Pope Benedict’s visit to America, home to 66 million Catholics, has been generating a great deal of press. It’s great to see the focus he’s been putting on environmental and animal welfare issues, regardless of the restrictions I personally have with the Catholic church in other areas. But that’s the nature of politics: differing views can find a common ground on vital issues and the fight against climate change definitely qualifies as a catalyst of people from all walks of life. We all live on the same planet, whether we like it or not.
The pontiff addressed his concern for animals and the environment in his annual statement for the Vatican World Day of Peace, delivered on the first day of this year. “Respecting the environment,†he said, “means not selfishly considering [animal and material] nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests.†And just last month, the Vatican declared pollution a sin, expressing the idea that sin is not simply an individual act but can also be an offense against the larger community.
The Pope has also spoken against the treatment of animals in factory farms. In 2002, when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Peter Seewald, a German journalist, asked him: “Are we allowed to make use of animals, and even to eat them?â€
Ratzinger responded: “That is a very serious question. At any rate, we can see that they are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God’s creatures and even if they do not have the same direct relation to God that man has, they are creatures of his will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation … Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.â€
It’s very encouraging to hear the pontiff speak along those lines considering his potential audience. More and more environmentalists are spreading the message that eating less meat, or preferably none at all, is one of the most environmentally sound decisions anyone can make. Let’s hope Al Gore is listening to this message as well.
