Eco Catholic

The Sammy Cahn Christmas song, made popular by Frank Sinatra and the Carpenters, may have stated, “It’s that time of year when the world falls in love,” but we all know it’s that time of year when we get new electronics! It’s not the time for sleigh rides, walking in a winter wonderland, or roasting chestnuts over an open fire, but for spending hours with our new ipods, cell phones that can do everything except cook dinner, video and internet games, big-screen TVs, our Wii, and much more.

Wow, isn’t this technology wonderful? Hours of blissful amusement to wile away these long winter days when we can’t get outside. How inane is jumping rope, roller-skating, building with Legos, and playing family board games when we can enter the exciting and unlimited realm of virtual reality. Whoa! Let’s put on the brakes for a minute and examine whether this trend of spending more and more time interacting with machines and a fantasy world is really good for us.

One doesn't have to go to Wikileaks to find out about U.S. advocacy of GMOs to the Vatican. It has been a consistent effort: Colin Powell as Secretary of State tried to have the Vatican silence Jesuit Fr. Peter Henriot who helped the Zambian government reject GMO grain during a food crisis in Zambia.

The first thing that Condaleeza Rice told the Vatican on her first visit was to support GMOs The U.S. mission to the Holy See has always supported the moral imperative to have the Vatican support GMOs and convinced the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to host two conferences on this topic, one in 2004 and one in 2008. The second meeting only included supporters of GMOs, including among the speakers was Nino Fodoroff, biotechnology advisor to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

REPLENISHING THE EARTH
SPIRITUAL VALUES FOR HEALING
OURSELVES AND THE WORLD
By Wangari Maathai
Published by Doubleday, $13

In our modern world it is easy to feel disconnected from the physical planet we live on. Nobel laureate Wangari Matthai has spent decades working with the Green Belt Movement to help women in rural Kenya plant and sustain millions of trees. With their hands in the dirt, these women often find themselves newly empowered and at home in a way they have never before experienced.

John Allen reports on the NCR Today blog that previously confidential diplomatic cables released today as part of the Wikileaks disclosures show American diplomats pressing the Vatican to take a more positive line on the aftermath of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and on genetically modified food.

When we open the ancient overflowing tool box of our Catholic spiritual tradition, we find nestled within many reliable implements that have stood the test of centuries of use in the work of creative inner integration and soul crafting.

What are some of those ancient tools? Patience, silence, incubating darkness, the wonderful yeasting action of prayer, wise and careful discernment, the adventure of striving for simplicity, meditation techniques, centering prayer, the not-so-easy art of letting go, the simple craft of mindfulness, the call to the death-rebirth dynamic of the cocoon, the cultivation of a deep contemplative attitude, fasting, and the endless and arduous mystery of forgiveness.

Once we have these tools at hand, where can they be put to work? Where else but in our everyday life?