Posts
Pope Francis Encyclical to Set Divine Imperative — Halt Climate Wreckage, Help the Poor
The
Pope is on a mission. The most moral and ethical mission of this
century and perhaps of all time. A mission to stop a fossil fueled
capitalist monstrosity from a “tyrranical” destruction of much of
the world’s life-sustaining resources for the temporary gain of a
handful of wealthy billionaires. A mission to stop this unjust system
from victimizing the poor and from swelling their ranks with climate
change sacrifice zone refugees. A mission to stop this unbridled,
amoral, money-worshipping construct from killing our peoples, our
civilizations, our planet.
(In
the lead-up to the 2015 Climate Summit in Paris, the Pope is urging
the world to take climate action. His new encyclical will focus on
the moral and spiritual imperative to preserve and nurture the
Earth’s life support systems and to help the poor. The Pope views
climate action as not only a moral and social justice issue, but also
as a divine imperative. He sees the role of fossil fuel based
political, market and resource domination as deeply unjust — a
tyrannical treatment of nature and the poor that puts humankind under
existential threat.)
The
Pope is on a mission. A divinely inspired mission to root out a deep
injustice that has been with all people, all nations, since the
beginning, but that has greatly worsened due to the exploitation of
fossil fuels and a proliferation of institutions possessing no moral
values and only valuing a greed-based profit motive. A mission we
must succeed in if we are to survive and have much hope of thriving
in the coming years, decades, and centuries. A mission which you are
called to join if you are thinking, feeling, and believe in life
outside of the money-worship and resultant carbon conflagration that
has now put every human, every creature into ever-amplifying peril.
It
is a mission the Pope will more deeply explore in his coming
encyclical on Thursday, June 18. A call for action that bears the
clear and undeniable message: “If
we destroy God’s Creation, it will destroy us.”
And
it is very clear from the early releases of his upcoming proclamation
that the Pope is taking on the powerful and wealthy political
supporters of fossil fuel burning around the world. Taking on the 169
billionaires who now hold in their hands more than half of all the
world’s wealth. A wealth whose concentration is enabled by unfair
market systems and the domination of enforced consumption of finite
and terribly destructive fossil fuels. An unjust base of terrible
economic might enforced by conservative (neo-liberal) policies that
delay and deny renewable energy adoption, the expansion of more
efficient energy use, and that force destructive fossil fuel use upon
ever growing numbers of people.
*
* * * *
The
Pope’s Clear Message — Help the Poor, Cease Environmental
Destruction
To
these points, the Pope has laid down a number of clear messages. The
Pope warns us of expanding poverty and a swelling of the number of
refugees due to economic exploitation and climate change:
[A] threat to peace arises from the greedy exploitation of environmental resources. Monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth. Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.
The
Pope calls us to understand
the essential imperative to protect
the Earth and to nurture both it and its creatures.
To not abuse, exploit, or destroy it. In other words, we are Earth’s
protectors and nurturers, not her tyrants and good work is directly
linked to the care of the Earth:
Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it, but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work.
The
Pope tells us that the
global hothouse crisis is existential for human beings and
one that is due to a failure of human ethics:
We are experiencing a moment of crisis; we see it in the environment, but we mostly see it in man. The human being is at stake: here is the urgency of human ecology! And the danger is serious because the cause of the problem is not superficial, but profound, it’s not just a matter of economics, but of ethics.
The
Pope equates the current incarnation of neo-liberal (read US
conservative) market capitalism and hyper-individualism to the
ancient golden calf idol of the Bible saying:
We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money. Trickle-down economics is a failed theory. Excessive consumerism is killing our culture, values and ethics. The conservative ideal of individualism is undermining the common good.
The
Pope sees greed-based economic systems as tyrannical, unjust and
destructive,
forcing unhealthy consumption, and calls for a radical new financial
system to avoid human inequality and environmental devastation:
It is no longer man who commands but money. Cash commands. Greed is the motivation. An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rthymn of consumption that is inherent to it. [A] radical new financial system [is required] to avoid human inequality and ecological devastation.
The
Pope calls us to stop
seeking to dominate and exploit Creation,
but to instead cooperate with, care for and respect it. That it is a
task set out by God to live
in the heartbeat of Creation. To nurture Creation. To care for
Creation. This is the calling in each of our hearts:
This task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of Creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not care for Creation, we do not respect it. Nurturing and caring for Creation is a command God gives not only at the beginning of history, but to each of us. It is a part of his plan; it means causing the world to grow responsibly, transforming it so that it may be a garden, a habitable place for everyone.
The
Pope notes that caring for the poor and caring for creation are
linked and that there
is no way out of the crisis without a radical cessation of every kind
of exploitation and harm to innocents:
As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution can be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems as environmental damage does trickle down most on the poor.
This
is a divine mission. One the Pope has called upon you to support. To
give aid and lend your effort to the divine imperative to help the
poor and to preserve the life-sustaining bounty of Earth. Will you
join him? Or will you join the others?
Those the scriptures have
aptly labeled — Destroyers
of the Earth?
Links:
Hat
Tip to Colorado Bob
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.