Posted on 10/05/2003 6:55:37 AM PDT by SJackson
BRACKETT -- Stating that “we no longer know what we are eating,” Archbishop Raymond L. Burke delivered a blistering homily against large-scale agriculture Sept. 24 during the 23rd Annual Rural Life Day of the archdiocese of La Crosse.
Speaking during Mass at the church of St. Raymond of Penafort in Brackett, Archbishop Burke said “through globalization, resulting in the gradual and relentless concentration of agriculture into the hands of a few multinational firms, the sin has become exceedingly grave, with an ineluctable and immense wake of destruction of nature and of death.
“Globalization is not a distant phenomenon. It is seen in the trend which tells farmers that they must become bigger and bigger. Why? To use God’s creation to become wealthier and wealthier. They must become bigger and bigger, so that eventually the kind of farming which they are doing can only be supported economically by large international businesses.
“It is evident in the abandonment of the good farm country of our diocese, while animals and plants are manipulated by artificial means, without respect to the requirements of their nature and of the land and water, to produce, to an unnatural degree, a harvest which is poisonous.”
As a longtime member and past president of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, Archibishop Burke has been a champion of small farms through his career.
In recent years the Catholic Church in Rome has also taken an increasing interest in agricultural issues and their relation to “social justice.” In its 1998 publication “A Time To Act,” the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Rome declared the preservation of small farms and rural communities a moral issue, declaring that “we renew our dedication to the prominence of small farms in the renewal of American communities in the 21st century … it is our resolve that small farms will be stronger and will thrive … providing a cultural and traditional way of life as well as nurturing places to raise families.”
Speaking at the luncheon following Mass, Dale Hennen, director of the Rural Life Office of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said that in the Catholic church “there are serious issues and concerns about the direction our agricultural system is taking.”
He defined that system as “agriculture of astonishing production, with absurdly high hidden costs,” which include a concentration of land ownership and the disintegration of rural communities.
U.S. agriculture, Mr. Hennen said, “generates great wealth from the countryside, and returns poverty and dispossession to the farmers and laborers. Without our concerted thought and action, it is the future.” In his homily, Archbishop Burke concluded by saying “we pray for the reform of the farming economy, and we commit ourselves to work to do all that we can to promote sound agriculture.”
I have some serious questions about the quality part of that statement, particularly when it comes to certain meat products (chicken and pork, primarily).
Fortunately, I have the option of buying elsewhere as I deem fit.
If large farms used all available land, there'd be even MORE food available; as it is, enormous amounts of food are thrown away, every day.
Why do you automatically assume that an American bishop knows anything about economics?
These guys love the progressive income tax.
IMO, you're jumping on the poor befuddled bishop for the very thing that everyone's been jumping all over Rush for the last week: having an opinion and a right to state it. The Bishop may be 100% wrong in his opinion, and I agree with you, Mark, that he is wrong, but he shouldn't be considered presumptuous in the least.
Religion and politics are inextricably entwined and clerics played an important, sometimes pivital role in the Revolution and the Civil War (on both sides of the M/D line). Liberalism and socialism are merely masked attempts to supress the political role of religion, while communism is the naked, unmasked suppression of religions political sphere, which always ends in murder.
While not a fan of the NWO, I do see that the economies of scale achieved by farm consolidation have made huge amounts of food available to people all over the world at prices that could never be achieved with "forty acres and a mule."
I agree. Some people like to grow tomatoes. Me? I like to go the supermarket or the seasonal farmers market and spend $2.50(less than a quarter in pre-FDR real gringo dollars) for more tomatoes than I could eat in a week.
The problems start when snotty little %@$#@%^& "planners" dream up this "highest and best use" scheme and start taxing the subsistence farmers, the people who actually like living on the family property and growing their own food, as if their land was producing the same as Farmer Big down the road. And Farmer Little can hardly put up with or pay for the same EPA, USDA, OSHA, ICC regulations (Chime in, by the way, if you have alpabet agencies to add to the list.) that Farmer Big can, even before Farmer Big gets his gub'mint subsidy.
Most Farmer Littles, if left to their own devices, could muddle through, which is all some country folk ask. But the combination of the ruinous "highest and best use" land taxing scheme and onerous, expensive government regulation drives out even the fewer and fewer people who both like and want to live this way.
Also, on a more cynical level, there may be a tad of institutional jealousy here inasmuch as the smaller the farm (and the community (family) associated with it, the less powerful it is and the more susceptible it is to a larger power - in this case, the Church.
On a more cynical level, ain't it always about the money?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, they certainly produce a healthier culture. That is what is forgotten in our exclusive focus on the (inarguably superior) economics of big farming. Urbanization has been a disaster, culturally speaking.
I am doing my best to bring up my son in a rural culture, to set him on the right path.
Or is directing his busy mind to things that don't fit his title for which has given him his notoriety in the first place.
Except you, of course.
The archbishop's lament is the same old "big business is bad, small business is good" that the bishops have been spouting for 20 years.
with parts of the world still visited by famine it's obvious that even though we have the capability to feed the world, it's not happening.
It's not our fault, of course. Starvation is largely a function of tyrannical rulers (like Mugabe, in Zimbabwe, and Kim of North Korea) who don't give a damn about their people.
Fortunetly people, like posters here at "Free Republic", DO understand that a free enterprise system with low government involvement, does the best job of promoting worldwide prosperity, and assuring the feeding of the destitute in a fashion that is far superior than any other system ever conceived by mankind.
Yeah, dang .. I've been really ticked off at the Papists ever since those Catholic bishops slit stewardesses throats and flew airliners into the World Trade Center. I'm glad you, too recognize who the real enemy is.
Aren't you late for your Klan rally?
I am doing my best to bring up my son in a rural culture, to set him on the right path.
Perhaps an explaination to your son that a promotion of the idea that road blocking most of the paths and supporting the building of the strait and narrow path would be benificial.
Just my uninvited thought. : )
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