"I came out with a joyful heart and gave thanks to God." ~ Thanksgiving in luxury and in persecution

At Mass this morning, our good priest reflected in his homily on thankfulness, as is proper on this Thanksgiving Day here in the US. He specifically called out how we Americans can tend to obsess over our First World problems which can cause us to forget to give thanks for the blessings we have. He gave a general example of the millions upon millions of people on earth who wonder how they will feed their children anything at all each day. Meanwhile, we get upset if the baked potatoes get a little burnt, or if the pasta sauce is watery.

As Catholics, we have our own version of "First World problems." Most American Catholics have easy access to the spiritual sustenance the Church provides, with multiple options for Mass and the sacraments within easy driving distance. If we don't cotton to the way a particular priest says Mass or runs his parish, we can opt for another that is more to our preference.

Compare this to a time not so long ago, when many Catholics had vanishingly few opportunities to attend Mass or receive the sacraments—when a priest had to risk his own life just to hear a confession. Here is one such story drawn from the letters of Venerable Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop. Father Choe was the second native-born Korean Catholic priest (the first being Saint Andrew Kim Dae-geon). He was trained in seminary as a young man in Macao and after his ordination, he was smuggled back into Korea to minister to the far-flung and secret Catholic community. At that time, Christianity was outlawed by the reigning Joseon dynasty, and those suspected of following the abominable foreign religion were subject to torture and execution.

The following anecdote was recorded by Fr. Choe in a letter he wrote to his spiritual father, Fr. Pierre Louis Legrégeois in 1850. In it, he laments the travails of Korean Catholics, both poor and noble. In particular, he calls out the plight of noble Korean women who were not permitted to leave their houses or even be seen by men other than their husbands and family members. For Christian maidens living in a pagan family, the situation was almost impossible. If they tried to leave the house to visit a traveling priest like Fr. Choe or to gather with other Christians, they were subject to kidnapping and forced marriage to any man who could catch them. So many of these young women opted to remain in place, pining for the consolation of the sacraments. Father Choe records his experience with one such woman:

A Thanksgiving Tribute to Global Warming and CO2

What if we celebrate Thanksgiving with a tribute to global warming and the relative abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere? An outrageously scandalous thought, right? To propose we honor what global elites and their compliant media insist are bringing on certain doom. Yet, this is precisely what sound thinking demands.

Just 50 years ago, in the 1970s, the news writers peddled dire warnings of an impending ice age. Some scientists spoke of planetary dimming and the need for immediate, drastic action to prevent a return to continental glaciers.

At least the fear of a cold-induced catastrophe has some historical basis in the struggles of past societies during cool periods. The Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850, was a period of pervasive, sustained cold, when, according to the accounts of historians, “all things which grew above the ground died and starved.”

Frost fairs were held on the frozen Thames in London. Crop failures became routine, leading to widespread famine, poverty and political instability across the Northern Hemisphere. This was not a theoretical crisis; it was a brutal reality where a slight dip in global temperatures threatened the survival of communities. People fighting off starvation and disease during the Little Ice Age would have given anything for warmer conditions.

The typical American household rarely, if ever, thinks about this long arc of climatic history when preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. Food is obtained from stores overflowing with produce after being harvested from all manner of locales – apples from colder regions and grapes from warmer ones. Some vegetables are grown locally, and others travel across continents before reaching consumers.

The first step of this chain – plant growth – benefits from the warmth of the present climate, which is far gentler than the one of the Little Ice Age. Yet, the alarm today is over a supposedly destructive warmth, a worry that history contradicts with repeated warm periods of the past producing prosperity and flourishing civilizations. Among them were the Roman Warm Period 2,000 years ago and the Medieval Warm Period more recently. During both, crops were grown in areas too cold today for them.

The modern story of plenty is deeply entwined with the silent but dramatic greening of Earth since the 20th century. Satellite data confirm that the world has gotten greener since the 1980s, especially across arid and semi-arid regions. Why? The primary drivers are higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and a naturally warmer climate.

Carbon dioxide is plant food, an essential ingredient, along with water and sunlight, for photosynthesis. The great irony of the climate-alarmist narrative is that the increase in CO2 has triggered one of the most beneficial environmental changes in recent history: thriving ecosystems and record crop harvests.

Also important for food production are modern fertilizers – mostly manufactured with natural gas – that deliver the nitrogen necessary for high-yield crops.

What about the warnings that a warming planet will destroy global food security? This claim does not survive scrutiny. Over the past 40 years, yields of staples like wheat, corn and rice have soared. Famines, sadly still present because of regional conflicts or corrupt governments, are no longer the global norm. The world now supports a population of 8 billion people with higher living standards than ever before.

So, Thanksgiving revelers, remember the simple truth: Much is owed to the warmth of the sun, the invisible work of carbon dioxide and the fossil fuels that power the dinner table’s bounty transit from field to feast.

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