“We show our
respect for the Creator by our stewardship of creation. Care 25:1-7) the earth is
not just an Earth Day slogan, it is a requirement of our faith. We are called
to protect people and the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of
God’s creation. This environment challenge has fundamental moral and ethical
dimensions that cannot be ignore.” (USCCB)
“The land itself must be given a rest and not abused” (Lev. 25:1-7)
In today’s political and economic discourse, we often see a divide between care for the earth and economic growth. Care for the environment, especially the reduction of our dependence on fossil fuels, is seen as harmful to our economy. Regulations aimed at cleaning the waters, air, and land are deemed harmful to industries and an unnecessary intrusion on commerce. As Christians, we are called to care for the earth that God has created for us. God has given us dominion over the earth but that dominion must be seen as stewardship, not exploitation. Often, it’s the rich nations that exploit the developing nations’ natural resources for their own gain, thus moving exploitation of the earth into abuse of our poorer brothers and sisters. “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. . . . Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.” (Pope Francis, On Care for Our Common Home [Laudato Si']).
As steward’s of God’s creation, we are responsible for leaving our future generations a livable environment. The dangers of that not happening grow with each passing year that we do little to curb climate change. The dependence on fossil fuels and the destruction of air cleaning rain forests threatens not only our way of life but also our very existence. This is a clear violation of our call to “care for God’s creation.” In addition to not fully addressing climate change, our neglect of our drinking water and the air we breathe further erodes the health of the world we will leave our grandchildren. Our need for economic growth and consumption of more and more material goods must not allow us to abandon duty to preserve the gift of God’s creation.
“Equally worrying
is the ecological
question which accompanies the problem of consumerism and
which is closely connected to it. In his desire to have and to enjoy
rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth
and his own life in an excessive and disordered way. . . . Man, who
discovers his capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the
world through his own work, forgets that this is always based on God's
prior and original gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can
make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his
will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given
purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray. Instead of
carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation,
man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a
rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him.”
(St. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus)