But really, an article published by Catholic News Service (and printed in the Arlington Catholic Herald to their shame) actually has the gall to suggest that Lent isn't "just about giving up chocolate or ice cream for 40 days." (Hear the superior tone?) No, what it's really about, according to the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change (CCCC) is sacrificing for the environment. Trees are people too, after all. In fact the Executive Director of CCCC, Dan Misleh, is sending out "Catholic climate ambassadors" this spring to urge folks to use cloth shopping bags instead of paper, replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs, give up disposable paper products, and use refillable coffee mugs. Yes indeed, this is what Lent is really all about; the way to Christian holiness is recycling and reducing your carbon footprint.
I visited the CCCC website, another misguided project of the USCCB launched in 2006. It begins with the unreserved acceptance of manmade global warming propaganda (now referred to as climate change). In a position paper describing CCCC I found this interesting and laughable statement:
Because we are not experts on climate change and its consequences, we rely on a scientific consensus (best represented by the Intergovernmental Panel onPerhaps CCCC hasn't heard about all the scandals associated with the IPCC including manipulating data, maligning scientists whose research conflicts with their desired results and denying them access to peer reviewed journals, lying about glacier melt. Oh, and then there are the 1000s of emails that showed the deliberate fraud by this group promoting what meteorologist and founder of the weather channel, John Coleman, calls "the greatest scam in history." Yup, these are the "scientists" whose results CCCC relies on. Not particularly convincing I'd say.
Climate Change) to guide our activities. Read the document here...
What made me especially angry about the bishops' site was the manipulative video using a child's voice to decry the heavy carbon footprint of the rich countries that are stepping on the poor all over the world. You can almost envision yourself squashing the poor like bugs every time you turn on the hot water, drive your car, heat your home, etc. You are to blame for all those sad faces because of your heavy and deep carbon footprint. Just imagine how guilty the parents of large families should feel!
The video speaks an outright lie when it quotes Cardinal Martino saying:
There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last fifty years is attributed to human activities.Now I'm not accusing the Cardinal of lying. No doubt he is buying the fraudulent data of the IPCC. And considering that he spent about 20 years as papal nuncio at the U.N., he may have a hard time distinguishing between liars and truth tellers; but the fact is there is not only no "new and stronger evidence" for man-made global warming, there is evidence we are moving into a period of cooling and that fluctuations are a normal part of climate measured over time. The "scientists" at the IPCC haven't come up with a good explanation for the Medieval warming period which can hardly be attributed to the use of fossil fuels, so they conveniently ignore it along with any other facts that dispute their bogus claims.
Having said all this, Catholics ought to live a simpler lifestyle where we voluntarily use less so we can contribute more to the poor. Underline that world "voluntarily." The Dives and Lazarus story says it all. We have a moral obligation to care about the poor and share what we have. That's what charity is all about and we have a special obligation during Lent. However, charity, to be charity, must ALWAYS be voluntary. Someone who steals from Peter to give to Paul is not charitable; he's a thief.
And there are plenty of those thieves listed on CCCCs website. When you read their position paper linked above, note their Catholic partners on the left. Many of them are funded big-time by "government" money especially Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Catholic Charities (CC). (I.e., The only money the government has is what it takes from taxpayers and that is supposed to be used for limited and specific purposes.) In fact both CRS and CC are hardly recognizable as Catholic groups because they water down their Catholic identity to protect the government bucks stolen from the taxpayer. So CRS and CC are part of the government conspiracy to forcibly redistribute income which is NOT CHARITY. It's also not very efficient since massive amounts of money go to the bureaucracy and only small amounts trickle down to the poor. And sometimes what actually gets to the poor isn't food and medicine; it's birth control pills, condoms, and suction machines.
Let's look at a few other of CCCC's partners. The Catholic Hospital Association is notorious particularly in view of the betrayal on Obamacare by Sr. Carol Keehan who makes nearly $900,000 in annual salary and can afford a much heavier footprint than most of us. Then there are the dissident nuns of the Leadership Conference of Catholic Women (LCCW) who never met a liberal issue (including abortion) that their members couldn't support. The Franciscan Action Network has endorsed the union thugs in Wisconsin. The Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development is the USCCB office that runs the tainted Catholic Campaign for Human Development and employs staff with links to pro-abortion democrats. It just goes on and on and on. This is the social justice money machine.
I hope you are as angry as I am about the video below. What really hurts the poor is corrupt governments, biofuels which turn food crops into ethanol (promoted big-time by Al Gore and his environmental minions until it became clear it was causing massive rises in food prices), foreign aid linked to murdering and sterilizing the poor, and other complicated issues. The nonsense about global warming and fossil fuels killing the poor is nothing but propaganda. And just think, if you're a Catholic you paid for this idiotic video, one more reason to boycott the bishops' collections.
Instead of putting money in that rice bowl this Lent for the very problematic CRS, give to a charity that really serves the poor and doesn't take government money to do it. Medical Missionaries is one of my favorites and we'll be filling our alms jar this Lent for them. And if you feel guilty after watching the video, go visit a nursing home. Remember what Mother Teresa said, "The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty." Many lonely and forgotten people are waiting to hear your footsteps in the hall even if you arrived in a gas-guzzling SUV.
I just bought a bunch of incandescent bulbs and plastic trash bags. Mea maxima culpa!
ReplyDeleteI've seriously considered getting a parrot just so that I could line the bottom with the cage with the Arlington Herald. The liberal rag is made for bird droppings.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Mary!! I enjoyed it immensely.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you so against doing anything to help the environment? Even if you have doubts about climate change statistics, surely you must recognize that our planet is vulnerable to pollution. It is easy to make small changes (like using cloth grocery bags) that do make a difference. While recycling is not mandatory in our community, I think it is definitely a moral obligation. Have you ever lived near a landfill? I have. It is not pleasant.
ReplyDeleteOur family Lenten project is to gather recyclables for several older neighbors and take them to the center, as it is difficult for many of them to haul them there. Our pastor encouraged us to do something for others rather than abstain from something... Which is much more of a challenge anyway.
You seem to stress personal responsibility so much in your writing, but this is a good example of why sometimes there have to be guidelines and laws.
Anonymous on March 13 at 6:38 p.m. I know what you mean. The major newspaper in our area is nothing but a liberal rag too. And what all these liberal pundits do not tell us is that adultery and divorce do more damage to the environment than do one married man and his wife with a large familiy. Quite often when people divorce they get an apartment of their own and use more food and "stuff" than a whole family. Then those who get remarried, like one man I know who has had four wives, have children by each one then leave them in the lurch and move on to the next family. All the women who thought they could "convert" him then move on to the next poor guy too, thus using more "stuff". Of course there are those who do not get it that "good" old fashioned sin is harmful to the environment. I hope everyone has a good laugh on that one.
ReplyDeleteMom says the Herald makes our parish buy subscriptions for all its parishioners and have the papers delivered to the houses, so we're forced to get it (and pay for it through our contributions to our church) even though we don't want it. Welcome to democracy.
ReplyDeleteAnn Marie,
ReplyDeleteYou are jumping to conclusions. I used to take my kids on litter walks and clean up our neighborhood. We recycle and compost. I don't even throw out old coffee. I water my plants with it.
We are called to be good stewards of the earth. As for making all these laws, i.e. declaring incandescent bulbs illegal, that is totalitarianism plain and simple and stupid.
You can treat the environment with respect without worshiping it and turning it into an idol like the "social justice" crowd has done often using phony data. And some of the laws, like banning DDT have resulted in massive human suffering. Malarai deaths skyrocketed after its ban. One of the opponents of DDT, Dr. Charles Wurster, reportedly said, "People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this (referring to malaria deaths) is as good a way as any."
http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.php3?id=68
What about posting some other alternatives for "general relief" giving? Med. Miss'ies looks fine, but it seems very localized. I've expected the news about CRS that you've dug up, but have been contributing anyway because of their long reach in giving aid. The modernist liberals assaulting the Church from within are the product of the new Mass which brought those interested in the Church as a social organization (as opposed to the Body of Christ)into the Chanceries and thence into all the para-Church organizations.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, good post. Thanks.
Most of the international Catholic charities are absolutely awful. Aid to the Church in Need is one that I think maintains its Catholic identity. Giving to CRS you can depend that its affiliates will be using some of the money to distribute condoms and undermine the faith. Visit Aid to the Church in Need for more information. http://www.churchinneed.org/site/PageServer?pagename=mainpage
ReplyDeleteThe faith in recycling evidenced by some of your readers is touching. It's also mostly nonsense propagated by a sort of worshipful green ideology that has little basis in fact. Everything comes from the earth and everything goes back into the earth, plastic, aluminum, paper, all the "recyclables" are no exception. Some things make economic sense to recycle and some are just a sort of pooba reaction to the green creed.
ReplyDeleteMuch of the recycling is more dangerous than just putting it in a land fill. Recycling paper uses more harsh chemicals which are released into the environment than if you just got new paper and the resulting paper is of lower quality. You're not saving trees because the trees are grown and harvested to make the paper in the first place.
Some of the materials are much more dangerous that what they are replacing. Incandescent bulbs are quite benign while the florescents by contrast are much more dangerous and have to be specially handled.
The green energy alternatives are almost all total nonsense from a scientific point of view. They are inefficient and very very expensive for little gain and much loss. Moreover most have little prospect of getting better.
Facts are facts. But the green religion goes on.