Respect Life Sunday – All Life! All Creatures, Great and Small.
A Sunday reflection for our times.
The first Sunday of October has a great deal of layered-on significance. For those who love Francis of Assisi it is the closest Sunday to his feast day, October 4th, and thus a day to celebrate the Saint of animals and the environment. The first Sunday of October is the last day of the Season of Creation – a new season that appropriately coincides with the patron of animals and the environment. And the first Sunday of October is Respect Life Sunday, a day when some people focus entirely on human life from conception to grave, but also a day on which life in its fullest, for all creation, can also be lifted up.
All of these themes weave together for me this Sunday. Perhaps it is propitious that the Youth 4 the Climate conference was held this last week when young people from all over the world gathered to demand that the world’s leaders pay attention to the environment and the destruction that it seems is being left for the young people to address. It is an issue of life for them. The youth conference is one of the preludes to COP26 – the 26th annual climate summit put on by the United Nations. The UK will host the summit this year at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow between October 31 and November 12.
At the youth conference one of my heroines, Greta Thunberg, once again rallied the conference attendees. If you did not hear her speak, I encourage you to look for the transcript or a video. (I was able to watch the full speech thanks to Twitter and Naomi Klein.) Greta’s basic message was that all world leaders seem to do is talk, “blah blah blah” as she put it. “Our hopes and dreams drown in their empty words and promises” she said to the youth assembled to hear her. All talk and no action while this year is headed to be the second hottest on record and the number of climate related crises increases. Green New Deal? Blah blah blah. Reduce carbon emissions? Blah Blah Blah. Build Back Better? Blah Blah Blah. And of course, she is correct. While there have been some innovations, and we all know of some changes that have been or are being made, the truth is that carbon emissions into the atmosphere are still increasing, and global warming is producing crisis after crisis.
Recently environmental activists in Canada began protesting their government’s plan to reduce carbon emission while at the same time continuing to extract fossil fuels and relying on income from the sale of oil and gas to other countries. The same protest is going on in the United Kingdom – and in small pockets in the USA. Germany’s recent election reflected concern over the environment. For the first time ever climate change was the most talked about issue. This was related to the devastating floods in Germany this past year. Gradually as developed nations are experiencing some of the climate related crises that less developed countries have had foisted on them by the carbon emitting industrial countries, like the US, China and Europe, people are finally beginning to pay attention. One does wonder however if paying attention will lead to action.
So now I will talk about an uncomfortable reality. The way that people in the developed world eat contributes to enormous amounts of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere. Methane is an ever-increasing product of our current agricultural industry which includes animal husbandry as well as industry-raised plant crops. The good news is that methane does not stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon. Carbon can stay in the atmosphere for a couple of hundred years, but methane is reduced by chemical reaction and is gone in about 12 years. This means that a change in humanity’s diet could affect the amount of green house gases in the atmosphere very quickly, giving humanity a little breathing time as we transition away from carbon. This fact has been known for some time, however, blah blah blah, we can’t seem to get our act together.
The first reading for this weekend comes from Genesis 2: 18-24. It begins with God saying, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” Then God forms various animals and birds of the air, although none of them is suitable as a partner. I am struck by the fact that in the story God does not ask the man “which of these creatures look good enough to eat” or “which one do you want to roast for dinner” etc. God creates the creatures as possible companions for the man. When I consider this story in light of the terror of our meat-eating culture – terror for the vast majority of animals raised for slaughter and the poor usually immigrant people who work in the slaughterhouses – I just feel sad. The creatures of our world are good companions as any pet owner or family farmer can attest, and yet we refuse to address the cruelty that is also contributing to the climate crisis we are experiencing.
When I was first active as a climate ambassador with the Catholic Climate Covenant, the ambassadors were told not to speak about the relationship between animal consumption and climate as the bishops did not want us to, and the bishops were backing the Climate Covenant. Most, if not all, of the people doing the work were vegans, married to vegans, or vegetarians working to reduce dairy consumption, but we could not speak about it. I agree it is upsetting when a person discovers that the way we learned to eat is not the best for the planet, the animals, or our own health (health is a huge topic for conversation another time). It does not however, make any sense not to talk about it. Years ago, we could have gently raised the topic. Now our earth is in trouble and yes, I am aware that this will disturb some people, but I will plead anyway, be disturbed enough to do some research! The information is readily available.
In the church it is Respect Life Sunday in the United States. No matter how we might try to pretend otherwise, human life is dependent on the health of the planet which includes all living things interdependently inhabiting the earth. All of creation needs all other parts of creation in order to thrive! The Season of Creation was instituted to help us reflect on how we care for the Earth, what makes life possible for humans on planet Earth, and includes the creatures and all growing things. Pope Francis in his encyclical, Laudate Si, was very clear about the fact that we cannot watch out for humans without considering the rest of life on Earth.
On this Sunday when many communities will honor Life, St. Francis, and close the Season of Creation, I pray that we, humanity as a whole, can come to terms with a central reality of our cultures, the way we grow and eat animals, and then by paying attention to the devastating consequences, stop talking about change, and do the hard work of transforming our culture out of respect for life.
Greta Thunberg speaking at this year’s Youth4Climate Conference.