More Catholic Social Teaching: The Environment
Stewardship of God’s Creation
God gave us the Earth and its goods as a gift and they are intended by God to benefit everyone without exception. The way we treat the environment we live in is a measure of our stewardship and reflects our respect for the Creator. We are responsible for taking care of the goods that the Earth provides as stewards and trustees, instead of as mere consumers and users.
A global economy and superpopulation result in high demand for the Earth’s goods. There is the danger to treat the environment as a “shelf” that we take any resources we need at any time and at any cost. That is why as Christians we need to voice out the delicate balance between meeting the basic needs of society and safeguarding the environment at the same time. The laity is responsible to make this truth heard in the political arena as the Church expresses that the State “should also actively endeavor within its own territory to prevent destruction of the atmosphere and biosphere, by carefully monitoring, among other things, the impact of new technological or scientific advances…[and] ensuring that its citizens are not exposed to dangerous pollutants and toxic wastes.”
More from Evangelical Catholicism, here.
posted by MM at 5:05 PM
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