Environmentalism and the church have had a strange and shifting relationship over the past few decades, perhaps always. On one hand, environmentalists tend to fall in the democrat party, and the church tends to stick with the republican. Environmentalism is about changing the way the government and people do the things we do- the church tends to have a set of traditional ways and spends a lot of time talking to people about how to adhere to those ways.

But when it comes down to the very core, the church views the Earth as God’s creation and therefore sacred, and environmentalists often view the Earth as one giant ecosystem where everything depends on every other thing, and so the Earth is both necessary and sacred. Either way, there is little room to shrug off things like climate change, pollution and environmental destruction. Still, you don’t hear about it much from the Church.

Pope Benedict decided to change that in his New Year’s Day address this year, saying that people need to live ecologically responsible lives and that taking care of the Earth is essential for global peace.
“…in this moment, I would like to underline the importance of the choices of individuals, families and local administrations in preserving the environment. An objective shared by all, an indispensable condition for peace, is that of overseeing the earth's natural resources with justice and wisdom," said the Pope.

Both Pope Benedict and that last Pope, John Paul, have been vocal in their environmental angle on things- for his part, Pope Benedict called on industrialized and rich nations to take responsibility for their role in the environmental situation we are dealing with- hard to argue with that when it is coming from the head guy.

In his address he added that “ecological responsibility” should be included in education and be actively taught.

In this, I am entirely with the Pope- not something I can say hardly ever. Ecological responsibility is just one of a million phrases you can throw around that all come back to a need for us to critically and compassionately think about our relationship to the Earth, and as those opinions are rooted in childhood and the way we are taught, it only makes sense that teaching responsibility in that area should be a core part of any education program.

Of course, the “responsibility” term can be defined in many ways by many people from many angles, as I’m sure you could get a PR person from Exxon to talk about how ecologically responsible they are, just as you could interview a Greenpeace activist and get an entirely different take on what it means to be ecologically responsible.

And that would be a debate that would rage on for as long as it is part of any curriculum- no problem. That’s how things work. The point that I agree with the Pope on is that it should be a dedicated part of the curriculum, like math or writing or gym- we should teach ecological responsibility, hash out those issues from a young age, and show both our children and ourselves that it is something that must be included in our daily lives, our worldview, and our routines.

Happy New Year, Pope.

Happy New Year, Earth!

Photo Credit: sam_herd (via Flickr under CCL)