Search Results for: "laudato"

Like A Cedar Of Lebanon, He Shall Grow: Vacation Journal Part One

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This past week, I have been blessed with the first of two weeks of vacation. Next week, I will explain why I am in Portland, Oregon and the connection I found between Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Si’ and my vacation. For this week, I want to share a simple reflection based on the readings from this past Sunday’s Mass and my visit to the Hoyt Arboretum at Washington Park. For starters, let’s get last Sunday’s first reading back in our heads and hearts. Thus says the Lord GOD: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar, from its topmost branches tear off a tender shoot, and plant it on a high and lofty mountain; on the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it. It shall put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar. Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it,, every winged thing in the shade of its boughs. And all the trees … Continue reading →

Faith and Science In The Classroom: Class Five – Caring For The Environment And The Ecology That Is Us.

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One of the clearest areas of collaboration between faith and science is care for creation. In the Catholic tradition, care for creation has long been accepted as one of the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Though matters of ecology usually spiral into politically driven emotionalism, the approach to care for creation found in CST is quite practical and common sense. For example, as I was out fishing with one of my parishioners, I was reminded of the need for clean water that not only provides for human needs, but builds up healthy ecosystems for the communities we live. As we enjoyed a successful day that included three “keepers” for dinner, I was reminded of a simple fisherman’s ethic that fits nicely with CST: If you want to catch and eat fish from a lake, don’t pollute the lake. The modern theology of ecology derives from three, historic events. On the positive side, the exploration of space and images … Continue reading →

Kid In An Astronomical Candy Store: Reflections On My Tour Of NASA’s Goddard Space Lab

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This past weekend, I was in Baltimore, Maryland to present on the theme of Cosmological and Theological Heaven for the 2018 Logan Visionary Conference. I had a wonderful experience presenting at the American Visionary Museum and will blog about my presentation next week. This week, I want to share with you an unexpected surprise I received while in Baltimore: A personal tour of the Goddard Space Lab. A few days before I left the snow and cold of Wisconsin, I received an e-mail from Leonard Garcia. Leonard is in charge of editing grant proposals for scientists at NASA Goddard. He was planning on attending the conference I was speaking at, is an avid reader of The Catholic Astronomer, and wanted to give me a personal tour of Goddard since I was in town. He explained to me that he loves his job because he is constantly reminding scientists why people should care about their work. We had a delightful conversation … Continue reading →

Developing A Catholic Ethos: Awakening An Inner Fire For Catholic Ecology.

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Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart? Though many apologists have weighed in to give a clear answer to this question, there still exists an odd mystery that God tells Moses that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart against the children of Israel. You (Moses) will speak all that I (God) command you. In turn, your brother Aaron will tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his land. Yet I will make Pharaoh so headstrong that, despite the many signs and wonders that I work in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Therefore I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring my armies, my people the Israelites, out of the land of Egypt. All Egyptians will know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of their midst. (Exodus 7: 2-5) When I reflect on this question, I … Continue reading →

Acts of Mercy and Saving the Environment

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(This is a reworking of a piece I did for The Catholic Astronomer that appeared in The Interfaith Observer on September 15, 2017. Click here for the piece and a number of other pieces on the environment offered by The Interfaith Observer.) On September 1, 2016, Pope Francis introduced two new works of mercy pertaining to the environment. The spiritual work of mercy is to practice grateful contemplation of the world God created, discovering in creation a truth God seeks to express to us. The corporal work of mercy is rooted in small gestures to build a better world, including breaking cycles of violence, exploitation, and selfishness. Both call us to care for our common home and thank God for the gift of our good Earth. Why did Pope Francis add these works of mercy? What does this mean for the Church?  In answering these, it is important to reflect on why popes make these kinds of changes in the first place. When a pope … Continue reading →

Man Vs. Nature: Lessons Learned From The RSE Symposia on the Amazon and Mississippi Rivers

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Rivers are powerful symbols for both religion and society. In the Bible, rivers and water contain both a healing, redemptive quality (often referenced in the New Testament as “living waters”) and an ominous, deadly quality of sin and death (referenced primarily in the Old Testament as the abyss). We encounter both symbols when Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River. Since Jesus is in no need of the forgiveness of sins, scholars have often read his baptism as a theological statement of how Christ enters into our human condition, voluntarily takes on our sinfulness through his crucifixion, and offers us a pathway to salvation through his resurrection. Therefore, Baptism carries the symbol of Jesus blessing the “waters” of our lives, leading us from death to new life. Broader society, too, often sees rivers as powerful symbols both good and bad. Thinking back to my childhood, the main stream that ran through my hometown of Amherst, Wisconsin is called the “Tomorrow River.” Though this river … Continue reading →

Problems in the Poles: A new iceberg in Antarctica meets an old message from the Arctic

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This entry is part of 27 in the series Integral Ecology

Last week, a new iceberg the size of Delaware broke off from Larsen C, an ice shelf off the peninsula of Antarctica. Larsen C is named after Carl Anton Larsen, a whaler who sailed along Antarctica’s Peninsula in 1893 (down to about the 68th parallel south). The map on the right displays many ice shelves, including four that bear Larsen’s name (A, B, C, and D). The Larsen A ice shelf toward the northern tip of the peninsula collapsed and disintegrated in 1995. From January to March of 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed, sending a group of ice chunks the size of Rhode Island into the Weddell Sea. Larsen B is in the process of disintegrating as did Larsen A. It is speculated that the ice shelf will completely disintegrate by 2020. This latest iceberg is the fourth largest to break off from Antarctica’s ice shelves, decreasing the size of Larsen C by 10%. The impact this iceberg … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Of stars and sheep

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This entry is part 128 of 191 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in June 2015 ‘Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify.’ — Pope Benedict XVI At Notre Dame University [in June 2015], Katharine Mahon, a doctoral student in theology, reminded me of this passage from Pope Benedict’s Easter 2012 homily. One of the striking hallmarks of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, was how it was rooted in the theology and writings of his predecessors, like the passage above. Just as our badly-overlit cities blind us to the stars, our desire to wrap ourselves in the soft wool of technology insulates us from the reality of … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Song of Praise

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This entry is part 126 of 191 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in May 2016 When Pope Francis issued his groundbreaking encyclical, Laudato Sì, the Italian publishing house Elledici took the moment to reissue a book written in the 1960s by the Italian scientist Enrico Medi: Canitco di Frate Sole, a meditation on the Franciscan poem that gave Pope Francis his title. At that time, they asked me as the “Pope’s astronomer” to write an introduction for the book. On first anniversary of the Pope’s encyclical, in 2016, I was invited to Medi’s home town of Senigalia, on the Adriatic coast, to celebrate the publication of this book. I’d never heard of Medi; but I discovered that he was the spokesperson of his generation in Italy on faith and science. Reading his words, even with my poor Italian, I can see why. For example, in one chapter Medi begins with our scientific understanding of water as a marvelous molecule, but he arrives at finding in … Continue reading →

Environmental Ethics and Ethos. The RSE Symposia on the Adriatic and Baltic Seas.

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This entry is part of 27 in the series Integral Ecology

One of the newest fields of theology and philosophy is Environmental Ethics. In addition to being new, this field is also one of the more challenging subjects to keep current. The reason for this difficulty is that the rapid growth of technology often outpaces our ability to reflect on a given technology’s moral implications. This lag between the advancement of technology and the moral implications of technology have, at times, allowed for great damage to be done to our environment. This tension between technological advancement and environmental crisis led the members of the Religion, Science, and Environment Symposia (RSE) to organize two events to accomplish two main goals: The development of ethical principles to address ecological issues and the development of an environmental ethos to inspire people to put those ethics into action. Once again, the spiritual leader of these symposia was Patriarch Bartholomew and the locations of the symposia were the Adriatic Sea and the Baltic Sea. The RSE … Continue reading →

Ideology Vs. Environment: What the Danube River can teach us about faith, ecology, politics, and human dignity.

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This entry is part of 27 in the series Integral Ecology

Continuing our series on the Religion, Science, and Environment (RSE) Symposia organized by the Greek Orthodox Church, today we explore the 1999 symposium on the Danube River. The previous RSE symposium explored the ecological crisis that threatening the Black Sea. One of the main themes of the symposium was how pollution from the Danube River was flowing into the Black Sea, contributing to its denigration. In light of this, it makes sense that the symposium to follow the Black Sea gathering would be held on the blue Danube. The Danube River connects ten countries with a drainage basin that finds its way into a number of other counties. The countries themselves represent some of the most war-torn regions of Europe, originating in Germany and making its way through Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. These countries, along with the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, have developed the International Commission for the Protection of the … Continue reading →

Earth Day and Catholicism: What Is A Christian To Do?

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This entry is part of 27 in the series Integral Ecology

So, how are you going to celebrate Earth Day? If you were to ask me this question about twenty years ago, you probably would have received a dumbfounded look with the simple response, “Why would I celebrate Earth Day?” Like many Americans, I had a rather suspicious attitude toward such celebrations, thinking of them as merely days of political statements and protests against anyone who didn’t embrace a 100% “Green” lifestyle. As a devout Catholic, I also struggled with expressions of what I would call an Environmental Spiritualism, treating the Earth as if it were God or another type of deity. In short, Earth Day was not high on my priority list. In time, however, my attitude began to change toward Earth Day. The beginning of the change occurred when I was in college and started to delve into Catholic Social Teaching (CST). I was surprised to discover that one of the seven themes of CST put forward in the Compendium … Continue reading →