...

... mentions "the Pope" in its headline and is essentially about Ratzinger, who is now Pope; your linked article appears to quote from the same Ratzinger text discussed in the article I linked to, but the discussion in my link is more careful and points out that the Catholic bishops used that text as a basis for telling people they needn't be one-issue-voters.

The rightwing misrepresented this issue in 2004, and (as has often been the case in recent years) the rest of the media helped hand out their koolaid. It seems to me Truthout in this case was also helping to hand out that koolaid.

[cmkramer]

30. The leftwing did a good job with misrepresenting it too

That's obvious from many of the replies on this thread.

[gratuitous]

7. Population control is a REAL green step

But I don't expect the Pope to say anything about that.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Not likely, no. But this is still a major step for them.

Esp since so many Christians were once of the mindset that the Earth was ours to rape and pillage as we saw fit, and God gave us that right. :eyes:

[bleedingheart]

34. as a pro-choice Catholic...I would jump for joy if he would just allow birth control

...I realize that abortion will always be off the table...but at least allow birth control...

[lostnfound]

9. This is a good thing; I think that a couple of devout RW Catholic men..

in my office will find this news very disconcerting. These neanderthals laugh at global warming and claim it is all a facade (likely, they are suffering from an Exxon-induced blindness); environmental denial is definitely a part of how they define themselves, for some rightwingers. But these same guys would walk off a cliff if the pope told them to.

[semillama]

10. I agree it is a good thing.

Climate change trumps all other political concerns, in my book, and we need all the large, influential groups we can get making noise about it to the nay-sayers.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Is birth control in there someplace?

I didn't think so.

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. Good for them. I'm for anything that will support our environment.

Now there is also a big movement among the Evangelicals to preserve the earth. And good for them, too.

[Lorien]

36. I agree. It's the message that's important here

I'm agnostic and have a few issues with the Catholic church, but on this I very much agree with them and the green evangelicals. A billion people CAN make a difference if they take this message to heart!

[firefox_fan]

16. but but... Can we kill bacteria that cause

bacterial diseases? Aren't they cute little cells created by our Creator?

[Tesha]

18. How does the Pope feel about overpopulation?

How does the Pope feel about overpopulation? That's the
root cause of all of our environmental problems and, last
I knew, the Catholic Church was still wholly unrealistic
about how to address that root cause.

Tesha

[Orsino]

21. Great! Condoms for all!

You wanna reduce Man's footprint, reduce the sheer number of people.

[dansolo]

25. How will the Catholics on the Supreme Court take this?

I suspect that they will still disregard the environment in favor of their corporate masters.

[Honeycombe8]

28. Well, it's about time. I mean, if you're "pro-life," ....

If you're supposedly pro-life, it never made sense to me that you could be anti-environmentally responsible. The two go hand in hand.

It's about time!

[Zhade]

29. Even though it's based on silly nonsense, I'll take the help.

Now, could you maybe do something about this pope who calls gays evil and covers up child rape by blaming gays?

[TommyO]

31. Sorry, but I won't listen to anything that the Vatican says

even if it's right on target. They have attacked gay men and women enough that they are completely dead to me, and many others.

[crim son]

35. This will put American Catholics in a bind.

The prolifers are going to be torn between saving the world or saving the blastocyst. :sarcasm: