Faith Meets Life: It's the economy, stupid, but at what cost?

The care of the environment is a moral problem. This is the view of Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of St. Paul in Alberta, Luc Bouchard. He has addressed a recent pastoral letter to the faithful of his diocese making this clear.

All too often we discuss the environment in relation to economics. This is reflected in the current news headlines. The slow-down in the economy is the top story of nearly every news website and broadcast, and unfortunately the environment has slipped off the radar for many of us. We just hope we can survive till the economy turns around.

And concerning the turn-around, we assume that once again, spending, borrowing, consuming, investing, industry, tax revenues and profits will all rebound in synch. We are so anxious about having jobs that we give much less thought to the environment than we did, say, a year ago.

This is not to say that we don't need jobs - and homes, transportation, health care and more. But our collective anxieties and hopes are focused on the need for an economic recovery. There has grown a silent willingness to let the environment absorb whatever damage is required.

Perhaps this willingness to let the environment suffer is nowhere more clearly visible than in the dismay over the collapse of the Alberta oil sands development. As everyone knows, major projects there are being shut down. Young workers are returning home from Alberta to Atlantic Canada (where I live). The planes that once shuttled them back and forth are no longer in service.

Amidst all this Bishop Bouchard has emerged as a voice calling for a moral re-evaluation of the tar sands development.

He expresses appreciation for the teamwork and sincere efforts of many who are doing the actual work of developing the sands. At the same time, he calls us all to re-examine our relationship to the environment and our demands for more and more goods and services, which the planet cannot sustain.

He has done his homework, as the pages of footnotes indicate. He has drawn on the public outcry against the environmental damage caused by the oil patch. He has tapped into the grave concerns of Metis and native groups in general. He has described specific areas of concern: “Destruction of the Boreal Forest Eco-system;” “Potential Damage to the Athabasca Watershed;” “The Release of Greenhouse Gases;” “Heavy Consumption of Natural Gas;” “The Creation of Toxic Tailings Ponds.”

Above all, the Bishop has called on readers to understand the world as the creation of God and the home of every human being.

“To abuse creation. . . constitutes a lack of faith, a type of despair, or even a blasphemy.”

And further, “. . . when we allow creation to be damaged and degraded we risk losing our sense of God's natural order and even our sense of God's existence.”

And then - to the point with respect to economic-industrial development - “. . . even great financial gain does not justify serious harm to the environment.”

Bishop Bouchard's pastoral letter could have a great impact, not only on the members of his diocese, but among people of all faiths and commitments in this country including industry and political leaders. Hopefully it will help fuel a renewal of faith in the Creator of the world and his call to “love thy our neighbour” — that we work to make the world a sustainable and hospitable home for all people, now and in the future.

You can find the pastoral letter on the web site of the Diocese of St. Paul in Alberta. Michael Veenema was a chaplain at Fanshawe till 2004 and now lives in Nova Scotia.

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