Environmentally-Conscious Lenten Sacrifices
by Vicki Tardif
When I was a kid, I tried to convince my mother that giving up school for seven weeks would be an appropriate Lenten sacrifice. (For some reason, she disagreed and suggested that I fill a Lenten folder with the money I earned from doing extra chores.) According to a Boston Globe article, people are becoming as creative with their Lenten sacrifices as I thought I was at nine years old, although in a more positive direction. People are looking to infuse their Lenten season with a spirit of environmentalism. The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has a list of green Lenten sacrifices like eating locally-grown foods. Some people interviewed have given up “carbon” for Lent. At least one Church will be distributing “eco-palms” on Palm Sunday — palms that were harvested in an environmentally-conscious way. (Unfortunately, the article does not describe what is meant my environmentally-conscious).
I don’t think that “eco-palms” will be the difference in whether or not we can curb climate change, but it is interesting to see how people are infusing environmentalism into their everyday lives. Ultimately, those are the sorts of changes that add up to really make a difference.
It is also good to see environmentalism moving into the mainstream. For too long, “living green” has been seen as the purview of left-wing hippies. The Catholic Church is many things, but I sincerely doubt anyone is going to confuse Pope Benedict XVI with a hippie, even after he called on Catholics to better protect the environment. This sort of creative thinking and movement to the mainstream gives me hope that we will find a way to deal with climate change.
on March 6th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Very interesting. As a relatively non-religious person, I’m probably not in a god position to say–and since religion is such a touchy subject, it’d probably be best for me not to say–but what are blog posts for if not airing potentially controversial topics.
It seems to me that as it is conveyed through the press, there is no left Christianity. I don’t know if that’s true in lived experience, but I think it is in the way we are taught to think about issues: religion and morality in the US means being a part of the (hard) right, and thus standing against environmentalism. (Among other things.)
It further seems to me that Catholicism has the best chance of changing this perception, since in official doctrine it fits so poorly into the American left-right schema: anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-woman–I’m speaking in broad terms–but also anti-death penalty, anti-war, and anti-rich (or pro-poor). And then in this case it comes out on the left in terms of environmentalism, too.
It would be nice, then, if this did catch on, and we had a less structured talk about religion and morality in America. If, perhaps, environmentalism could be understood as morally infused, too.
on March 7th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Josh,
I found your malapropism “I’m probably not in a god position to say” rather amusing.
I grew up in New England, which many Americans consider to be filled with heathens, and Catholic, which some extremists don’t consider to be Christian, so take the following as you will. (If you don’t believe me about the non-Christian thing, google “Are Catholics Christian”.)
For some reason, the media likes to boil things down to dichotomies — Republican or Democrat, religious or anti-religion, conservative or liberal. In casting people in these roles, they have decided that “religious” means a particular form of Christianity particularly popular in the South. Mainstream religions like Catholicism and Judaism (let alone eastern religions or, as Romney found out, Mormonism), don’t seem to count when they are discussing what it means to be religious. Therefore, the members of those faiths are treated as if they are somehow less devout than their Protestant neighbors.
In lots of ways, I would say that my Catholic upbringing made me the liberal I am today. Every Sunday, topics like justice, aiding the poor, and caring for God’s creation were couched in religious language. Therefore, fighting for these things was right because the battles were an extension of religious faith. I mean, is there a more liberal sentence than “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me”?
Granted, the Catholic Church is not universally liberal (and sadly, the Church has been tacking back to the right over the last 20 years), but I am not always sure how much non-Catholics in general, and the media in particular understand the subtleties of Catholic doctrine. The media just says, “good Catholic == anti-abortion. anti-abortion == conservative, therefore good Catholic == conservative.”