Canada's bishops plead for collective ecological conversion

Lifestyle of waste and overconsumption must go, they say

- CNS photo from NASA via Reuters

By GLEN ARGAN
WCR Editor
Ottawa

The world's ecological crisis will not be overcome "without a personal and collective conversion," says the Canadian bishops' social affairs commission.

"In our drive to earn more, to possess more, to consume always more, we have sacrificed a great deal to the economic almighty, which has become like the substance of modern life.

"We have mismanaged the Garden of Eden entrusted to us. It has lost part of its integrity and beauty."

Those words come in the bishops' statement, Our Relationship with the Environment: The Need for Conversion, released this month to mark the United Nations' International Year of Planet Earth in 2008.

The strongly-worded statement is rooted in the Book of Genesis' description of the human responsibility to care for the earth. "The notion of 'sustainable development' is thus prescribed in the very first pages of Genesis."

The bishops describe the current crisis as not only ecological, but also moral and spiritual.

"We bear within ourselves a weight of death and refusal," they say. "Ecological challenges offer us an opportunity to embark once more on the paths of the Gospel."

They call on Canadians to free themselves from a lifestyle of "overconsumption and waste" and to replace it with one of "joyful austerity" or voluntary simplicity."

The ecological conversion means "to regain a sense of limit. It means adjusting our lifestyle to the available planetary resources."

New eyes

Once we make that conversion, the social affairs commission says, we will be able "to look at nature with new eyes. Instead of considering it primarily as a resource to be exploited, we will be more inclined to admire its beauty and grandeur."

The current overconsumption is an injustice both to less developed nations and to future generations, the bishops say.

They note that current leaders do not wish to bequeath economic debt to our descendants.

"But a damaged environment represents a debt incomparably greater and more difficult to reduce. The economic costs required to restore the environment are unfathomable."

They note that Jesus invited his disciples to view the world through a child's eyes.

"Because we love our children, what environment, what society do we wish to bequeath to them?" they ask.

The social affairs commission is critical of Canada's failure to live up to its commitments made in the Kyoto Protocol.

Commitments disregarded

"The latest UN report on human development describes Canada as an 'extreme case' of a nation that is disregarding its commitments.

"The current ecological problems are essentially witnesses for the prosecution, testifying that we have violated the laws of life. We have forgotten that 'we command nature only by obeying her.'"

The commission also chastises Canada for failing to fulfill its commitment to donate 0.7 per cent of its gross national product in international aid.

"It is currently giving less than 0.3 per cent: crumbs falling from the rich man's table, while Lazarus is dying of hunger (Luke 16:19-30)."

The members of the social affairs commission are Archbishop Roger Ebacher of Gatineau, Archbishop Bertrand Blanchet of Rimouski, Archbishop Daniel Bohan of Regina and Archbishop Brendan O'Brien of Kingston.

(The complete text of the social affairs commission statement is available at www.wcr.ab.ca/cccb-environment.shtml.)

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