Catholic News 2
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Vatican City, Mar 2, 2017 / 08:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Vatican conference on biodiversity has found that wasteful attitudes when it comes to consumption could be leading to the extinction of certain species, and that changing personal habits and a promoting more equal distribution of the earth’s resources could make the difference.“We're consuming more than is what available...there's no doubt that in the richer countries in the world, we're wasting an enormous amount and that’s all adding to the total,” Professor Peter Hamilton Raven said March 2.Part of the reason for this waste, he said, is because “we don't really understand the value of what we're wasting. It appears to be a free commodity, like air, or space or fuel.”“According to our standard of living we're sucking resources from all over the world,” he said, noting that with the current rate of consumption, half of the world's biodiversity could b...
Vatican City, Mar 2, 2017 / 08:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Vatican conference on biodiversity has found that wasteful attitudes when it comes to consumption could be leading to the extinction of certain species, and that changing personal habits and a promoting more equal distribution of the earth’s resources could make the difference.
“We're consuming more than is what available...there's no doubt that in the richer countries in the world, we're wasting an enormous amount and that’s all adding to the total,” Professor Peter Hamilton Raven said March 2.
Part of the reason for this waste, he said, is because “we don't really understand the value of what we're wasting. It appears to be a free commodity, like air, or space or fuel.”
“According to our standard of living we're sucking resources from all over the world,” he said, noting that with the current rate of consumption, half of the world's biodiversity could be extinct by the end of the century.
Based on the science, this hypothesis “is entirely possible if we continue with our greedy and unequal habits,” Raven said, adding that the loss is “something we cannot recover from easily.”
He stressed the importance learning to value the resources available to us, saying that to prevent the loss of biodiversity can't happen “without having exhibited the reverence for life which must be a characteristic of our species.”
Raven, a professor at the Missouri Botanical Garden and research institute, spoke at a news briefing on a Feb. 27-March 1 study week on biological extinction, subtitled “How to Save the Natural World on Which We Depend.”
Hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the main aim of the gathering was to “review what we know about biological extinction, its causes and the ways in which we might limit its extent,” according to the final March 2 statement released by participants.
Alongside Raven at the briefing was Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Professor Werner Arber, President of the Academy, and Professor Partha Sarathi Dasgupta, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences.
In comments to journalists, Dasgupta echoed Raven’s concern about waste, saying that when it comes to biodiversity, “an enormous proportion of lifeforms are invisible...the microbes, the soil, the decomposers” and critters that we don’t typically think about.
“If you are only looking at the final goods and services,” he said, “you forget” the resources that go into producing them.
Particularly in urban areas that are more “detached” from the natural world, a person might see an earthworm crawling around on the ground, “but you forget how important they are,” he said, adding that the purpose of the conference was to take a look at some of the invisible organisms that might have gone missing.
For much of mankind, particularly in developed countries, “we think there is an unlimited pool of resources so we can take what we like,” he said, but stressed that this is not the case.
In their final statement, participants concluded that that based on comparisons with the fossil record, the current loss of species rate “is approximately 1,000 times the historical rate, with perhaps a quarter of all species in danger of extinction now and as many as half of them may be gone by the end of the present century.”
Due to man's dependency on living organisms for necessities such as food and medicine to climate and even beauty, these losses “will inflict incalculable damage on our common prospects unless we control them.”
In their discussion, participants said the danger isn’t isolated to the extinction of species, but also effects the how the earth functions in general.
The “enormous increase” in human activity in the past 200 years alone not only threatens various species, but the use of fossil fuels “is putting huge strains on the earth’s capacity to function sustainably,” they said, and citing rising sea levels, higher global temperatures and ocean acidification as examples.
Discussion also focused at length on the topic of inequality, particularly the disparity between rich versus developing countries, linking the issue of poverty to an imbalance in consumption which results in the endangerment of certain species.
Participants argued that the 19 percent of the world's richest people use “well over” half of the world's resources, and because of this, wealthier nations are “substantially responsible for the increase in global warming and, consequently, the decrease in biodiversity.”
On the other hand, they said the world's poor, “who do not enjoy the benefits of fossil fuels, are indirectly responsible for deforestation and some destruction of biodiversity, because their actions take place within a world economic system dominated by demands made by the wealthy, who have much higher overall consumption levels without paying any externalities to conserve global biodiversity.”
Given the vast difference between the rich and the poor on a global plane, participants suggested “wealth redistribution” as one positive action that could be taken.
“Ending extreme poverty, which would cost about $175 billion or less than 1 percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world, is one major route to protecting our global environment and saving as much biodiversity as possible for the future,” they said, adding that this can be done differently in individual poor regions.
The panel present at the news briefing also addressed the point of population growth, saying conference participants across the board recognized that the loss of biodiversity and the negative effects of climate change don’t have to do with the number of people on the planet, so much as their habits and behavior.
In comments to journalists, Archbishop Sorondo said that throughout the conference, “what was clear is that the population is not the cause of climate change, but it’s the human activity and use of fossil fuels that produces climate change.”
“Consequently the population isn’t the cause, but human activity, which uses those resources,” he said, adding that it’s not a question “of how many human beings, but the activity and use of the materials consumed.”
“So today, to conserve biodiversity and to have an integral environment, this depends on human activity,” he said, and stressed the importance of educating families on the issue.
Dasgupta echoed the statement, encouraging people “not to translate the sustainable output” that nature offers as solely up to human numbers, because a sustainable number of people “depends on the standard of living, the quality of life that we have on average.”
Consumption is a key to this point, he said, adding that the disparity between rich and poor compounds the issue. On this point, “growth doesn’t seem to change the distribution amongst us,” he said, adding that “if the distribution doesn’t change it’s as if you’re becoming richer.”
In his comments, Raven noted that while the earth can’t sustain “an infinite” number of people, “no one really knows the number of people the world will really support.”
But when it comes to the issue of consumption, Raven said a sense of solidarity, “love and charity” ought to guide our actions, encouraging people to not just care about the future of “their own children and grandchildren,” but also “for others.”
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Trieste, Italy, Mar 2, 2017 / 02:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Catholics continue to debate pastoral and doctrinal approaches to marriage, they should remember that the Catholic approach to marriage and the Eucharist has a direct impact on what the Church teaches about society as a whole, an expert on the Church’s social teaching has said.“Protecting marriage as a social institution has protected all of society and its order,” Stefano Fontana, director of the Cardinal Van Thuan Observatory, said in the Feb. 28 edition of its newsletter. The Church’s protection of marriage would suffer if adultery changes “from an intrinsic evil to a situation to be interpreted case by case,” if this interpretation is left simply to individual conscience and if the divorced-and-remarried are administered the Eucharist, Fontana said.“A diminished theological consideration of the Eucharist would also imply worrying consequences in terms of the Catholic commit...
Trieste, Italy, Mar 2, 2017 / 02:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Catholics continue to debate pastoral and doctrinal approaches to marriage, they should remember that the Catholic approach to marriage and the Eucharist has a direct impact on what the Church teaches about society as a whole, an expert on the Church’s social teaching has said.
“Protecting marriage as a social institution has protected all of society and its order,” Stefano Fontana, director of the Cardinal Van Thuan Observatory, said in the Feb. 28 edition of its newsletter.
The Church’s protection of marriage would suffer if adultery changes “from an intrinsic evil to a situation to be interpreted case by case,” if this interpretation is left simply to individual conscience and if the divorced-and-remarried are administered the Eucharist, Fontana said.
“A diminished theological consideration of the Eucharist would also imply worrying consequences in terms of the Catholic commitment in the public arena,” he said.
The Cardinal Van Thuan International Observatory for the Social Doctrine of the Church provides information about the Church’s social teaching and its relevance to society. It is named for Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, a Vietnamese bishop who spent years in prison before being liberated. He went on to serve in the Roman Curia, where he was named president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
For Fontana, Catholic social thought is based on the Eucharist.
“The Eucharist is the real foundation of the communion among men,” he said.
He reasoned that admitting the divorced-and-remarried to the Eucharist “would provoke many difficulties in the Catholic commitment to defend and promote family and to embody the principles of social teaching in society.”
This would be challenging even if the doctrine were left untouched, if access to Communion were granted according to the “case by case” rationale. If doctrine were not formally touched, Fontana said, “doctrine would be embodied anyway in a pastoral approach detached from it.”
According to Fontana, there is a concrete link between the Church’s sacramental life and “the Catholic commitment to politics.” Christians’ commitment to build a world according to God’s plan for the salvation of men has “a theological motivation and grace in the Eucharistic sacrament and in all the sacraments.”
Marriage is one of these sacraments and the basis of society. Without marriage, society becomes “a group of individual relations variously interconnected with no order.”
Fontana noted that marriage comes from the natural order, but nature cannot be self-sustained without grace.
Only in marriage between man and woman is there a basis of complementarity. This is the foundation of any other social relation intended to follow a natural order, and not “any subjective wish.”
Based on this rationale, Fontana draws a clear conclusion: “If we eliminate marriage, little is left of society. And the sacrament of marriage is important also from the political and social perspective.”
Fontana emphasized that this is the reason why the Church has protected marriage by considering adulterous acts as intrinsic evils.
His comments come amid serious debate about pastoral practice in light of Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.
The Cardinal Van Thuan Observatory is based in Trieste, the seat of Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, a former secretary of the Pontifical Council Justice and Peace. It works with many bishops conferences. Its work is given consideration by many in the Roman Curia.
Cairo, Egypt, Mar 2, 2017 / 03:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A spike in attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, spurred by a video threat from ISIS, has drawn the prayers and concern of advocates, who are urging global leaders to take notice.“Americans need to know that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world is under threat from being completely pushed out of Egypt,” which would be disastrous both for Egypt and for Christianity itself, Philippe Nassif, executive director of the advocacy group In Defense of Christians, told CNA.“We pray for those suffering terrorism and violence, for God to grant them peace and reassurance that they are not forgotten by Him or by all those who not only witness their plight but strive to advocate for them,” His Grace Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, said Tuesday.There have been 40 reported murders of Christians in Egypt in the last three months, Bishop Angaelos said in ...
Cairo, Egypt, Mar 2, 2017 / 03:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A spike in attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt, spurred by a video threat from ISIS, has drawn the prayers and concern of advocates, who are urging global leaders to take notice.
“Americans need to know that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world is under threat from being completely pushed out of Egypt,” which would be disastrous both for Egypt and for Christianity itself, Philippe Nassif, executive director of the advocacy group In Defense of Christians, told CNA.
“We pray for those suffering terrorism and violence, for God to grant them peace and reassurance that they are not forgotten by Him or by all those who not only witness their plight but strive to advocate for them,” His Grace Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, said Tuesday.
There have been 40 reported murders of Christians in Egypt in the last three months, Bishop Angaelos said in a recent statement, “culminating in the most recent murders of seven Christians in Al-Arish,” the largest city in the country’s Sinai region.
Twenty-nine were killed in a bombing at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo in December. The Islamic State took credit for the bombing and released a video threatening to target Christian “crusaders” in Egypt.
“Oh crusaders in Egypt, this attack that struck you in your temple is just the first with many more to come, God willing,” they said.
Since the video’s release, more Christians have been killed in Egypt and hundreds have reportedly fled their homes in the Sinai region in the north of the country after several murders there, the group In Defense of Christians claimed.
Many of these Sinai residents are “very poor,” Nassif said, and have fled to churches, Coptic charities, or to relatives’ homes.
Bishop Angaelos insisted that “the one common denominator is that these innocent children, women and men have had their lives brutally and tragically ended for no other reason except that they are Christians,” noting that written threats have been left in villages “urging Christians to ‘leave or die’.”
The current Egyptian government has condemned the attacks and in the past has pledged to protect embattled Christian minorities in the country, but Christians still suffer most in rural areas outside the capital of Cairo where the national government has lesser oversight.
“The security situation in Sinai itself has just deteriorated dramatically in the past year,” Nassif said, in the area with a “large Christian presence.”
“The ISIS affiliates in the Sinai are basically using a really poor economic situation, and they’re taking advantage of a very difficult geographic area” to target Christians, he said, many of whom have been killed “in lone wolf attacks” intended to instill fear in the rest of the Christian population and drive them out.
“Their goal is to really create real deep anxiety among all the Christians in Egypt, and to sow this sort of narrative that they were part of this sort of counter-coup against the Muslim Brotherhood,” he continued.
The Muslim Brotherhood had governed Egypt before they were ousted in a 2013 military coup. General Abdul Fattah el-Sisi became president months later after elections were held, and Christians have been blamed by insurgents as aiding his rise to power.
The international community must take notice of this persecution, which has “gone largely unnoticed,” Bishop Angaelos stressed.
“In our fast moving world that is filled with so much news of tragedy, war and death, it is all too easy for atrocities to become ‘incidents,’ and for individuals suffering them to become mere statistics, very quickly pushed aside by the next item of news,” he stated.
“In the eyes of the perpetrators they are a viable target, and in the eyes of the world they become a regrettable phenomenon; yet what is actually left behind are traumatized individuals, families and communities that have lost loved ones, living the reality of themselves being targeted.”
In Defense of Christians is asking the U.S. government to advocate that Egypt “prioritize the protection of the Coptic community.”
Catholics must not only pray for the victims of these attacks, but also for those in the government charged with protecting them, and for the perpetrators, Bishop Angaelos insisted.
“We also pray for those in positions of authority and influence that they may be advocates for all those entrusted into their care. Finally, and not of least importance we pray for those who perpetrate these crimes, that they once again become conscious of the true value of every life that appears to be dispensable in their eyes.”
