Church teaching on
matters environmental have been frequent and clear over the past decade:
Our role as children of God is to take care of the planet.
Cables
that fell into the hands of Wikileaks embarrassed a great many groups.
But when it came to leaked cables on climate change, the Vatican came
out looking like it is — a noble leader on a matter of great importance.
The Vatican cable titled "'Green' pope supports U.S. path
forward from Copenhagen," was based in part on discussions a U.S.
embassy official had with Paolo Conversi, a Vatican official at the
Secretariat of State, and with U.S. Msgr. James Reinert of the
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The one-page
document did not even mention Pope Benedict's speech to diplomats in
which he chided officials for lacking genuine commitment to mitigating
climate change. The 2009 Copenhagen summit made the malaise all too
evident, the pope said. Yet he expressed refreshing hope that people
will move to protect the environment, because the very future of some
nations is at stake.
The pope made it clear that climate change is a problem with human moral dimensions.
Meanwhile,
over the past few years, local churches have been making use of the
U.S. bishops' environmental justice program, "Caring for God's
Creation."
"We show our respect for the Creator by our
stewardship of creation," the bishops said. "Care for the earth is not
just an Earth Day slogan, it is a requirement of our faith."
The
bishops said we are all called to protect people and the planet,
"living our faith in relationship with all of God's creation."
The
environmental crisis is moral and ethical in scope, the bishops
explained.
We were amazed, once we looked into it, how many
Oregon Catholics are deeply involved in the stewardship movement. We
commened them.
In these days, and in this part of the world,
environmental stewardship just happens to be potent evangelization. Many
Northwesterners of good will might take a look at our church and admire
it for its strong stand.