Posted on 01/01/2010 1:45:09 PM PST by TitansAFC
He said people needed to change how they live their lives and called for "ecological responsibility" to be taught in schools.....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
PapaBenXVI, I love you, but stick to your knitting, please.
I do not understand how anyone who believes in God can believe that we, as a mere byproduct of our existence, possess enough power to destroy His carefully crafted handiwork.
“called for “ecological responsibility” to be taught in schools.....”
Marxist drivel if actually spoken by him.
The Pope is a German, who’s lived in Italy (or really the Vatican) for many years. Virtually all Germans I’ve met are extremely pro-green....(cleanliness and a lack of waste, ie. efficiency are very Germanic traits) and environmentally concerned.
I think because Europe is so secular—enviromentalism is the new de-facto religion (it has comparatively little demands) for many, anyway. These attitudes rub off on even very devoutly Christian people who live there.
Notice the Roman Church today is very pacifistic (anti-death penalty and, usually anti-military) today...ALSO a very typical European attitude. No one is immune, to use a German word, from the “Zeitgeist” (spirit of the age) of his culture. On the environment, the pope on this is just typically European.
Maybe it would help if we read what he actually said. It was in the context of a much broader talk.
He keeps calling for economic justice and not abusing the environment, particularly in terms of Africa...and guess what, it’s people like the various socialist thug dictators who are destroying both the economy and the environment of their countries, and the reason their people are starving is because of artificial dictator-provoked famines.
If you want to interpret this in a left wing way, go ahead. But if you simply want to get the message...well, I don’t think he’s talking about decent capitalist democracies. He’s talking about thug dictator cultures, Islamic cultures, and LatAm socialist cultures, all of which are famous for starving the people and destroying the economy and land.
A lot of people would starve if there was no chemical use and a lot more people would be getting food borne disease. Those were real concerns before the advent of commercial fertilizer and fungicides. Some of our most potent chemicals against disease are hydrogen peroxide and chlorine bleach.
The availability and safety of our food supply has helped to boost our life spans by many years.
It is unfortunate that the Pope seems to accept man-made global warming, or climate change, as fact. He does clearly reject the Naturalist Church of Global Warming, however. I searched for the text of the speech so that I don't have to depend on the lamestream media to tell me what the Pope said. I found this passage:
On the other hand, a correct understanding of the relationship between man and the environment will not end by absolutising nature or by considering it more important than the human person. If the Church's Magisterium expresses grave misgivings about notions of the environment inspired by eco-centrism and bio-centrism, it is because such notions eliminate the difference of identity and worth between the human person and other living things. In the name of a supposedly egalitarian vision of the "dignity" of all living creatures, such notions end up abolishing the distinctiveness and superior role of human beings. They also open the way to a new pantheism tinged with neo-paganism, which would see the source of man's salvation in nature alone, understood in purely naturalistic terms.
That part is probably going to be left out of every MSM news report. It doesn't fit their narrow template, and they're simply not interested in reporting on what they see as differences between equally valid religions. Catholics, Protestants, neo-pagans, snake handlers, pantheists, whatever, it's all the same boring stuff as far as they're concerned.
The Pope is right that the environment is being abused in many parts of the world, although he doesn't identify the culprits by name (I would name China and India, for starters). He doesn't call for abandoning SUVs or coal-fired power plants, although his call for "more sober lifestyles" could be taken to mean just that. I don't believe the he is embracing the entire left-wing environmentalist kook agenda, but that's how it'll be played out in the media.
UK source?
This isn’t exactly what Vatican sources said.
As I said earlier, I remember a conversation that I once had with a guy who worked in Ticonderoga, NY at a factory. The factory was on the the beautiful Niagara River. The guy actually said to me that "he just lets the chemical waste RIP into the Niagara River because it is cheaper to pay the fines than to dispose of the waste." This is a true story.
Coincidentally, when I visited Niagara Falls awhile back, the Mist from the falls burned my eyes. They said it was polluted (at the time, maybe its better now.)
Tra la. I'm off to decant a 60 year old wine.
Let's end Davis-Bacon so we can maximize the use of time and resources to replace traffic bottle-necks.
Let's get rid of toll roads.
Let's indemnify businesses for accidents that occur in the homes of telecommuters.
Let's drill for oil in Alaska so we don't have to drill in areas with under control of nations not inclined to hear the Pope.
Just some things to bring up shouold a lib throw this at you.
If I have to explain the joke...wasn't funny. Anyway,a few months back, The Vatican had announced that The Pope's 2010 World Day of Peace Message would focus on the environment.
I mean no disrespect to The Pope but I disagree with him on this issue.
The only Pope how any worth was John Paul2. Other than that, as a Catholic I’ve no use what so ever for the Vatican. None, Zero. Zip.Nada. If Jesus were to come back today he’d go through the place worse than anything he did to the Temple and the moneychangers 2,000 years ago.
...Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions? Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of “environmental refugees”, people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it – and often their possessions as well – in order to face the dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement? Can we remain impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access to natural resources? All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development...
...Humanity needs a profound cultural renewal; it needs to rediscover those values which can serve as the solid basis for building a brighter future for all. Our present crises – be they economic, food-related, environmental or social – are ultimately also moral crises, and all of them are interrelated. They require us to rethink the path which we are travelling together. Specifically, they call for a lifestyle marked by sobriety and solidarity, with new rules and forms of engagement, one which focuses confidently and courageously on strategies that actually work, while decisively rejecting those that have failed. Only in this way can the current crisis become an opportunity for discernment and new strategic planning...
Unfortunately, as in the _Caritas in Veritate_ encyclical which this address refers to, we don't get much in the way of specifics as to how these crises are to be solved -- cf. the start of Section 4, "Without entering into the merit of specific technical solutions, the Church..."
The earth is not in danger and therefore is not in need of "saving".
I realize chemicals have produced more food, albeit lower quality in regard to nutritional positives, which in turn causes dis-ease, which in turn ... and so on, and so on ...
The idea that the product of industrial agriculture causes more disease is a fantasy.
Feeding starving people prevents disease. Food I grow myself tastes better than factory food, but I can live just fine on factory food, and "organic" food, by which I assume you mean chemical free food, is a fashionable niche product for people whose economic status allows them the luxury. If, however, you want to feed the world, chemical fertilizer and pesticides is the way to do it. It's like windmills vs. petroleum. One technology is cute, cool, and contributes a tiny bit on the edge of the economy, the other one powers the entire world.
Christ didn't mean for us to dump a bunch of chemicals on His earth and expect wonderful pluses to come from it.
That is a complete mischaracterization of modern industrial farming. By the way, do you really think that Jesus wants all those billions of people killed by malaria because of the ban on DTD to have died that way? I mean, think of the children!
The chemical industry, along with the rest of industrial capitalism, have raised humanity from wretchedness, poverty, and disease. Romanticizing an earth free of industry and disdaining chemicals because they are somehow "ungodly" is the kind of thinking one hears from 10-year-old girls. In the real world, it's better to go with what actually works.
Wrong! We need his voice of reason and his profound wisdom. The Pope's words are being spun into the radical leftists' camp.....The Pope is for responsibility in every aspect of life, even the environment. That is what life is all about. Catholic thought has gone through extensive examination and is in line with Natural Law. As such, I find it superior to any other philosophy or theology on earth.
If you ever read anything the Pope has published, you would understand his condemnation of Marxism. As he says, Marxism is about the importance of the collective and the State, which leads to extreme evil because the individual is considered expendable if he/she does not contribute in ways the State demands.The end always justifies the means. It is a fundamental difference with Catholic thought.
I am truly over simplifying but there is so much disinformation in the press about the beliefs of Catholics, it is disheartening. Many Catholics cherry pick and reject some of the deep thinking of the Church, but if they stopped to examine the philosophy they would understand how exceptional this thinking truly is and how this Christian thinking in line with Natural Law (St. Thomas Aquinas) formed the most amazing cultures (with freedom for the individual) on earth.
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