On Thursday, the World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation, Pope Francis called for urgent action to stop climate change and proposed adding care of environment to the Catholic Church's traditional "works of mercy," which include acts like caring for the poor and sheltering the homeless.
Celia Deane-Drummond, director of the University of Notre Dame Center for Theology, Science and Human Flourishing and environmental ethics expert, says ...
"The Pope is right to add care for the environment to the list of the seven traditional acts of mercy. The reason is simple. The course that the world is currently heading towards is one of self-destruction, and the first to suffer in this process are the poorest of the poor and those who have done least to contribute to it. We are literally playing dice with the living earth, the gift of God the Creator on whom all life depends.
"Yet the world is not autonomous, so it is each and every person that is being called to heartfelt repentance and change. The Pope is insistent that small generous acts of mercy count, and, in this, he makes ecological virtue realistic rather than unreachable. Lifestyles that move away from obsession with consumption and celebrate the wonder and beauty of creation is just a small start. Structural changes in economics and politics also depend on human decision making. Indeed, the present generation faces an enormous challenge, but also a great opportunity to act with generosity. There may come a time, and that time is rapidly approaching, when it will be genuinely too late to act, and it is the next generation that will look back and ask, WHY? The Pope is a prophet and a priest, prophet in denouncing sin, and priest in showing the Christian and Catholic community how to move forward. Quite simply, ecological action is at the heart of Christian discipleship, not an optional extra."
Celia is a professor of theology and the former editor of the international journal Ecotheology. She is available for commentary at 574-631-7666 or [email protected].
The University of Notre Dame has a dedicated television studio and ISDN line available for media interviews.
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