These questions are the undercurrent of a global conversation about what it means to be human, to be alive, and to be a protector of life. And while some have been eager to connect ecology with traditional pro-life issues, others resist.
But one important voice in particular has sought to weave ecology into traditional pro-life issues. As any reader of this blog knows (just look at the header), Pope Benedict XVI has built on his predecessor’s eco-foundation and taken the subjects of natural and human ecology to new heights.
If only more of us would follow him.
But in time—sooner and not later—the eco-implications of traditional pro-life issues and the life implications of ecology will intertwine into a cultural strand of DNA that will reconfigure our public discourse and, thus, force the very real choice between life and death.
It’s already beginning: As contraceptives and abortifacients grow in popularity and become mandated by governments, we're learning of their effects on nature. We are also learning of how pesticides are harming bee populations—which threatens our food supply; we are finding links between our chemicals and growing levels of autism; we’re finding toxins in garden supplies; we’re projecting dangerous alterations to our oceans’ chemistry, threatening shellfish and other creatures that swim the depths. All in all, it’s becoming more and more difficult to pretend that we’re not poisoning our world and ourselves.
Yes, sooner and not later, we as a race, as cultures, as nations—as individuals—will come face to face with a choice. Life or death. This was the revelation to the Nation of Israel in its earliest days. It is the choice that echoes onwards in early Christian texts—both the canonical scriptures and other texts like the Didache. Indeed, Christianity offers the fullness of this encounter with a choice between life and death, because in Christianity we encounter a Person—one Who has defeated death and offers life. If only we follow Him.
Thus, for the Catholic ecologist—and all our Christian sisters and brothers who seek the good of the Earth because they seek the good of life—the answer to the dizzying amounts of death around us is Christ.
To bring this prophetic news to a dying world, Christians of good will must band together and preach the good news of creation, of life, and of the source of both—God.
This is where PSALM comes in: Protecting the Sanctity of All Life Movement. It’s a small group at present, but it will grow and it must. The unity of life requires it and a healthy future for our race demands it.
More information on PSALM will be coming. But for now, if you’d like to know more, you can email catholicecology@aol.com and we’ll put you in touch with others that seek to keep ecology centered where it—where all life—belongs: in Christ.
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