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Stewardship of God’s gifts: protecting the environment and human ecologyThe freezing temperatures in much of the country over Christmas seemingly give the lie to the preoccupation that many feel about the threat of global warming. Nevertheless, there is broad consensus among scientists that climate change presents real threats to human flourishing on this planet. The Church cannot be indifferent to these threats. As Pope Benedict recently said, because we believe in the Creator, the Church “has a responsibility with creation and has to fulfill this responsibility in public.” “Creation care” then is properly part of the curriculum of our Catholic schools, and children are encouraged to “go green.” The Pope himself not only talks the talk, but he has walked the walk – making the Vatican City State considerably “greener” by installing solar panels and sponsoring planting of new forests to reduce its “carbon footprint.” This commitment to stewardship of the world’s resources is an ethical choice. It recognizes that the earth is “not simply our property, which we can exploit according to our interests and desires. … It is instead, a gift of the Creator who designed its intrinsic order, and in this way provided the instructions for us to consult as stewards of his creation.” Given that today greater numbers of people are more keenly aware of the need to protect the environment, the Pope’s words are generally welcomed. He does not speak as a scientist but as a moral teacher – and we do well to remember that all that touches on human flourishing involves ethics and morality. For these same reasons, however, Benedict also insists that due attention be paid to an “ecology of man.” In this area, especially in this area, the Church also has a responsibility – and one that must be fulfilled in public as well. As human beings, we do not “create” ourselves; rather we are created – as the Book of Genesis says, “in the image and likeness of God.” The nature of the human being is to be a man or a woman. This order of creation also must be respected and protected if human beings are to flourish. To accept our creatureliness does not contradict our freedom, but it is a precondition for its true exercise. Human ecology demands that rain forests be protected – because of what they do potentially and actually for the flourishing of the human species on this earth. Likewise marriage, understood for millennia as a union of one man and one woman, must be respected and protected. Marriage always has been primarily about the raising of children (who seem to be hardwired to be best raised by a father and a mother who are married to each other). It is certainly legitimate then to favor such traditional marriages – in law and custom – as a way of investing in the future of society by providing for the human flourishing of upcoming generations. And just as we favor laws that limit the danger of pollutants damaging our sensitive ecosystems, should we not be concerned about the “toxic waste” of pornography and its effects on the human ecology of the young? Today, some hold for a radical autonomy by which truth is determined not by the nature of things, but by one’s own individual will. Such thinking has brought about the degradation of our physical environment; and it now threatens our spiritual environment, as well. In the face of increasing relativism and individualism in the wider culture, we have too often forgotten that marriage (and the family built on marriage) reflects the truth of our human nature as social beings. Our human nature – like Mother Nature itself – is a “gift of the Creator who designed its intrinsic order, and in this way provided the instructions for us to consult.” Defending marriage, promoting the family and protecting the young are part of “Creation care” necessary for human flourishing on planet Earth.
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