Learning from Earth Day on a Sunday in Easter

April 2012.

Note: This column developed out of the April 11th post, below.

Ecology, some say, has no place in Christian theology or practice. It encourages the worship of nature and it minimizes the role of humanity within that natural order.

These and other complaints have merit and must be heard—especially with Earth Day, April 22, coinciding this year with a Sunday.

In the midst of my work to explore Catholic ecological thought—and for all my delight in sharing and unpacking the eco-statements of the Holy Father and our bishops—I understand that without a firm foundation in orthodoxy, Catholic ecologists can stray into pantheism, paganism, and other “isms” that are at odds with Christian revelation.

I also know the dangers of entering into sometimes hostile territory when Catholics work with those of other faiths or no faith at all. At one recent interfaith meeting, the keynote speaker made two seriously flawed statements that did not sit well with me or other Catholics in the audience. His understanding of Christian history and theology was misguided and his words hurt the intent of interfaith dialogue.

Yes, the insertion of Catholic thought into secular ecological communities isn’t always an easy mix. As the Cross reminds us, the world and revelation are very often at odds—but that doesn’t mean that we don’t enter the world and preach the Gospel.

In fact, during the Easter Season—especially this very Sunday, which aligns this year with the eco-celebration of Earth Day—the Gospel readings are the Resurrection accounts, and they have much to tell us (and the world) about the Christian view of creation.

In Sunday’s gospel, the glorified Christ appears in the humdrum human world, offers peace to his amazed followers, shows them his wounds, and joins them for a meal of baked fish. His risen body is substantial and yet at a whim it can come and go and move through matter and, yes, eat. Two millennia before Albert Einstein exploded our understanding of physics with the mathematical relationship between energy and matter, the Risen Christ demonstrated this relation to his bewildered disciples—and he incorporated within it will, intellect and love.

For Catholic ecologists, these accounts testify to the goodness of creation as revealed in the first chapter of Genesis. Given the importance of the post-Resurrection human body—and the very proclamation of Resurrection!—early Catholics were loath to accept a belief that ran deep in pagan antiquity: that the human body was a prison from which we must escape. Instead, the early church battled to defend the goodness of all creation—of both spirit and matter, of both soul and body.

But this battle was never fully won. Modern-day pagans still see death as freedom from an inherently evil material world. And some of our well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ remain unwilling to embrace the notion that creation is a great good that cannot be poisoned or ignored without distorting core Christian theological principles.

Now more than ever we see the implications of dismissing the material world. For instance, modern science is showing us that our own human bodies are increasingly becoming infested with toxins—chemicals that we make, misuse and improperly dispose. Such chemicals, like mercury, even end up in the fish that we eat—a particularly troubling reality for pregnant women. It would seem that there is a direct link between a cultural disdain for Christianity’s Incarnation—as well as the meaning of Catholicism’s sacramental underpinnings—and the damage we’re inflicting to ourselves and our children, born and unborn, through invisible forms of chemical warfare.

Let us pray, then, that throughout the Easter Season, all Christians will reflect on the Resurrection accounts and see the great good of creation that sustains us all. Let us acknowledge that, even with all the potential dangers, we must fear not and engage our neighbors (and ourselves) in ecological discussions, founding them always on the Good News of Jesus Christ. After all, it only makes sense that we seek to sustain the ecosystems that sustain us if we wish to truly and fully proclaim Resurrection!

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Nature and Resurrection: "Have you anything here to eat?"

While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them,"Peace be with you." But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have." And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. (Luke 24:36-43)

This is a curious Gospel passage. Having broken the barrier of death, Christ appears in the humdrum human world and eats a piece of fish with his friends. His body—now glorified—is substantial, and yet at a whim it can come and go and move through matter and, yes, eat. Two millennia before Albert Einstein exploded our understanding of physics with the mathematical relationship between energy and matter, the Risen Christ demonstrated this relation to his amazed disciples—and He incorporated within it will, intellect, and love.

To be sure, the inner light of the Resurrection accounts still astonishes. These accounts are alive—and fittingly so—with a mystery that human reckoning is slowly unpacking and embracing, especially as we explore the physics and metaphysics of reality.

For Catholic ecologists, the Resurrection accounts testify to the very beginning of revelation—to the goodness of creation as shown to us in the first chapter of Genesis. Indeed, given the clear importance of the post-Resurrection human body—and the very proclamation of Resurrection!—early Catholics were loath to accept dualistic tendencies that ran deep in pagan antiquity. After all, why would the evangelists record such peculiar and consistent details? To the common notion that the material world was inherently evil—that it was something from which to escape—the early Church said No!

But this battle was never fully won. Today, we find a similar debate, and not just among modern-day pagans. Some of our well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ are unwilling to embrace the notion that creation is a great good that cannot be poisoned or dismissed without distorting core Christian theological principles.

Indeed, now more than ever we see the implications of dismissing the material world. As modern science is showing us, our own human bodies are increasingly becoming infested with toxins—chemicals that we make, misuse, and improperly dispose. Such chemicals, like mercury, even end up in the fish that we eat. It would seem that there is a direct link between a cultural disdain for Christianity’s Incarnation and the damage we’re inflicting to ourselves and our children through invisible forms of chemical warfare that comes with life in the modern world.

Let us pray that over the next weeks of the Easter Season, all Christians will reflect on the resurrection narratives and see the great good of creation that sustains us all, and that we must sustain if we want to truly and fully proclaim Resurrection!

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Easter's Vigil: Many flames divided, yet never dimmed

We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. (Rom. 6:9)

Unlike Easter Sunday Masses and services, the Easter Vigil—the most important moment in the Christian calendar—begins in the dark.

At the onset of tonight’s Vigil, one of the catechumens—a father in his thirties—turned and looked behind him. From his front pew, he surveyed faces lit by the glow of hundreds of solitary candles that were being extended to kindle others. He had been an individual separated by shadow; now he was united by a flame that, while divided, was far from dim.

The glorious truth about this moment—this communion of souls aglow as God is praised in the singing of the ancient Exsultet—is that each of us at the Easter Vigil is entirely different in our gender, age, size, health, backgrounds, skills, sufferings, and joys. And none of us know if that new Paschal Candle will be the one lit for our funeral this coming year. But in that moment of light, that happy moment, we are unified by those solitary, uniform flames.

And if some of the candles went out—if a poison or a lack of oxygen extinguished flames in one corner of the church—you’d notice.

Ecosystems are much like a parish family standing in the dark holding candles while gazing at the elevated Paschal Candle. They’re a unique collection of living organisms that illuminate each other—and that need God, the source of all life. If organisms go extinct, you’d notice—well, maybe you or I wouldn’t notice right away if an odd species in some far corner of creation died off. But in time we would—especially if the rates of extinction were to accelerate.

As I gazed at the candlelit church tonight, I thought briefly of recent news of global extinctions. This thought reminded me that our need for Christ is as real as ever because humanity’s reach has exploded with our technologies and our appetites.

Flicker: Lawrence Lew OP

We should be clear on this: Species are being extinguished and there are many reasons why. Some are natural. Some aren’t. For instance, a demand for rhino tusks has that species in danger. Sometimes invasive organisms, brought from one ecosystem to another by the migrations of man, are the cause. Sometimes toxins stress—or destroy—particular species, and crucial ones, like the bees that make the wax for our Paschal Candles.

And then there’s climate change.

Alterations in how the planet distributes thermal energy and moisture impact how plants and animals move, feed, interact, and reproduce. Recent studies not only show how this may be happening—for instance, because of extreme weather—but also that we may be underestimating the mechanisms and speed of extinctions because of climate change.

Death, it may seem, is winning. But there have been other times when death appeared equally, if not more, victorious.

Easter is a good time to consider all this because the Resurrection is the authoritative victory of life over sin and death. Thus, if we wish to truly take part in the Paschal mystery—that is, if we truly wish to protect the light of those around us, and our own—then we must not only educate ourselves about ecological matters, but we must have the courage to act swiftly, decisively, and without fear. After all, of what should a people who proclaim He Is Risen! be fearful?

Moreover, the good news of Easter is that the victory is already won. We must merely participate in it, as did our early brothers and sisters in Christ.

By that I mean, when the first disciples of Christ witnessed the Resurrection, they reoriented everything about who they were. They re-interpreted their scriptures and re-thought the nature of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; they changed the day of the Sabbath and abandoned ancient temple sacrifices for the sacrifice of bread and wine at the command of the Christ.

They re-wrote the book of their lives, and so must we.

Indeed, we must do so because we are commanded to love God and our neighbors—and extinction is an affront to the Creator and it is a danger to humans—individually, culturally, and globally.

That dad who was entering the Church tonight in baptism—the one who was admiring the beauty of so many souls holding their candles before them—told me a story after Mass about fishing for his daughter’s dental retainer in a restaurant garbage dumpster in the rain on a cold night. His young girl was distraught at losing the retainer in a discarded napkin, and he did what a good father does—he entered the darkness and reclaimed the good that was lost.

What this dad did, God the Father has done for us. In Christ, God sent His Son to enter sin and death so to reclaim our lost goodness, that is, to reorient our human condition towards life.

Now it’s up to us to respond.

If we are truly an Easter people, then we must value all life, because all life is part of the tapestry of the cosmos and it is not ours to extinguish. We are to be a people that transmit, sustain, and encourage life, not destroy it. We must be a people that lives so that others—here, now, and in the future—may live. And to do that, we need to protect viable ecosystems.

From the Christian context, we must ensure that no corner of creation is without the life of Christ—the true life that cannot be dimmed, the life that gathers, that heals, and that offers ever more life until the end of the ages.

Indeed, we must pay heed to the Holy Father, who in his homily for this year's  Easter Vigil said this:

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.

Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world. Amen.

Truly, Easter is a time for all creation. It is a time to protect ecosystems by truly orienting our lives, our appetites, our economies, and our cultures to these ancient, true words:

Exult! Let them exult! The hosts of heaven, exult,

let Angel ministers of God exult,

let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud

our mighty King’s triumph! 

Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,

ablaze with light from her eternal King,

let all corners of the earth be glad,

knowing an end to gloom and darkness!

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Good Friday: What we do with truth

If they persecuted me, 
they will also persecute you. (Jn. 15:20)

The end of Holy Thursday provides a dramatic image: watching my pastor, deacon, and the alter servers extinguish candles and dismantle the sanctuary. Within moments after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the main focus of the church is bare and dark, with the central tabernacle open, empty, and cold. But in a side shrine (normally the home of the Blessed Mother) is the Eucharist, reposed among flowers and bathed by candlelight until midnight.

The world with and without Christ are thus on display: a living shrine and a normally robust sanctuary now made bare by deicide.

I thought of this being with Christ or being without Christ while driving home earlier this week after taking part in a panel discussion on the environment. It was held at the interfaith center of a business university here in Rhode Island. The coordinator knew of my Catholic ecology writings and asked if I could speak about faith, even if I was initially invited to speak only as an environmental regulator.

The interfaith center’s auditorium—sun drenched from a glass wall overlooking flowering trees—was about one-third full. My co-panelists were two professors, a lawyer and renewable energy advocate, and a local business owner who has quite the vocation for running businesses green.

I did my best to discuss issues of ecology, pollution, and overconsumption from a Christian perspective—that is, with an acknowledgement of a broken anthropology and dangerous worldviews that seek one’s own ends rather than the common good. I blended faith and reason, selflessness and science, as well as theology and twenty-three years of experience in government regulation. But the audience, students and professors alike, didn’t seem interested—and if they were, I didn’t pick up on it. There were no questions for me, and no apparent interest (at a business school!) in my suggestion that harsh regulation typically is not the sole answer to mankind’s many problems.

Clearly, I wasn’t persecuted at this eco-discussion. But I couldn’t help but think of Christ’s warning to his followers: It’s not going to be easy to teach my ways. There is a vast population that has no interest in placing Christ within daily affairs—no matter how dire the events of the day.

Ecologists of all stripes know something of cynical, unhearing audiences—people who disregard abundant scientific consensus on matters like climate change, tumbling levels of biodiversity, the effects of mercury, or the dangers of toxins from pesticides and other chemicals in our waters. Such truths are difficult to hear, to internalize, because they require a choice between a comfortable status quo and a new way of life. And so we humans often tacitly choose death—death to truth, death of creation, death to civilizations by over-consumption or man-made changes to planetary climate, or death to our bodies by poison. All because we’re not up for a challenge

Christ’s Gospel challenges us similarly and infinitely more so. His truth offers us a different way of living—one that can soften hearts and thus, not surprisingly, answer many ecological ills in the process, and so much more. But we often turn from this truth, hide from it, or, in myriad ways, crucify it.

As a Catholic ecologist, I find discussions about policy and science to be dead if they don’t include the life of Christ. Such conversations are like tabernacles without the Eucharist reposed within: They appear substantial but they hold no living, tangible, transformative truth.

This Good Friday, then, let Catholic ecologists, and all my Christian brothers and sisters, resolve to always bring the living waters of Christ to all that we do—either quietly or overtly—so that the world can see what happens when we try to kill God.

As Psalm 51, from this morning’s Office, reminds us,

Indeed, you love truth in the heart;
in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.
O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O Wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

And let us remember that this petition can be answered because of today, because of Christ’s Holy Cross, which has redeemed our fallen, dying world. ‎Indeed, in the words of Fr. John Neuhaus: "Here, through the Cross, we have come home, home to the truth about ourselves, home to the truth about what God has done about what we have done. And now we know, or begin to know, why this awful, awe-filled Friday is called good."

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Holy Thursday: This rich gift, this fruit of the earth

Gethsemane and Church of All Nations, Jerusalem

God of all consolation, you chose and sent your Son to heal the world. Graciously listen to our prayer of faith: Send the power of your Holy Spirit, the Consoler, into this precious oil, this soothing ointment, this rich gift, this fruit of the earth.

Bless this oil and sanctify it for our use. Make this oil a remedy for all who are anointed with it; heal them in body, in soul, and in spirit, and deliver them from every affliction.

As my bishop prepared the Oil of the Sick at my diocese’s annual Chrism Mass, I paid special attention to these words. A few weeks ago, my mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Healing of body, soul, and spirit are now in the forefront of my mind as I watch my mom fight this degenerative illness. She, like the human race and, indeed, the cosmos, suffer from the effects of sin, and so we would all be prudent to embrace God’s offer of Grace.

In particular, when I heard the words “fruit of the earth” during the blessing of the sacramental oils, I was struck with the similarity between those prayers and the prayers for the preparations of the gifts at Mass. They, too, speak of the goodness of the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, all for the divinely ordained assistance of making God’s Grace—his healing—intelligible to human understanding.

The Eucharist is the prime example of this. As noted in a recent post, the earthly, ecological connections with the Eucharist are something that Benedict XVI has commented on with great depth. For instance:

The justified concern about threats to the environment present in so many parts of the world is reinforced by Christian hope, which commits us to working responsibly for the protection of creation. The relationship between the Eucharist and the cosmos helps us to see the unity of God's plan and to grasp the profound relationship between creation and the "new creation" inaugurated in the resurrection of Christ, the new Adam.  

Lastly, and relatedly, when watching a hundred or so of my diocese’s priests stand at the Chrism Mass and renew their vows, I couldn’t help but smile with joy at the beauty of God’s plan. He dares uses the imperfect creation and sinful creatures to share in the salvation of the cosmos and of souls.

The more one considers all this, the more one sees that the Triduum takes on special meaning for Catholic ecologists.

Beginning with Holy Thursday—with the institution of the priesthood, the Mass, and the Eucharist—these next few days show clearly how salvation history is rooted in the very world that, in the beginning, God created “very good” and ordered. Thus, our relation with the world—and, by extension, with the planet’s ecosystems—mingles with divine relation, which makes for a potent means of participating in the drama of our own salvation. 

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as  of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14)

As we pause these next days to join our lives with the mysteries of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord, let us remember the cosmic implications of these events. And let us never forget that if God wishes to use fruit of the earth and our fellow humans to assist in the offering of His grace, we have a special role in ensuring the integrity of the very ecosystems that keep the earth teeming with fruit, with life, and especially with the human family.

After all, remember where Holy Thursday ends: in a garden, with Christ, and the slumbering men who would flee him, but then, with the power of the Holy Spirit, would one day zealously proclaim to a dying world the Gospel of Glory, of Resurrection, and the radical promise of a New Heaven and a New Earth—indeed, of new community for the many.

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Palm Sunday: Why Catholic ecologists aren’t revolutionaries

The suffering Jewish people found much to celebrate when Jesus entered Jerusalem. But in days, most rejected him. What he was coming to do, and undo, would not unfold the way they had expected. There was no earthly army eviscerating the Roman occupation forces. There was no cloud of fire purifying Jerusalem from pagan influences.

There was only this simple, curious man, Jesus, who promised a kingdom that no one could see. In the end, he was arrested, executed, and buried. His followers vanished. His miracles were forgotten. For the vast majority of his would-be disciples, life after Jesus’ crucifixion was as dismal as it had been before.

The lessons of Palm Sunday are ones that Christians must remember in all facets of our lives. Christ came to wash the feet of his followers and die on a cross. He did not come to summon armies. He came to invite, not terrorize. He came to take a road that was counterintuitive to human nature—and in doing so he would elevate our nature forever.

For Catholic ecologists, Palm Sunday teaches important lessons about the strategies needed to protect our planet, its biota, and us. Like Christ, we will be most effective not by summoning earthly forces of change, but in loving our neighbors and inviting them into a dialogue of hope—of showing our brothers and sisters what it truly means to be human. In the end, it will not be our actions of force that will save our ecosystems and our children. Rather, it will be our cooperation with God’s infinite, transformative grace.

I have the occasion of working alongside many scientists, policymakers, and academicians who insist that the only hope for environmental salvation is to dictate the minutiae of everyday life. There is an ugly strain of totalitarianism that swims deep through eco-conversations of late, and I shudder to think of what some would do if they had the power to have their way.

At a recent meeting of environmental advocates that I attended for work, one professor of eco-policy argued that strong, centralized governments were the best means to quickly achieve necessary changes within society. Another participant challenged this view by noting that China and other nations take draconian measures against entire populations to achieve their ends.

The conversation highlighted a growing societal phenomenon of late, especially among the political left: When the good cannot be achieved by education, it is sought by legislation, penalties, intimidation, and, soon, other, darker means.

Now, to be clear: My experience has been that most secular eco-crusaders are people who have the very best of intentions. They understand the environmental crises that humanity is (and will be) facing and they want to help. But without the Christian narrative—and a reliance on God’s grace—ecologists become frustrated with what many of us know to be human sin. This frustration grows, and they turn to various forms of dictatorship if they are in power or violent protests if they are not. In large part, this phenomenon is what the Holy Father wrote about when he was the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1984.

Likewise, the solutions to our many earthly crises—ecological and otherwise—are rooted in a telling line from another document by the Holy Father. In his 2011 Message for World Food Day, he says this: “In fact it is a question of adopting an inner attitude of responsibility, able to inspire a different life style, with the necessary modest behavior and consumption, in order thereby: to promote the good of future generations in sustainable terms.”

In other words, you can’t legislate morality. Nor can you coerce, threaten, or beat people into changing their ways without doing great harm to their humanity. On the contrary, the changes necessary to reduce human consumption, to produce goods and energy in accordance with natural and moral laws, and to bring unity of will must come not from the tyrannical power of strong, centralized governments, but from the wisdom of Christ.

And indeed, all people know this to be true—no matter how much they may resist or deny this truth.

After the meeting I mentioned, the professor who argued for strong government dictates asked me how to best work with faith communities to bring about good ends. I was delighted to hear her ask this with sincerity, and to acknowledge that people of faith can encourage change in ways that legislation and regulation could never do.

In fact, what she was saying was what Palm Sunday is all about: If you want to save the world, don’t put your faith in earthly strategies. Put your faith in Christ—follow him and his truth, even to the Cross—and then let him, through you, quietly and with humility change human hearts and, in doing so, change the world.

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The Sacrament of Charity: Christ, man, and nature

It’s fitting that as we approach the Great Week of Holy Week, I rediscovered a document that expresses the warm, exciting unity of Catholicism’s Eucharistic faith. I bought the book on impulse a year or so ago, read it quickly for the content needed at the time, but never had the time to embrace it.

That changed this evening.

A few hours ago, I pulled it from its pile for utilitarian purposes—for a paper on the Holy Father—and found myself in a world of Eucharistic wonder.

From the Paschal mysteries and the Holy Triduum, to the sacramental nature of the church, to the celebration of our liturgies, to the place of the Eucharist in our lives, to our place in the cosmos, and much more, this text by Pope Benedict XVI is gem like few others.

Indeed, it should be the genesis of diocesan Eucharistic Congresses across the globe during the upcoming Year of Faith.

While this text has a very long, complicated name, it comes with a short title, too: The Sacrament of Charity. It's a summary of a year-long series of gatherings on the Eucharist. And what a year it was: October 2004 through October 2005, those months when the Church grieved the last days and the death of Blessed John Paul II and celebrated the election of Pope Benedict XVI and the start of a new pontificate.

Given its gestation during such times, this text has much to ponder and share. It’s easily accessible for free on the Vatican website, or for a small price in book form. However you read it, The Sacrament of Charity offers fresh (and wonderfully ancient) dimensions of faith and practice in a world that is hungry for lasting peace—the kind that only God’s grace can offer.

Of course, I rummaged through it for words on the environment. I was not disappointed.

The title of Section 92 is “The sanctification of the world and the protection of creation.” Here it is in its entirety, some of which I’ve emphasized to note phrases of interest:

Finally, to develop a profound eucharistic spirituality that is also capable of significantly affecting the fabric of society, the Christian people, in giving thanks to God through the Eucharist, should be conscious that they do so in the name of all creation, aspiring to the sanctification of the world and working intensely to that end. The Eucharist itself powerfully illuminates human history and the whole cosmos. In this sacramental perspective we learn, day by day, that every ecclesial event is a kind of sign by which God makes himself known and challenges us. The eucharistic form of life can thus help foster a real change in the way we approach history and the world. The liturgy itself teaches us this, when, during the presentation of the gifts, the priest raises to God a prayer of blessing and petition over the bread and wine, "fruit of the earth," "fruit of the vine" and "work of human hands." With these words, the rite not only includes in our offering to God all human efforts and activity, but also leads us to see the world as God's creation, which brings forth everything we need for our sustenance. The world is not something indifferent, raw material to be utilized simply as we see fit. Rather, it is part of God's good plan, in which all of us are called to be sons and daughters in the one Son of God, Jesus Christ (cf. Eph 1:4-12). The justified concern about threats to the environment present in so many parts of the world is reinforced by Christian hope, which commits us to working responsibly for the protection of creation. The relationship between the Eucharist and the cosmos helps us to see the unity of God's plan and to grasp the profound relationship between creation and the "new creation" inaugurated in the resurrection of Christ, the new Adam. Even now we take part in that new creation by virtue of our Baptism (cf. Col 2:12ff.). Our Christian life, nourished by the Eucharist, gives us a glimpse of that new world – new heavens and a new earth – where the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven, from God, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev 21:2).

Come to think of it, this post is a fitting follow-up to yesterday’s look at the Annunciation. Both serve as reminders of the place of creation—and, thus, of rightly utilizing and protecting the natural order—in the Catholic faith.

As such, the subject of both posts serve as warnings to those who would diminish the ecological concerns of Catholics (and all people of good will), as well as to those who would seek to save the planet without first seeking the Grace of God—a Grace found especially in Christ’s glorious Sacrament of Charity.

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And the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us...

A few weeks ago, an organization for which I serve on the Board of Directors sponsored a keynote speaker for our annual conference. He's a philosopher who leans far to the left and makes no bones about it. In many ways, he reminds me of my oldest brother, whom I love dearly, even with our philosophical differences.

Anyway, much of what the speaker said about ecology was good. But his understanding of Christianity was simplistic and, as such, far off the mark. One statement was particularly troubling. He said that Catholics learned to appreciate the natural world only when John Paul II re-read the Book of Genesis.

I have since been in communications with him. I hope our dialogue helps him understand the great link between divinity and creation that we Catholics have always accepted and, today, celebrate and proclaim during the Solemnity of the Annunciation.

I’ll be posting more about my meeting with this philosopher, but for now, I’d like to simply acknowledge the great gift of Mary’s Fiat, and the immense implications it had for the beginning of God’s recreation of His dearly loved creation.

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Paying for birth control, paying for poison

Thanks to the bishops of the United States, today was a day of civil engagement.

Rallies held across the country made clear that people from numerous walks of life, faiths, and ideologies are not happy about the cultural and constitutional implications of the president’s Health and Human Services mandate that requires employers to pay for birth control medications and abortifacients.

The debate is being framed by the mainstream media as a question of women’s rights, even if those fighting for a repeal of the HHS mandate are fighting for the right to religious freedom. The stakes are high and the rhetoric is dizzying, which is why what one woman said today was so important.

Her name is Kristen Hayes-Yearick. She introduces herself as a “Pro-Life, Catholic mother of three beautiful children and a children's environmental health advocate.” The capitalizations of pro and life are intentional. Indeed, she founded a group called PSALM, which stands for Protecting the Sanctity of All Life Movement. I have been lucky to have met Kristen and others in our various on-line lives. Indeed, a few of us have been working with this formidable woman to make PSALM a worthy resource to bridge an unfortunate divide between ecological issues and traditional life issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, and artificial contraception.

As the organizer of today’s rally for religious freedom in Williamsport, PA, Kristen gave an important speech that did the very thing that she and so many—including the Holy Father—are eager to do: express the link between ecology and human life. Let’s “listen in” on some of Kristen’s speech:

Here is my third issue: Synthetic estrogen.

Ethynyl estradiol is an oral estrogen used in almost all of combined oral contraceptive pills. It is one of the most commonly used medications. The warning label for Ethinyl estradiol “may increase the risk of developing endometrial and breast cancer, gallbladder disease, liver tumors, heart attack, stroke, and blood clots. Talk to your doctor about the risks of using this medication.”

Xenoestrogen—Xeno means foreign—so xenoestrogen means foreign estrogen.

Xenoestrogens are now ubiquitous in our environment and in the water, they include pharmacological estrogens like ethinyl estradiol used in birth control pills, but other chemicals also have estrogenic effect. 

Which results in our born and unborn children being exposed to low doses of endocrine-disrupting chemicals through multiple routes of exposure.

Xenoestrogens are also called environmental hormones or Endocrine-Disrupting Compounds. Xenoestrogen from birth control pills are excreted through urine and feces. Once they're excreted- they head to the municipal water plants and there is no technology to remove them from the water, so the hormones end up in our water supplies.

Xenoestrogens have been leading to intersex fish and lowered sperm counts. Ethinyl estradiol, bisphenol A, and alkyl phenols that are present in treated sewage outflow water can act as estrogen-mimics and induce a wide range of effects on fish, so what are they doing to our children?

These effects include feminization and intersex in males. We have male fish and frogs showing up with ovaries and eggs in our rivers, lakes and streams in Pennsylvania and all over the country.

Studies have linked Synthetic estrogen to breast cancer, liver cancer and other life threatening or life altering diseases. One in three American children has Allergies, Asthma, ADHD or Autism. CDC reports that childhood cancer incidence continues to rise. Girls are entering puberty years before previous generations—breast development beginning at the age of 7—which increases their risks for reproductive cancers.

Male infertility appears to be on the rise, and studies suggest that more boys are being born with genital malformations—like Hypospadias.

Chronic Childhood illness statistics continue to rise. If the HHS mandate was truly about women's health, it wouldn't be focused on only providing free birth control, abortifacients and sterilization. It wouldn't be singling out very specific employers that have valid objections based on their conscience and teachings.

Instead, we would be focusing on over-all women's health not just on the divisive issue of women's reproductive 'rights'.

Coincidence? I think not . . .

We shouldn't be here today. Instead, we should be working together—regardless of denomination or political affiliation—for the common good of all women, children, men and God's creations. 

But we're not. We're debating an issue that was specifically manufactured to further divide our nation for political gains and reasons.

We have a choice: Are we going to allow the political posturing and polarization to continue to divide us or are we going to come together, put aside our differences, and stand up for the rights that men and women have sacrificed their lives to give us?

There’s very little I can add expect to follow up with those words from the Holy Father at the top of this blog: "Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment, and damages society." (Benedict XVI. Caritas in Veritate, June 2009.)

As a small, related aside: I was mulling over what to write in this post earlier this evening while doing my mom’s food shopping. As I was in the parking lot hoisting the groceries into my Subaru, a pleasant man in a suit walked behind my car and commented on the bumper sticker in the window. It says, Smile: Your mom choose life!

The man liked what it said. We exchanged pleasantries and he asked if he had heard me speak on ecology at a local Orthodox Church. Indeed I did, a few years back, at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church in northern Rhode Island. We chatted about ecology and life and the Western world’s amnesia about the great good that Christianity has brought to the world—and about how brutal the pagan world was, with its to-the-death sporting and its human sacrifices for the propagation of the seasons and the harvest.

The man said he had once heard that the modern version of human sacrifice is the practice of abortion as a tool to protect the planet from over population. His words paralleled what I had read earlier in Kristen’s speech. Indeed, I would add that artificial methods of birth control are also examples of modern pagan practices: They are false controls of fertility for the idol of human pleasure and unbridled freedom. But our chemically induced freedom comes at a hefty price, as Kristen reminds us.

Let us remember that the world of pagan antiquity had been imploding in the early days of Christianity. Its brutality, its slavish notion of its gods, and the limitations of its philosophies could not breathe sustenance into its politics, its culture, or its people. We’re in much the same situation today. Our culture has tried the sex-drugs-and rock-n’-roll path of human liberty, but the high it offers is never high enough, and the fall to earth is ever more sobering. Worse, the chemicals needed to sustain our progressive lifestyle are poisoning our bodies as they degrade our humanity.

This is why, as it did 2,000 years ago, Christianity must—indeed, will—reassert itself as the only viable source of life that can truly sustain all life. This is why the HHS mandate will collapse while the IHS invitation will journey on throughout history, bringing life to all who accept the offer.

This is why, of late, women and men of good will, from many creeds and holding many ideologies, are coming together in grocery store parking lots, online, and in our public squares to discuss and defend religious liberty and the message of life that must come with it.

This is why we must applaud and echo voices like Kristen’s—the voices of Catholic mothers and protectors of all life who aren’t afraid to tell it like it is.

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What to do on World Water Day

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?' (Matthew 25:34-37)

Chances are most of you reading this are hydrated. You have plumbing at home that’s attached to a well-run water-supply system, or a well that pulls water out of a deep, clean aquifer. Either way, you have clean, drinkable water on demand. And most of you have a system that flushes and drains your used water out of your home, through a sewage collection system, and to a treatment facility that cleans the water before it finds its way back into nature.

All of this keeps you healthy and your community livable. Me, too.

But not everyone is so lucky.

Today is World Water Day—a 24-hour period to remember that clean water is needed everywhere 365 days a year. Here are some statistics from Catholic Relief Services about the world without clean water or wastewater systems:

• 3.6 million people die every year from water-related diseases.
• 4,000 children die every day from diseases caused by poor water, sanitation and hygiene.
• 884 million people around the world don't have access to clean water.
• Every $1 invested in water and sanitation returns about $8 in increased productivity and decreased health care costs.
• 84 percent of people without access to clean water live in rural areas.

As you know, I work as a regulator of municipal wastewater treatment collection and treatment facilities. Over my two decades doing this, I've seen profound improvements in the technology and the professionals that protect our waterways. More recently, as communities struggle with the many economic demands of the day, the required upkeep, repair, and replacement of water infrastructure becomes increasingly difficult.

True, there are many needs that government must fund: schools, public safety, welfare programs—and unfunded pension programs. But without clean water, all those issues either become worse or irrelevant. Clean water is at the foundation of Civilization 101.

And so this World Water Day, you should consider three things.

The first is to donate to help agencies like Catholic Relief Services help millions without access to clean water or sanitation. Your donation now can save lives. It’s really that simple.

The second is to read up on the water infrastructure issues in your own community and nation. There are some good resources here, and here, and here to do just that. You can also visit your community's web page and find out about your water and/or wastewater system funding and condition. Such knowledge, and your involvement, will keep your community's eye focused on the most basic need of human biological life: water.

The third (and most important) is to pray. And so, may God bless and strengthen all those who suffer today—this moment—because of poor, or no, access to clean water. And may those in public office and those responsible for cultural polices make the wise choice of funding and supporting the ongoing operation and maintenance of the infrastructure that brings clean water to our homes, and purifies the polluted water that we leave behind, so that the natural waters of the globe remain clean, healthy, and always plentiful. Heavenly Father, may life, and the clean water necessary for it, always be at the center of our cultures, our lives, and our laws.

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