The Idols of Environmentalism

Maureen Mullarkey, "Notes on an Idol" (First Things, April 21, 2015):

... Growing mightily all the while is the cult of environmentalism, a burgeoning state religion summarized in the catechism of sustainable development. It is the ascendant idol of our time, as magnetic—and totalizing—as the Leninist-Stalinist doctrines were to Milosz’ contemporaries.

.... There is little need to wait for the climate encyclical to know which way this trolley is headed. On its website, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences announces an April 28th conference: Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity: the Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Humanity. Its mission statement is steeped in the received wisdom that enchants today's collective mind....

... The Vatican's slouch toward salvation-by-ecology did not begin with Pope Francis. Daniel Stone, writing in National Geographic in 2013 stated that one lasting legacy of Benedict XVI, dubbed the “Green Pope,” was how he steered the global debate over climate change: ” . . . the pontiff has made environmental awareness a key tenant of his tenure.” In Caritas in Veritate (2009), Benedict signaled his hope for a “world political authority.”

... The mission of the Church is to keep man mindful that he has another life to live. When the Church maneuvers to be counted a player among the principalities and powers, the subversion of Christian truth and charity has begun. The true object of Green globalism is not human needs, but those of the planet. The culture of death wears many guises. Among them are the anti-humanist assumptions of environmentalism.

Yesterday's Gospel reading (John 6: 28-29) hovers over this discussion:

Then they said unto him: What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom he hath sent.

All the rest, with its time-bound, tragic burdens, is the work of man. And men of good will, in their God-given freedom, differ in definitions of the common good and in means to achieve it. Turning stones into bread is not a work for the Pontifical Academy.

[Hat tip to Dr. M. Latkovic]

Related - Despite media spin, Pope Benedict XVI expressed 'GRAVE MISGIVINGS' about modern environmentalism

• John-Henry Westen, "Pope [Benedict] Speaks on Church's 'Grave Misgivings' about Modern Environmentalism" (Time Out of Joint, February 28, 2011) - "Darwinist mentality leads to disregard for the environment"
• "Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI emeritus) Severely Criticizes U.N.'s Proposal for New World Order" (Time Out of Joint, August 28, 2010) - For the Church to Oppose Abortion, Contraception & Depopulation Is to Oppose the Whole Tissue of the Proposed So-Called New World Order; It Is To Stand with the Poor and Vulnerable of This World