Green Catholics
The Environment and Catholicism
By Daniel Muniz

The Catholic Church, like many other denominations, is becoming increasingly vocal in combating global warming. Vatican City has become the first so-called “carbon-neutral” state in the world after it installed solar panels on St. Peter’s Basilica and by planting a forest in Hungary. In addition, higher ranking clergymen have begun to emphasize environmental issues and they are beginning to encourage parishes to take more action at the local level to save the planet. In addition, the Vatican is actively working with Western European governments about climate change.

Environmentalism in the church is nothing new. Local churches have always concentrated on local issues and the environment is simply one of them. But what is starkly different is that the hierarchy has moved the environment to the forefront of the issues that the church is currently facing. And with Western Europe enraptured over global warming, the influence of the environmental movement has definitely been felt in the Vatican.

The problem that I have with this new emphasis on turning environmentalism into a moral obligation is that it introduces a whole slew of problems.

First and foremost is that it invites paganism to the church.
 

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Back in the late eighties when I was attending a Catholic college, my university had a Sunday evening Mass that was always well attended by the students. In one particular Mass I went to, the service started off with the sounds of raindrops and the noises from a tropical rain forest. During the homily, the priest used his sermon to discuss the virtues of respecting Mother Earth. In addition, the “green” decorations of the chapel were more apt for a Druid ceremony at Stonehenge instead of a Catholic Mass.

As an assistant commentary editor for my college paper, I wrote an article criticizing the “green” Mass. The Campus Ministry wrote back fiercely defending their environmental service and all the paganism in it.

And that was in the late eighties so I can imagine the craziness that will ensue in decades to come.

For too many eco-warriors, the environment is practically a religion on to itself. There is a spirituality that centers on Mother Earth which intersperses only a few elements of Christianity and the rest of it has nothing to do with Christian theology. Now if someone wants to worship a tree that is fine with me. However, it is completely unacceptable to try to meld it together within a Christian theme and then pass it off as being Christian.

There are too many Catholics who have their feet in both worlds. In one world, they want to consider themselves as faithful Catholics but in the same breath, the want to incorporate the paganism that is involved in environmentalism into Catholicism and then impose it on the rest of the church.

The second problem I have is that there is too much junk science used in combating global warming.

It is one thing to be concerned about the environment with the willingness to use authentic science and the appropriate technology to solve problems but it is entirely different when it centers on the occult and junk science and that is precisely the problem with the global warming activists. The “green” movement consists of too many activists who care more about the environment than about science and the scientific method.

And do carbon offsets really make you carbon neutral?

Where is the actual proof and what kind of evidence is there? Satellite data is actually showing the opposite. Forests were once considered to be carbon sinks that suck up all the carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. Instead, satellites have observed massive plumes of methane arising from forests. The problem is not with the living trees but with everything else that is rotting around them which are in enormous quantities.

And more to the point, carbon offsets is very much an incomplete science with a lot of unknown variables yet environmentalists treat it as the silver bullet that will solve all of the world’s problems. Planting a tree might make you feel good about yourself but there are limitations to what it can actually do to help the environment.

Right now there are just too many hucksters who have simple solutions to very complex scenarios. An example is corn-based ethanol but the list is very extensive. When the church relies on junk science, it is opening itself to getting duped by unscrupulous people who have a very political agenda.

Of course the church had the same problem with liberation theology in that it invited Marxism in which transforming government was more important than transforming souls. And it is the same problem with tackling global warming in that it becomes more important to transform the environment than it is to transform souls with the gospel. The proponents of liberation theology had a perverse political agenda that had nothing to do with Christianity and the same thing is happening with environmentalism in which there too is another perverse political agenda.

For the time being, the “green” movement is simply filled with too much hysteria, junk science, and the occult to be taken seriously in an ecclesial context. Unfortunately, a lot of other denominations are also under increasing pressure to be green which opens them up to some of the very same problems.

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