The Pope and climate change

"In fact, it is by now evident that there is no good future for humanity or for the earth unless we educate everyone toward a style of life that is more responsible toward the created world."

Pope Benedict XVI

November, 2011

My father was born a Catholic. And his mother before him. She was one of 12 or 13 kids as was her husband. Who was a Methodist. And converted to Catholicism when he married my grandmother. I thought mostly Catholics and Mormons had big families but back in the late 1800s I guess large families was the norm for everyone of whatever religion.

My father converted to the Methodist religion because of my mother and so I was raised a Methodist. Until my adolescence when my brother and I got wild and crazy and became Baptists. In my late teens I got into Zen Buddhism and the Gita and taught hatha yoga and learned to meditate, walked barefoot through the ghetto and called bingo.

When I was 19 I hitchhiked through Europe and almost looked up my Uncle Jack who was a priest at the Vatican but I chickened out. Even though I had my Jesus look working, with my curly brown hair down past my shoulders and a stubbly beard, I didn't think I would be well received in Saint Peter's house.

I largely rejected organized religion for about 15 years. And then I became a psychologist and moved to Redding and met Father Tom Pelton who turned me onto downhill skiing at Lassen and Thomas Merton. I seriously considered converting to Catholicism, especially when I met the woman I married. A gorgeous Italian. Who is still gorgeous. And still Italian. Who was raised a Catholic and is one of six kids. And had 15 cousins and eight nieces and nephews at the time.

Much later, when our oldest daughter turned 5, she converted to Methodism because we were both divorced and too lazy to jump through the hoops Catholics make divorced people jump through when they want to get married and be Catholic. But I continue to love Merton and have read many of his books including my favorite, New Seeds of Contemplation. And for many years I attended an annual silent men's retreat with my father-in-law at the Jesuit Catholic retreat center at El Retiro in Los Altos.

And I love and respect the Catholic faith and find the Popes a fascinating lineage of holy men stretching back 2,000 years. I was a disc jockey at the University of Dayton's 50,000 watt FM radio station, WVUD in 1978 (the most recent Year of Three Popes) when the first Pope John Paul died. And the last Italian Pope. His papacy lasted 33 days. The story came over the wire and I did what we called a "rip and read." A fellow student called the request line crying and asked me to play Elton John's song, Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding from his Yellow Brick Road album.

UD is a Catholic University like Notre Dame. The mascot is a Flyer. Because of the Wright Brothers. Who were from Dayton. And the UD priests are Marianists, which means they "look to Mary as a model of faith and spirituality." There was one older Father who was very sweet but strange. Probably a little senile. He would walk up to students on campus -- he spoke with me several times -- and want to talk about sex. He would tell us that when we made love to our girlfriends we should think of Jesus. I think he felt it was his mission to tell students this. I would just smile and nod and promise him I would. And avoid him if I could.

None of which has anything to do with climate change. I know.

Last November, "Pope Benedict XVI urged international leaders to reach a credible agreement on climate change, keeping in mind the needs of the poor and of future generations."

The Pope said, "I hope that all members of the international community can agree on a responsible, credible and supportive response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, keeping in mind the needs of the poorest populations and of future generations."

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, president of Caritas Internationalis, echoed the Pope's concern and said, "Our climate is changing. Caritas organizations are responding to increasing unpredictability and extreme weather conditions experienced around the world. This year we saw floods in Central America, South and Southeast Asia and drought across East Africa."

"The whole world is vulnerable to climate change, but poor countries are affected more. Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to the impacts of climate change."

"Cardinal Rodriguez took several thousand young Italian members of a Franciscan environmental group to the Vatican for a lively encounter with the pope. The pope told them that the church's teaching on the environment follows from the principle that men and women are collaborators with God and his creation. The lessons of responsible stewardship over natural resources are increasingly important, he said."

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