Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

This phrase is often used to refer to areas in which Church teaching has been relatively little emphasized and so erroneous thought has abounded. One area seems to be Christian responsibilities associated with the environment.

Zenit ran an article on Thursday summarizing comments by Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, at the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, organized by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation. Bishop Crepaldi made some very timely comments which correctly places the context of the “environmental problem” in the realm of anthropology. He emphasized that our responsibilities for our relationship with nature must not either absolutize it nor reduce it to a mere instrument. He said of the correct Christian approach to environmental responsibility: “‘It makes of nature the cultural and moral setting in which man carries out his own responsibility vis-à-vis the rest of men, including future generations, and before God,’ for his own growth and in view of the universal destiny of goods.”

The idolization of nature is a real problem in many radical ecological movements but this is a response to a perceived abuse of the environment. There is a solution to this problem which is a proper concern for nature based upon a proper view of man. Drawing on John Paul the Great, Bishop Crepaldi indicated that “The anthropological error is, in turn, a theological error,” he said. “When man wants to put himself in God’s place, he also loses sight of himself and of his responsibility of the governance of nature.”   

When we forget God, we forget who we are and what we are in the context of God’s plan of creation. Often times the reaction for many of us is to dismiss the concerns of radical ecologists, especially when they are violent. However, at the core of most errors is an incorrect reaction to a real problem. I have come to learn that the best approach to addressing errors is to try to find the authentic concern which needs to be addressed.