Since they won't

Since OSV won't publish her column, I will. Small consolation, I know. But we do what we can.

++ Relapsed Catholic ++ Earth Day is crap

Did your children celebrate Lenin's birthday in school last week?

Don't answer "no" right away.

The first Earth Day "teach-in" was celebrated on April 22, 1970, to protest the Vietnam War, pollution, and littering -- and to commemorate what would have been the 100th birthday of one of history's most notorious villains.

As the father of communism, the deaths of tens of millions of people can be laid at that Soviet dictator's doorstep. That now forgotten fact about Earth Day's origins should place your child's sudden enthusiasm for recycling, saving the panda bears and energy efficient light bulbs in a new, well, light.

Like the Marxist philosophy that inspired it, today's environmental movement has become, for its most ardent proponents, an ersatz religion. As Joseph Brean recently observed, "in its myths of the Fall and the Apocalypse, its saints and heretics, its iconography and tithing, its reliance on prophecy, even its schisms -- the green movement now exhibits the same psychology of compliance as religion."

In a widely disseminated 2003 speech, Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton called environmentalism "the religion of choice for urban atheists" and "a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths."

Catholics should be concerned. Next time you hear about the latest sacrifices being demanded of us by environmentalists and their friends in politics and show biz (who rarely practice what they preach ) don't just shrug and say "What harm could it do?"

"What harm could it do" is most assuredly NOT the standard by which Catholics are called to live.

Assuredly, Christians are compelled by their Creator to be good stewards of the earth; the very first book of the Bible makes that clear.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:

"The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity. Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religions respect for the integrity of creation." (#2415)

For radical environmentalists, though, "dominion" is a bad word. Catholic teachings that equate care of the earth with the right to private property go against everything they believe. You see, environmentalists hail mostly from wealthy First World nations. They're really concerned less with "saving the planet" than assuaging their guilt about their own relative affluence. They do this through the "ritual" of recycling, buying carbon offset "indulgences" and following other environmental "commandments."

Recently Cardinal Pell of Australia was asked to comment on fellow Cardinal Giacomo Biffi's controversial declaration that the coming Anti-Christ would be a "pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist."

Pell responded that "there are some forms of deep-green ecology that are deeply pagan and deeply hostile to the special and central place of human beings and especially to Christianity. But as Christians, we must have a reverence for nature."

However, the media "have been warning us of global warming, and that's alternated with warnings of the coming ice age. There have been gigantic climatic changes in the past and I think almost entirely they're beyond human control."

"You see," Pell added wisely, "people without religion are often looking for something to fear."

That millions may fall prey to a seductive New Age faith that seems based on good intentions (and "irrefutable science" that seems to change weekly) is a much greater danger than the remote possibility that polar bears are doomed to extinction. (As a matter of fact, and contrary to mainstream news reports, their numbers have increased, not decreased, in the past few years...)

Your child's immortal soul is infinitely more important than the size of his "carbon footprint", or yours.

Amen to that.