Gerald Korson

The pope and the pol address climate change

Al Gore and Pope Benedict both say global warming is a moral issue

It may surprise some people to learn that when it comes to environmental concerns, the Vatican and former U.S. vice president Al Gore are in substantial agreement that stewardship of the earth's resources is a moral issue.

"We face a true planetary emergency," Gore said in an Oct. 12 statement accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness about the threat of global warming. "The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

In a case of strange bedfellows -- Gore is strongly pro-choice on abortion -- Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials have referred to the environmental crisis in moral terms throughout 2007.

Industrialized nations "are not morally free to repeat the past errors of others by recklessly continuing to damage the environment," Pope Benedict said last month in a written message to religious leaders attending a week long symposium on the environment in Ilulissat, Greenland.

"Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family," the pope said. "No nation or business sector can ignore the ethical implications present in all economic and social development."

Echoing the pope's statement in a Sept. 24 address to the U.N. General Assembly, Vatican undersecretary of state Msgr. Pietro Parolin said the Vatican believes environmental protection is a "moral imperative."

Although some questions remain regarding the link between human activity and climate change, said Msgr. Parolin, such uncertainties "should neither be exaggerated nor minimized in the name of politics, ideologies or self-interest."

That caution sends a message across the ideological spectrum, both toward those who advance environmental arguments to support "population control" and to moral conservatives who dismiss ecological warnings because they associate them with a liberal political agenda.

Population or consumption?

Population control is where many environmentalists and the Church part company. Since his days as vice president during the Clinton administration, Gore has supported population-control initiatives, particularly in Third World nations, including the kind of international "family planning" funds that make abortion, sterilization and artificial contraception more readily available to the poor -- something Catholic leaders strongly oppose.

"I think environmentalists can be a little lopsided on this point," said William Bole, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C., who has written widely on environmental matters. "Very often, they seem much more concerned about population in poor countries than about consumption in rich countries."

John Hart, a professor of Christian ethics at Boston University, agreed that excess consumption of goods, "particularly in the United States, where it is rampant," is at the heart of the ecological problem, as Church leaders have frequently warned.

One such warning came from Pope John Paul II in his 1979 address to the United Nations. "We must find a simple way of living," the pope said, "for it is not right that the standard of living of the rich countries would seek to maintain itself by draining off a great part of the reserves of energy and raw materials that are meant to serve the whole of humanity."

On population control, Hart sees an opening for dialogue between the Church and environmentalists. At the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Archbishop Renato Martino told the assembly that the Church is not against family planning per se; rather, it believes that specific "family-limitation practices" should be carried out in accord with Church teaching.

"So, the Church and ecologists have some common ground on which to stand," Hart said, "even while they might disagree on the appropriate methods to use to limit human populations."

'Duty toward nature'

Although scientists lack unanimity on the causes and effects of global warming, the Catholic obligation to proper stewardship of the earth does not hinge on the immediacy of the environmental crisis, Hart said.

Noting that Pope John Paul II, in his message for the 1990 World Day of Peace, referred to Christians' "duty toward nature" as "an essential part of their faith," Hart called stewardship of the earth "an ongoing moral imperative, a requirement of Catholic faith and a human right."

Yet there is a positive impact that ecological concerns may have on one's faith -- a greater awareness and experience of God through creation.

"The environmental movement has helped Catholics to get back in touch with our own sense of the sacredness of nature, which was very much a part of our faith before the advent of the modern, scientific, industrial world," Bole said.

Hart said he finds it difficult to understand how Catholics with children or grandchildren can ignore environmental issues.

"This is a major life issue," he said. "We're talking about threats to human health and well-being for generations to come if little or no efforts are made today to ameliorate global warming."

Gore's Nobel honor, which he shares with a United Nations panel on climate change, has some of Gore's would-be supporters calling upon him to run for president of the United States -- an idea he has thus far rejected. For now he seems content to continue his informational campaign as he builds on the success of his Academy Award documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which outlined what some say will be the dire consequences of global warming.

As for Pope Benedict, who of late has made respect for the environment a touchstone of his public addresses, some observers believe environmental concerns will be the topic of his first address to the United Nations when he visits the United States next spring -- or perhaps his next encyclical.

A crisis foretold

"Today the ecological crisis has assumed such proportions as to be the responsibility of everyone. As I have pointed out, its various aspects demonstrate the need for concerted efforts aimed at establishing the duties and obligations that belong to individuals, peoples, states and international community.

"When the ecological crisis is set within the broader context of the search for peace within society, we can understand better the importance of giving attention to what the earth and its atmosphere are telling us -- namely, that there is an order in the universe which must be respected, and that the human person, endowed with the capability of choosing freely, has a grave responsibility to preserve this order for the well-being of future generations. I wish to repeat that the ecological crisis is a moral issue."

--"The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility,"Pope John Paul II's message for the World Day of Peace, Jan. 1, 1990

Vatican going green?

Here are some of the environment-friendly and energy-saving measures that have been implemented recently by the Vatican:

• Installed solar panels atop the Paul VI audience hall to provide electricity for lights and air conditioning year-round.

• Converted lighting in St. Peter's Basilica to low-impact, energy-efficient bulbs to cut energy consumption by 40 percent.

• Backed planting and establishment of a Vatican Climate Forest in Hungary, the trees of which will convert enough carbon dioxide into oxygen to offset the Vatican's emissions of carbon dioxide, thus making the Vatican a "carbon-neutral state."

Gerald Korson, a former editor of OSV, writes from Indiana.