The Catholic Church "jumps on the green bandwagon?"

Thanks goes to Deacon Keith Fournier of Catholic Online:

The Catholic Church has been green for a lot longer than any modern environmental movement

On January 1, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI released a letter entitled "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, protect creation". Some reports intimated that the Pope had somehow "joined" the environmental movement. In fact, he was simply teaching what the Church has always taught; a proper stewardship of the environment is grounded in our obligations to - and solidarity with - one another. We have been given to one another as gifts. Creation has been given to us as a human community, with responsibilities which we must now share. I sent the following excerpt from the letter to a few friends:

"There exists a certain reciprocity: as we care for creation, we realize that God, through creation, cares for us. On the other hand, a correct understanding of the relationship between man and the environment will not end by absolutizing nature or by considering it more important than the human person. If the Church's magisterium expresses grave misgivings about notions of the environment inspired by ecocentrism and biocentrism, it is because such notions eliminate the difference of identity and worth between the human person and other living things..."

This is an excellent article that highlights the Christian understanding of environmental stewardship, supported by the Holy Father's words. We are called to care for creation as it has been entrusted to us. The land, the seas, the mountains, the forests, the air, and all living things that dwell within each depend on us. A good thing to remember on this, St. Clare of Assisi's Feast Day.

Memorial of St. Clare
Daily Mass Readings,
Ezekial 9:1-7, 10:18-22
Psalm 113:1-6
Matthew 18:15-20

Our Brother's Keeper

It's funny...Haiti's devastating earthquake rarely makes the news anymore. The country is just as leveled, her people just as impoverished, her basics for living still virtually nonexistent. But now that the "sexiness" of the actual devastation has passed ('if it bleeds, it leads'), the media has all but dismissed this as old news.

Who will provide the materials for the people of Haiti to get back on their feet? With such devastation as this, where can you even begin???

The Knights of Columbus have pledged to provide every child in Haiti who lost a limb in the earthquake with prosthetics and physical therapy. The Supreme Council is has already provided over 1,000 wheelchairs, with plans for at least a thousand more.

The Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus approved a resolution last weekend that commits the organization to providing prosthetic limbs and therapy over the next two years for all the approximately 800 children who lost an arm or leg in the earthquake. The estimated cost of providing the prosthetic limbs and therapy is $1 million.

No, this certainly doesn't solve the devastating situation Haiti is currently in. But to provide these essentials - the basic freedom of movement - is enormous. We, all of us, are our brother's keeper.

Things like this make me truly proud to be a Knight of Columbus; the main reason I joined in the first place.

Daily Mass Readings
Ezekial 1:2-5,24-28
Psalm 148:1,2,11-14
Matthew 17:22-27