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Church chastised for being silent on green issues

Fr Sean McDonagh, an Irish priest who has worked for several years with tribal people in the Philippines, believes that the Church is blind on environmental issues.

Speaking to MaltaToday during his three day visit, the outgoing priest insisted that environmental issues should be an integral part of the Christian faith.

"People know what the church teaches on sex, contraception and abortion but if you were to ask somebody about the church’s teachings on the environment, I would expect the conversation to be a short one," he exclaimed regretfully.

Fr McDonagh was in Malta on invitation by the Green Party, Alternattiva Demokratika.

Reacting to the common held belief that Christians are not creatures of the earth but simply awaiting the passage of time until ascention into heaven, Fr McDonagh did not mince his words, "this belief is an insult to Christianity."

He continued, "the first line of the Bible speaks about the environment. A loving and caring God created the world, not to be used and abused but to be tilled and cared for by man."

Furthermore, Fr McDonagh explained that God chose to become part of this earth community and church rituals use various natural elements like water, food and wine to celebrate the faith. Fr McDonagh sees people as part of a larger earth community.

"We should have a strong ecological belief embedded in our faith. The earth is our home and we should celebrate it. We should love this earth by seeing the divine in the beauty and diversity of nature," he said.

Fr McDonagh expressed his regret that the Vatican Council back in the sixties did not tackle environmental issues.

"In all its radicality the Vatican Council did not tackle environmental issues. To be fair, just like the rest of society it was so accepting of technology that it did not look to the adverse effect of it," Fr McDonagh added.

The Irishman believes that the church must develop an ethical framework to talk about ecological issues. He insisted that there is need for the church to get into ecological issues more seriously, citing the global warming phenomenon as one issue.

"Global warming presents a serious ethical issue and challenges our religious beliefs. People are going to be affected negatively if nothing is done. This is an unfair scenario. Bangladesh may practically be wiped out if waters continue to rise because of melting ice caps," he remarked with a concerned look on his face.

Asked on how the local parishes can start getting into ecological discourse, Fr McDonagh explained that it starts from basic elements.

"Church rituals should evolve. I’d like to see a greener face to church ritual for example by using real bread for starters. We should also celebrate birdlife, crops and water. Each parish could develop an ecological audit of the community and this could be celebrated regularly."

Fr McDonagh strongly believes that by getting involved in environmental issues the church can become relevant once again to youth. The views of this Irish priest are a breath of fresh air in an institution that has kept silent for too long on the environmental degradation going on all around us.