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In a 5/11/2007 article from Catholic Online, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, a Vatican official, commented before the UN on Global Warming. Here are some fairly representative samples.
“The earth is our common heritage and we have a grave and far-reaching responsibility to ourselves and to future generations."
“Experience shows that disregard for the environment harms human coexistence."
“Through such education, states can help their citizens grasp the urgency of what must be done, teaching them in turn to expect and demand a very different approach to their own consumption and that around them.”
These comments are perfectly reasonable and are what one would expect responsible people say about Global Warming. They also are typical of the Vatican's position on climate change. However, there is a catch.
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single cause of Global Warming and its policies promote climate change.
According to the Roman Catholic Church, there were over 1.1 billion Catholics in 2005. That number is growing and growing way too fast. One of the realities of the climate change debate that many would like to evade is that efforts to prevent ecological disaster are doomed if we don't get human population under control.
The last quote displayed above shows that the Vatican knows that human consumption is a problem, but it does not address the fact that reducing human consumption is an unrealistic hope if we keep dramatically increasing the numbers of humans. Before the Vatican tells the rest of the world what to do on climate change, that church needs to put out the burning fire in its own home.
Here are the kinds of policies that Roman Catholic Church, the world's largest sect, would have if they took Global Warming seriously.
- The Vatican would embrace birth control rather than condemning it. They would start distributing condoms during their church services, rather than interfering with efforts to distribute condoms by governments.
- They would stop lying and saying that abortion takes human lives. They would endorse abortion and make the kind of abortion sacrament that would exist if men could get pregnant.
- They would endorse homosexuality as part of a new church teaching that the primary purpose of sex should not be procreation. (Considering the well known fact in the gay male community that most priests are sexually active gay men, such a step really shouldn't be that difficult.)
- They would call on Catholic families to limit themselves to at most one child.
The Vatican's talk on Global Warming has been pretty cheap so far. Will they ever take serious action?
The pro-Global Warming policies of the Roman Catholic Church are hardly unique. Far too many other sects have similar or identical policies. They are an example of how religion is the single greatest source of human suffering.
Spirituality is a beautiful thing - in theory. Its a private comfort. Its a personal freedom and choice. It has NO place in public policy. If the religious of the world would be content not to have a theocracy my views on the destructiveness of organized religion would be different. I remember the good old days of the Catholic Workers - I long for the return of red letter teachings of the man called jesus - what we as a country with emboldened evangelicals who insist on shoving their "gift" upon any who will listen - do is so UN christian. And worse dispite history and folks like Galileo - many want to see us back in medievil times. Its all realy quite regressive. This is not said with hate by any means. Wasn't it jesus who said - do not place a yoke on anyone who cannot carry it ? Seems all the potential good stuff - gets tossed aside and twisted into empire building and social control.
Just saying...and what about the quality of life once all these new babies are in the world..there is a strange disconnect that goes on. Again. i say we of course are free to believe whatever we choose..But it must not be public policy for all. Our country is built on diversity. And supposedly Christianity is to be built on love. Where is the love, where is he free will and common sense ?
peace.
Yet the countries with the lowest birth rates are the countries with the highest rates of consumption (eg. US, Canada, Western Europe) of resources which give rise to global warming. China has a one child policy and it is on the verge of environmental destruction on a scale yet to be seen by humanity.