Washington D.C., Jul 17, 2017 / 04:31 am (CNA).- Travis Rieder and his wife Sadiye have one child.
She wanted a big family, but he’s a philosopher who studies climate change with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. One child of their own was all the world could environmentally afford, they decided.
In his college classes, Rieder asks his students to consider how old their children will be by 2036, when he expects dangerous climate change to be a reality. Do they want to raise a family in the midst of that crisis?
Many scientists concur that the earth is currently in a warming phase – and that if the earth’s average temperatures rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius, the effects would be disastrous.
The 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by nearly 200 countries within the United Nations, aims to address just that. Signatory countries agreed to work to keep the global temperature from increasing by two degrees through lowering their greenhouse gas emissions, and to work together on adapting to the effects of climate change that are already a reality.
But reproductive solutions, such as the ones proposed by Rieder, are wildly controversial for the ethical and moral questions they raise.
Penalizing parents
In his book “Toward a Small Family Ethic,” Rieder and two of his peers advocate for limited family size because of what they believe is an impending climate change catastrophe.
They suggest a “carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich” population control policy, which they insist is not like China’s harsh one-child policy.
For poor developing nations, they suggest paying women to fill their birth control and widespread media campaigns about smaller families and family planning. For wealthier nations, they suggest a type of “child tax,” which would penalize new parents with a progressive tax based on income that would increase with each new child.
“(C)hildren, in a kind of cold way of looking at it, are an externality,” Rieder told NPR. “We as parents, we as family members, we get the good. And the world, the community, pays the cost.”
While it might sound strange, the idea that climate change and overpopulation morally necessitate couples to limit their family size (or to have no children at all) is not new.
Since the 1960s, some scientists have been advocating for smaller families for various reasons – overpopulation, climate cooling, the development of Africa – and now, global warming and climate change.
And while the idea isn’t new, neither are the moral and ethical concerns associated with asking parents to limit their family size for the sake of the planet.
Should Catholics limit their family size?
Ultimately, Catholics ethicists said, while environmental concerns can certainly factor into lifestyle choices, those who would ask people to completely forego children simply due to their carbon footprint are approaching the topic from the wrong perspective, not realizing the immeasurable worth and dignity of every human person.
“The proposals (on limited family size)…need to be assessed with a perspective as to the very nature of the human person, marital relationships, and society,” Dr. Marie T. Hilliard told CNA.
Hilliard serves as the director of bioethics and public policy at The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), a center designed specifically to answer the moral bioethical dilemmas that Catholics face in the modern world.
What’s problematic about the policies proposed by Rieder and other scientists is that they ask married couples to frustrate one of the purposes of their sexuality, Hilliard said.
“(T)he procreative end of marriage must be respective. Couples cannot enter into a valid marriage with the intent of frustrating that critical end, and one of the purposes of marriage,” she said. If couples are not open to the possibility of a child, “it frustrates at least one of the two critical ends of marriage: procreation and the wellbeing of the spouses.”
Dr. Christian Brugger is a Catholic moral theologian and professor with St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. He clarified that while the Church asks couples to be open to life, it does not ask that they practice “unlimited procreation.”
“The Catholic Church has never held – and has many times denied – that responsible parenthood means ‘unlimited procreation’ or the encouragement of blind leaps into the grave responsibilities of child raising,” he said.
“It does mean respecting marriage, respecting the moral principles in the transmission of human life, respecting developing human life from conception to natural death, and promoting and defending a social order manifestly dedicated to the common good.”
Considering the common good can include considering the environment, as well as a host of other factors that pertain to the flourishing of the human person, when couples are considering parenting another child, Brugger said.
But he cautioned Catholics against the moral conclusions of scientists whose views on life and human sexuality differ greatly from Church teaching.
“Catholics should not make decisions about family size based upon the urgings of these activists,” he said.
“Why? Because they hold radically different values about human life, marriage, sex, procreation, and family, and therefore their moral conclusions about the transmission of human life are untrustworthy.”
“(P)opulation scare-mongering has been going on in a globally organized fashion for 70 years. The issues that population activists use to promote their anti-natalist agendas change over time…But the urgent conclusion is always the same: the world needs less people; couples should stop having children,” he said.
And many worry that legislated policies encouraging and rewarding smaller families could open up a host of ethical and moral problems.
Rebecca Kukla of Georgetown University told NPR that she worries about the stigma such policies would unleash on larger families. She also worried that while a “child tax” might not be high enough to be considered coercive, it would be unfair, and would favor the wealthy.
Hilliard agreed.
“(A) carte blanche imperative to limit family size can lead us to the dangers the (NPR article) cites, as discrimination and bias and government mandates can, and have, ensued,” Hilliard said.
Women in particular would bear the brunt of the resulting stigmas of such policies, Brugger noted.
“(W)omen will and already do suffer the greatest burden from this type of social coercion. Women have always been the guardians of the transmission of human life. They share both the godlike privilege of bearing life within them and the most weighty burdens of that privilege. Anti-natalist demagoguery is always anti-woman, always,” Brugger said.
All things considered, the Catholic Church would never take away the right and responsibility of parents to determine their family size by supporting a policy that would ask families to limit their size because of climate change, he said.
It’s not people, it’s your lifestyle
William Patenaude is a Catholic ecologist, engineer and longtime employee with Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management. He frequently blogs about ecology from a Catholic perspective at catholicecology.net.
The idea that we must choose between the planet or people, he told CNA, is a “false choice.” The problem isn’t numbers of people – it’s the amount each person is consuming.
“The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that in 1960 the United States produced some 88 million tons of municipal waste. In 2010 that number climbed to just under 250 million tons—and it may have been higher had a recession not slowed consumption. This jump reflects an almost 184 percent increase in what Americans throw out even though our population increased by only 60 percent,” he wrote in a blog post about the topic.
There is a similar trend in carbon emissions, which increase at a faster rate than the population.
“We can infer from this that individuals (especially in places like the USA) are consuming and wasting more today than we ever have, which gets to what Pope Francis has been telling us about lifestyles, which is consistent with his predecessors,” Patenaude told CNA.
Climate change has been one of the primary concerns of Pope Francis’ pontificate. While not the first Pope to address such issues, his persistence in addressing the environment has brought a new awareness of the urgency of the issue to other Church leaders.
In May 2015, Pope Francis published “Laudato Si,” the first encyclical devoted primarily to care for creation.
In it, the Holy Father wrote that the earth “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”
But never does the Pope ask families to have fewer children. Instead, he urges Catholics to address pollution and climate change, to make simple lifestyle changes that better care for “our common home” and to work toward a better human ecology.
“It seems that voices that urge fewer children aren’t interested in new and temperate lifestyles. In fact, they are implicitly demanding that modern consumption levels be allowed to stay as they are – or even to rise. This seems selfish and gluttonous, and not at all grounded in a concern for life, nature, or the common good,” Patenaude said.
Furthermore, the good of any individual person outweighs the damage of their potential carbon footprint, he said.
“The good and dignity and worth of every human person is superseded by nothing else on this planet. If we don’t affirm that first, we can never hope to be good stewards of creation, because we will never really be able to appreciate all life,” he said.
“On the other hand, one way to affirm the dignity of human life – collectively and individually – is to care for creation. Because as I noted earlier, creation is our physical life-support system, and so to authentically care for it is to care for human life.”
Dan Misleh is the executive director of Catholic Climate Covenant, which was formed in 2006 by the United States Catholic Bishops in order to help implement Church social teaching regarding climate change.
Misleh agreed that while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels is “imperative” to reducing negative effects of climate change like droughts and rising sea levels, that does not mean mandated population engineering and smaller families.
“As for population, places like the U.S., Japan and many European countries have both high carbon emissions and relatively low population growth and birth rates. So there is not a direct correlation between low-birth rates and fewer emissions. In fact, the opposite often seems to be true: countries with the highest birthrates are often the poorest countries with very low per-capita emissions,” he told CNA.
What is needed is a true “ecological conversion,” like Pope Francis called for in Laudato Si, Misleh said.
“(P)erhaps we Catholics need to view a commitment to a simple lifestyle not as a sacrifice but as an opportunity to live more in keeping with the biblical mandate to both care for and cultivate the earth, to spend more time on relationships than accumulating things, and to step back to appreciate the good things we have rather than all the things we desire.”
This article was originally published on CNA Oct. 27, 2016.
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Archbishop Corlione is the worst kind oh hypocrite. Instead of judging others maybe the Catholic Church should clean up its own messes. So many of my friends and family have left the church because you preach but take no responsibility for the horrific deeds priests have committed. At least Senator Pelosi has integrity. Oh and I know you won’t print this because you don’t accept different points of view.
Kelly Greelis Green, Grateful Episcopalian.
I almost expected to read “Grateful Dead” at the end of your sad little screed.
Kelly Green wrote:
“At least Senator Pelosi has integrity.”
Um, really? Because she’s frank about being in favor of killing children?
Interesting.
So molesters are monsters but those who abet millions upon millions of murders are virtuous?
(Virtual emoji: exploding head.)
Are you sure you’re not one of those Elon Musk Twitterbots?
And integrity isn’t the only thing Senator Pelosi doesn’t have.
A seat in the Senate is another.
the catholic church is a private institution and as long as it understands that personal private volition has nothing to do with individual liberty and public policy it is free to be as deluded as it pleases about the meaning of an afterlife –
Negative liberties represent protections , independence and individualism .
Positive liberties represent endowments , dependence and collectivism .
e pluribus unum means individualism and democracy against individualism conspires tyranny by majority .
https://usmessageboard.com/threads/political-science-terminology-negative-positive-wrights-liberties-protections-endowments.707820/
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Catholic and Lutherin charities should NOT be entitled to federal subsidies to inundate the us with illegal migrants . NOTORIOUS for facilitating POVERTY by prohibiting birth the control , in answer to their foolishness , the holier than thou excuse is they are communists .
The Catholic Church has a responsibility to God’s truth even if it offends others. Jesus Christ word offended others because they did not want to accept the truth. Abortion is murder , if that offends anyone then you are blind with ignorance!
Face it, the church doesn’t have a whole lot of arrows in its quiver when dealing with the government. But the archbishop did finally seem to find his backbone and took the time to call Pelosi the hypocrite that she is.
The real question is will she abide by the letter & repent or will she just ignore it, continue her political posturing, and continue on with her life as if it never happened?
If she chooses the former, then the archbishop has helped to stop the wanton slaughter of innocents.
If she chooses the latter, then her motives for all these years are highlighted in sharp contrast to her words.
Either way, the Democrats lose and so I thank the archbishop for finally standing on his convictions. I won’t even ask him what he’s been waffling on for all these years?
As for the rest; I was raised catholic, I refused confirmation, and asked to be excommunicated by the RC church (which they declined to do). So I testify before you as a simple atheist aka “the natural man” (1 Corinthians 2:6-16).
However, given the option of aligning with anything on the Democrat political platform and standing shoulder to shoulder with the church, I’ll stand with the church, because the Democrats are depraved in ways too gruesome to discuss in matters that have nothing to do with spirituality or human dignity.
Archbishop Cordileone is not ‘dealing with the government.’ He is counseling one individual who claims she is Catholic. Ms. Pelosi is an individual servant-representative of the people of the democratic republic of the U.S. The citizens pay her salary.
I thank God you are honest enough to recognize and not hold the hypocritical position (as does Pelosi) of claiming Catholicism as your faith which acting in opposition to its teaching. Good for you that you recognize the Democrat party positions as depraved more often than not. As a Catholic, I believe that depravity affronts human dignity and spirituality.
(You probably lean more Catholic than you realize…)
Worth notice is the failed attempt at literacy and reason with which the pro-abort proponents advertise themselves here. It’s amazing that they didn’t learn in the start of kindergarten that such stuff doesn’t stick.
Once again, I am gravely disappointed in the Church. Rather than take a proactive position to prevent unwanted pregnancies, the Church seeks to blame those who have taken an oath upholding separation of Church and state. The hypocrisy of a public repudiation, contrition, and penance is laughable after years of first denying and then protecting (and still protecting) pedophile priests. The Archbishop needs look no further than his mirror to find a culprit, cococonspirator, and accomplice. Rather than strengthen the dialogue, the archbishop has thrown a bomb that will only spread animosity and suspicion. If the Church has its way on this, what is next? Griswold (contraception), IVF, gay marriage? The archibishp’s actions will only force women and the electorate to think twice about voting Catholic or, for that matter, confirming Catholic justices.
Kelly Green;
Your 5/20/22.
1) It’s spelled ‘Cordileone’.
2) Who is Senator Pelosi?
3) Life begins at conception and that which has been conceived begins to grow and so this conclusion is entirely reasonable – if it’s growing it’s alive.
This is disgraceful politicking, and rather hypocritical. I don’t recall seeing a single priest involved in molesting minors suffering this fate. To quote His Holiness Pope Francis, “Holy Communion is the bread of sinners, not a feast for saints” and you are using your position to engage in political action. Beware the consequences.
As far as I know, no priest ever spent 30 years openly abusing minors while nothing was done to him while claiming that what he was doing was perfectly good and wonderful. But numerous guilty priests have been defrocked and more than a few have gone to prison. All of these desperate attempts at playing the hypocrisy card just reveals the actual hypocrisy on the part of the culture of death crowd.
I am infuriated at forbidding Pelosi to take Communion. Jesus ministered to sinners with love. He allowed Peter and Judas to come to the Last Supper. This is a political act, not the act of a pastor and shepherd to his people. Even the Pope has said that denying Communion is wrong. I wish he would reconsider but know that he thinks he is above the Pope and does not have to act as Jesus would with his flock: with love and compassion. But he gives Communion to priests who have defiled children nonetheless. Truly hypocritical.
Mr. D’Sousa, to your point, I also heard of a priest once who got a speeding ticket, and another who tended to drink too much.
But I’m not sure how they invalidate the Church’s teaching on killing babies. Could you please explain?
Are you saying that no one is accountable for any sinful act until and unless all priests are perfect?
Could it be you have no memory? Could it be you are blind?
Denial of Holy Communion due to persistent obstinate manifest grave sin is not a fate to be feared and hated but an act of truth in charity for which gratitude is the only appropriate response.
Thankyou Archbishop Corlione I am very greatful for your actions, it is right and just. I can only imagine what the prince of lies will be throwing at you, I will be adding your name to my prayers for priests. Again Thankyou if you have the time I would be glad to hear from you and recieve blessings and or advice.
I applaud Archbishop Cordileone on taking action in this situation. I think it is unfortunate that it has come to this, but the Code of Canon Law is clear on the proper procedure. Many Catholics (and other denominations, as I’ve seen from these comments) seem to have a misunderstanding of how sacred the Eucharist really is. I sincerely hope and pray that they will come to realize that it is impossible to be Catholic and assist/support the atrocity of abortion. I will pray for Speaker Pelosi that she may see the error of her ways and adjust them appropriately. I pray also for all bishops that they may have the confidence to act in the best interest of those entrusted to their care.
It is about time polosi was called out! The church should not stop here,every single politician that is pro abortion should receive the same letter right down to the local level. Politicians think they can disconnect their faith from policy.they are not politicians forever but are Catholics and part of church for life.
Yes well to put it really really simply one has to follow the rules if they claim to be part of the team. Or else find another team with different rules
May God bless the Catholic Church. May it grow into a more loving and understanding instrument of God. May the Cardinals adopt a less paternalistic approach and understand that faith is about the individual conscience, not merely about barking orders at the faithful.
Dogs bark. Cardinals barking orders? Pray tell, please give us an example of a cardinal barking an order.
Archbishop Cordileon, a true Catholic in name only. I feel sadness and disappointment that Catholic leadership continues to disparage believers- members of their own community and brotherhood- whom Christ loves unwaveringly. Clergymen and women should maintain a sense of obligation and accountability as it pertains to the teachings of Christ. They need abstain from interjecting themselves in matters of politics and law in toto, but particularly in cases in which significant harm can befall a sizeable portion of our population as a direct result. I pray our leaders can find the grace to banish the hate from their hearts and love unconditionally as the Lord intends. Restore the true meaning of the sacrament instead of diminishing it.
Ms. Pelosi’s membership in the Church is debatable. Assuming that she is/was, a bishop calling out a member of the institution in which he holds lawful authority and jurisdiction is not disparagement. He acts on behalf of the Church whose mission it is to call its members from sin and to assist them in saving their souls. He would be negligent in his duty if he allowed his members to damn themselves.
Nancy is free to worship any idol she chooses. If she wishes to worship the God of Catholicism, she does best to learn what God’s Church commands and teaches and requires her to uphold.
Teaching and counseling are not disparagement. Even if a person persisted in this obstinate error of seeing teaching and counseling and aid to saving as ‘disparagememt,’ a sin of disparagement, when compared to support for abortion, ranks far lower on any ranked scale of severity of sin. Miss Pelosi, for some 40 or so years, has aided, abetted, and supported murder. The sin of murder is MORTAL for many–the victim, the perpetrator, and the ‘legal’ enabler.
Nancy’s continued receipt of Holy Communion, the Body of Christ, while espousing the legality of murder, will continue to be considered sacrilegious in the eyes of Christ’s Church.
If Nancy is to learn anything about God and the Church in which she claims to belong, her review of God’s Law in the Sixth Commandment is the first place she should start.
Support for those who commit the sin against God’s Law in the Sixth Commandment excludes one from a place in line toward salvation. To receive the Body of Christ while supporting murder does the greatest harm and damage to the Body of Christ and thus to Ms. Pelosi’s own soul (and temporal mind).
It is about and on behalf of time – ETERNAL TIME – that Archbishop Cordileone acts. Praise God for gifting His Church with an Archbishop Cordileone.
Now let’s talk about hate. Next time?
What took soooooop long?
Nelson Maniscalco wrote:
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Nelson, Nelson, Nelson! Whom did the good archbishop disparage? He made a heartfelt plea to Pelosi to repent, renounce her sin and return to the sacraments in good standing.
As any good shepherd ought.
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This makes no sense. Why would spiritual leaders and women only concern themselves in issues of little human consequence, while abstaining from matters where human lives are actually at stake?
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Nelson, if the Blessed Sacrament has any meaning at all — if it embodies the actual Person of Christ Jesus Himself — it must be obvious that reception of Him by an individual who is in a state of serious sin, who is obstinate in her sin and who has publicly stood in opposition to one of the Church’s most fundamental teachings for decades on end, is a desecration of the most serious kind and cannot be countenanced by our community or its leaders.
In your platitudes and your talking points, you are forgetting someone, Nelson. In fact, the millions upon millions upon millions of human beings whose lives *are* at stake here.
The lives of the children we will never know, who will never have a chance to live, to breathe, to love, to strive, to improve our world, to make their own unique, God-intended contribution to the human story. Creatures beloved by God with a chance to build lives.
(Disproportionate numbers of them minorities, by the way.)
Nelson, you may be fooling yourself with the lofty, virtuous rhetoric you spout, but you’re just exposing the unassailable fact that those on your side of this issue care nothing for either truth or human life.
I am thankful that the church is starting to call out “Catholic” pro abortion politicians. Ms Pelosi advocates for unlimited abortion rights and policies while at same time publicly talking about her Catholic Faith and receiving Communion daily. She is using her association with the church to gather political support. How can she do this ? Its brazen hypocrisy. I will pray for her – but I also think its time she stops this lie.
Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments were noticeably tilted toward a masculine target. I understand the intention and the declarations global humanistic consequence. It is a quibble that a woman was not targeted and Lord knows the Church can quibble. Personally I would like to have seen the Archbishop rightfully deny the Speakers Eucharistic graces but encourage her to approach the Sacrament for a blessing with hands crossed over the heart.
Taking a stand for abortion is one thing…, however to be fair – where is all the outrage for gun violence? Gun violence that happens daily? Gun violence in all communities within the United States of America? Why not take a stand for ALL human life?
Hopefully, standing up for HUMAN life will UNITE us, not divide us.
Last I looked, the Church’s teaching about murder and taking innocent life—whether by poison, forceps, guns, knives, or bare hands—is very clear.
Part of the problem is a confusion of categories. Just as forceps and other medical equipment are morally neutral, so too are guns. The issue is the use of such objects, while the access and available of such objects is also part of the discussion. The Church is just as much against murder by guns as she is against murder by forceps or saline.
Further, however, who is out there promoting murder by guns as a healthy and necessary action? Or saying that is Group A wants to use guns to kill members of Group B, that’s their right and personal choice?
Anyone who is against murder must logically be against abortion. And abortion is particularly vile in nature because the unborn child is completely innocent and vulnerable.
By the way, Abp Cordileone has spoken out about gun violence, saying in 2015: “We do have a gun culture in the United States and the inclination of violence easily leads to the use of firearms.”
Jesus didn’t implement the sacrament of the Eucharist as a political bargaining chip nor as as means to subvert ones free will. What Jesus also said in scripture is to separate Church from State affairs. It seems like this leader of the faith has forgotten these principles. Granted, abortion is wrong. But if you are to offer your prayers to God, pray that women make the right choice to protect their child. Pray that politicians support free will and democracy in this country. Pray that Church leaders have the responsibility to use better discernment on leaving the faithful rather than polarizing an already divided populace that needs compassion and not oppression. Stick to the teachings of Jesus rather than politicians and religious who worship power.
Unfortunately, you mischaracterize abortion as a secular event. Abortion is murder, pure and simple, and premeditated (first degree) at that. That is against a Commandment. That is a law of God, not the state.
Thy shall not kill is the teaching of Jesus. Evil thrives when good men fail to act!
Pelosi is perfectly free to go on promoting abortion all she wants. She’s just not free to do this AND receive Holy Communion. Problem is, she wants to have her cake and eat it too. That’s not the way reality works, dearie.
#AbortionCheapenedLife
𝙐𝙣𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨 deserve due process.
𝕌𝕟𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕟 𝕙𝕦𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕤 have right to a day in court.
𝓤𝓷𝓫𝓸𝓻𝓷 𝓱𝓸𝓶𝓸 𝓼𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓼 are due the sine qua non of habeas corpus.🦗
Thank you for the love and truth you have revealed. It is so encouraging and support that you stood on the Spirit and word on God revealing His love for the unborn and children and morality. Also His love for Ms. Pelosi.