Climate Change. An Issue for Catholics

The earth in some regions is getting hotter and dryer, while in others storm and heavy rain is destroying peoples lifes, forcing them to leave and migrate. There is no daubt about this fact. But at the same time there can be observed a certain indifference towards ecological topics as coping with climate change among Catholics. Even the necessity to act on climate change is questioned, holding a more or less stable world for granted or arguing that men cannot do anything about meteorological and atmospheric changes. To them, not the high carbon-emissions of the industrialized Western World caused the global heating but extraordinary sun-activity or something else. The resulting opinion quotes that human behavior has no or at least too little impact on climate. No reason to worry, no reason to act.

Well, this is wrong. Most scientists agree to the reality of human-caused climate change and ask politics for action. In our days even the youth is following this urgent plee, skipping school on Fridays (“Fridays for Future”). And also the Catholic Church joins the global pressure on politics for an immediate change. At least this should be a little convincing for Catholics: The last three Popes had a clear opionion on climate change, taking it as mainly human-caused and therefore an ethical issue.

Pope John Paul II mentioned the “obligation to care for all of creation” in the context of climate change, naming the phenomenon “greenhouse effect” and “meteorological and atmospheric changes”. In His Message for the World day of Peace with the title “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with all of creation” (1990) John Paul II explains: “In our day, there is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race, regional conflicts and continued injustices among peoples and nations, but also by a lack of due respect for nature, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life. […] Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past. […] The gradual depletion of the ozone layer and the related “greenhouse effect” has now reached crisis proportions as a consequence of industrial growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased energy needs. Industrial waste, the burning of fossil fuels, unrestricted deforestation, the use of certain types of herbicides, coolants and propellants: all of these are known to harm the atmosphere and environment. The resulting meteorological and atmospheric changes range from damage to health to the possible future submersion of low-lying lands. […] The ecological crisis reveals the urgent moral need for a new solidarity, especially in relations between the developing nations and those that are highly industrialized. […] 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. […] At the conclusion of this Message, I should like to address directly my brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church, in order to remind them of their serious obligation to care for all of creation.”

Pope Benedict XVI emphazised in His “Message to Summit on Climate Change” (2009): “The Earth is indeed a precious gift of the Creator who, in designing its intrinsic order, has given us guidelines that assist us as stewards of his creation. Precisely from within this framework, the Church considers that matters concerning the environment and its protection are intimately linked with integral human development. […] How important it is then, that the international community and individual governments send the right signals to their citizens and succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment! The economic and social costs of using up shared resources must be recognized with transparency and borne by those who incur them, and not by other peoples or future generations. The protection of the environment, and the safeguarding of resources and of the climate, oblige al leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the world.”

Probably, Pope Francis is the “greenest” of the three contemporary successor of Saint Peter, because of His encyclical “Laudato si'” (2015), in which Pope Francis "unambiguously accepts the scientific consensus that changes in the climate are largely man-made", as stated in an encyclical’s commentary by John L. Allen Jr. on “Crux”. Already in his “Message to UN Convention on Climate Change” (2014), the Holy father had pointed out the consequences of this acceptance clearly: “The effective struggle against global warming will only be possible with a responsible collective answer, that goes beyond particular interests and behavior and is developed free of political and economic pressures. […] On climate change, there is a clear, definitive and ineluctable ethical imperative to act. […] The establishment of an international climate change treaty is a grave ethical and moral responsibility.”

Three Popes, three very clear statements. Catholic teaching takes action and accepts the climate change as a moral issue. The same goes for contemporary Catholic theology and philosophy, i.e. in the work of Robert Spaemann. So, fellow Catholics, please stop building motivational obstacles by questioning the necessity to act on climate change.