See stewardship of nature as long-term goal for Catholics

Not quite, say two interested parties:

* Dr. Richard Shirey, an economics professor at Siena College in Loudonville, who is also involved in Roxbury Farm, a biodynamic community farm in Columbia County; and

* Fred Boehrer of Emmaus House, Albany's Catholic Worker house, where Catholic Workers live in solidarity with the poor.

Nature and humans

"In Western culture, there's a tendency to say that if there's a choice between nature and human beings, nature's got to go," he said.

Mr. Boehrer noted that the U.S. makes up only five percent of the world's population, but uses 40 to 50 percent of the world's resources.

"As Roman Catholics in the U.S., we have to go beyond legal responsibility" to take care of the environment, he said. "We have to take the ethical and moral high ground in order to be good stewards."

Stewardship

"Stewardship means taking care of the earth and nurturing the earth, recognizing that it's all a gift, rather than something we deserve," Dr. Shirey explained. He quoted a Native American adage often seen on bumper stickers: "Earth does not belong to [people]; [people] belong to the earth."

With the arrival of a new millennium, said the professor, "we might as well think long-term" if we want to be good stewards.

Catholics should make the effort to learn how the poor are being affected by bad stewardship of the earth, said Mr. Boehrer, who noted that "there are strawberry pickers at farms out in California that are mostly Latino and Native American. California allows large amounts of pesticides to be sprayed on strawberries. There are farmworkers who are out in the fields when this is being done. This information is not regularly reported in the news media, so it presents a challenge" to people who want to be good stewards.

The Catholic Worker also cited environmental experts who say the U.S. military is the largest polluter of the environment in the country, since it is not accountable to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Recent U.S. weapons testing off the coast of Puerto Rico and depleted uranium used in U.S. weapons in Kosovo all affect the environment and the people of those countries, he said.

What next?

Dr. Shirey advised Catholics to read the writings of St. Francis of Assisi: "Check out why he would call the sun, `Brother Sun,' and the moon, `Sister Moon.' He saw us as part of creation, but as brothers and sisters to creation. That's quite a different thing than seeing us as brothers and sisters to each other. We're all children of God. At the same time, all of nature is children of God, at least in the Franciscan sense."

(07-29-99) [[In-content Ad]]