Good Friday and Earth Day happen to coincide. Recently, the UN outdid itself in sheer pagan silliness by hitting the headlines with some nonsense about giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as human beings.
The notion of treating nature as a person is, in this context, just pure political scam artistry of a particularly ham-fisted type, of course. It is a classic watermelon tactic: green on the outside, red on the inside. An excuse for some bureaucrat to seize draconian power over human beings by pretending to be a Lorax and speaking for the trees (who, for persons, are quite taciturn and not at all demonstrative about their supposed equal rights). That’s the problem with Voiceless Nature: She doesn’t say anything. So instead we will wind up with UN Bureaucrats bossing us around in the name of Mother Earth.
Now the thing is, there’s a reason we don’t give human rights to inhuman things. It’s because they aren’t human. Human rights are for protecting human dignity. And they are given to us in large part because, as Good Friday eloquently demonstrates, no other creature in nature is capable of such nobility—or such depravity—as the sons of men. No tiger could have conceived of the exquisite cruelty of a crown of thorns in sheer gratuitous mockery of a helpless beaten man. Only our monstrously deformed race could come up with that. A blood fluke, a smallpox virus, or a lion all inflict pain on their victims. But only to fulfill their particular biological imperative of eating or reproducing. Only man invents the kind of willed and intelligent savagery—for fun, mind you—that the guard in charge of beating and mocking the Son of God concocted. Nature might, in blind accident or red in tooth and claw, pierce the hands and feet of a victim in preparation for some sort of feast as members of the insect world sometimes lay their eggs in a paralyzed victim. But only men, needing neither to feed or reproduce, create tortures as fiendish as the crucifixion and then gather round the Cross to laugh and make sport of the victim as he endures bolts of pain in his hands and feet as the price of his next breath.
There is nothing in nature like us. Nothing to equal that kind of depravity. And nothing else in the universe that the Son of God thought so much worth saving that he endured such cruelty that we might not perish.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
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From the Bolivan government website (translated):
he statute gives the ‘Mother Earth’ the character of collective public interest to ensure their rights (Art. 5). The standard also defines a new legal subject as “the dynamic living system made up of indivisible community of all living systems and living beings, interrelated, interdependent and complementary, which share a common destiny” (Art. 3). The document also creates the Office of Mother Earth, “whose mission is to ensure the observance, promotion, dissemination and enforcement of the rights of Mother Earth” (Art. 10).
Good on you Mark.
Earth day is nothing more than an attempt to destract us from the one true living God.It has Satan’s signature all over it PERIOD.
Terry:
I think that’s way too simplistic. I see no particular reason a Catholic can’t celebrate Earth Day (though obviously Good Friday takes precedence this year). Saying we have a responsibility to care for creation is just Catholic orthodoxy. It’s only when we start talking about Nature as though it is the highest good that we involve ourselves in paganism.
Absolutely. And it’s worth pointing out that this was carried out by the best that the Gentile world had to offer (see the praise of Rome in 1 Maccabees 8) at the instigation of the best of God’s Chosen People—which is sufficient proof that if I had been there, I WOULD HAVE DONE WORSE. As indeed I do when, in spite of the graces of baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, I choose to sin.
Excellent article! Well written and to the point. It was short, light, and you were able to sneak in a reference to Dr. Seuss. A tour de force!
“This Earth Day, be a tree-hugger: embrace the Cross, the Tree of Life. Ecce lignum crucis in quo salus mundi pependit.”
I see this Bolivian UN initiative (and its precursor Earth Day) as very sinister. An indivisible community of all living systems and beings means to me that humans get to assume their rights as animals, equal to the goat, horse etc. We will have the right to be put down when things are too tough for us. If a pregnancy results from romping around like the frolicsome puppies we are, we can just get rid of that animal tissue. We will be taught early in school that fun with our own sex is best because there is no worry about the baby thing, and no fear of harming our habitats by adding more to the human species.
I don’t this this initiative is “silly” at all because it is already in effect in many ways. I do wonder what my role as a work animal will look like. Gulag? Auschwitz? I don’t think so. Too blatant. These ideas will have been refined in seventy years. Workers will probably eat what is prescribed, have lots of sex and work very hard. They will not, I think, choose their work. Obstreperous workers will be treated like…well…obsteeperous animals.
I fear that quaint notions of human personhood could be viewed as unprogressive, as prideful aggression against the whole equal community of the earth. Wonder what kind of a penalty that will earn in the world court!
The whole thing is the perversion of Genesis and the Incarnation.
There isn’t anything silly about wanting to protect the Earth. If we don’t take care of the Earth, the Earth can’t take care of us. You are right about one thing: man’s depravity, evident in the rights of “personhood” that corporations are attributed. Why should these entities, many of which wreck our environment with no consideration for the future of our children and grandchildren, be protected while we suffer the consequences? Treating an organization as though it is a person? Not only is that silly but it’s also dangerous. The Bolivian policies may help protect us from ourselves. Happy Easter and Happy Earth Day.
We have seen where this kind of thing has lead before which makes Mark’s perspective very understandable and Ann Landell’s as well! It seems like the denial of God on a world level and a complete bow to Atheism as the force to which all mankind must order their life. It is a revolution and I do not consent.
speaking for the trees (who, for persons, are quite taciturn and not at all demonstrative about their supposed equal rights).
hmmm…I wouldn’t say that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVjvQHenNgY
Can’t see the video in the US.
Seriously? It’s a Youtube video, that’s odd…try this one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHEcIbhDiw
...if that doesn’t work just google “Rush: The Trees”
Great post!
Mark - are you opposed to creation care? It seems like this post (and your more recent one) on climate change stand opposed anything even slightly “green” or “eco”. I completely agree, the Earth was given to us as a gift from God for our use; however, he tasked humans to be good stewards of that gift. Yes, some people take the issue too far, but bashing the United Nations (which, the Holy See is a member of, and the state of Israel as we know it would not exist for if it were not for the UN) seems unproductive. I think St. Francis would agree: God’s creation does have a voice, yet perhaps we are too busy with ourselves to listen.
FF:
Not so. Read this, this, and this, and learn. I have no problem at all with the idea that we are responsible to care for creation.
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