Caring for earth is central to Catholicism

"I am a bug about recycling," admitted Sister Linda, who teaches theology at Catholic Central High School in Troy. "Landfills keep using Mother Earth up."

Protecting the environment is a passion the teacher came by naturally. She grew up on a farm in the pine barrens of southern New Jersey, part of the third generation to farm the land where her family still lives.

Nature link

Long after she left the farm to enter religious life, Sister Linda kept that as a priority. In 1994, when she was principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Schenectady, she initiated a school-wide project that got urban students composting food scraps, growing vegetables for food pantries and keeping journals of their plants' growth.

She still calls it "one of the best things I've ever done."

Church and ecology

In their document, "Sharing Catholic Social Teaching," the U.S. bishops write: "Care for the earth is not just an Earth Day slogan; it is a requirement of our faith. We are called to protect people and the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God's creation."

For Sister Linda, that means advocating it with her current students, as well. In her classroom at CCHS, there are recycling bins for paper and returnable bottles. Any students who dare to throw soda cans in the garbage in front of the teacher will find themselves digging them out a moment later.

"It's a mixed bag," she said of the students' reaction. "Some kids are quietly committed to this; some [say], `It's somebody else's problem.' I tell myself it takes a lot of consciousness-raising and patience. When you throw a fish into a fishbowl, you don't say, `Don't get wet.' When you throw kids into a consumerist society, they waste."

Earth audit

They now have several cars that run on natural gas and electricity, and one sister who celebrated her birthday recently decided not to use any paper products at her party.

"At the convent, we decided we'd take things to the landfill, so I make a landfill run about once a month," Sister Linda continued, adding wryly: "Those are fun. It smells really good!"

Faith and earth

Sister Linda, for her part, cited a theologian who said, "Every time a species goes out of existence, it's like tearing a page out of the Scriptures, because each species was meant to teach us something."

If we believe as Catholics that Jesus became a human being in the Incarnation, the teacher demanded, "How can we understand Jesus as God in the flesh if we don't see God in all He has given us?"

Concerns

Sister Linda believes the Church needs to go even further in its defense of our world -- that other issues have been higher priorities, when the environment is just as important.

"It's time and effort, but so are a lot of other things the Church does. After you do all these wonderful works of compassion, where do you think you're going to live?" she questioned. "People think of environmentalists as alarmists, but [people are] pushing the earth into a crisis."

The teacher tells her seventh- and ninth-grade students that while sweatshops in countries like Mexico affect the rights of workers, so does the U.S.' destruction of the environment there.

"We don't stand alone in the universe," she stated. "When the environment is polluted, our whole well-being is compromised."

(03-14-02) [[In-content Ad]]