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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I think it’s time for Pope Leo to fire the Archbishop of Detroit.
And perhaps rehire the (former) Bishop of Tyler, TX? And while he’s at it, rescind Traditionis Custodes and Fiducia Supplicans — all for starters.
Ken T, add to your list the correct and proper consecration of Russia to our Lady.
Amen!
. . .with the excuse that it wouldn’t be helpful to give any specific reason.
Agreed. The Pope put the pallium on the Archbishop of Detroit, so he can take it off. Am not holding my breath.
Since the pallium was placed this month, it is reasonable to think that Pope Leo wants Archbishop Weisenburger to be the Ordinary in Detroit. Everyone, including Cardinal McElroy, looks plenty happy here: https://www.detroitcatholic.com/archbishop-stories/receiving-the-sacred-pallium-from-pope-leo-xiv-in-rome
Ah well, It took several decades after Pope Honorius to get the necessary corrections. Jesus Christ is Lord. He was crucified and we follow Him. Witness the thousands of recent martyrs. https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/persecution-trends/
Pray and stay Catholic.
Appeal to Rmeu
No, Diogenes: a tit for a tat leads to the domino effect!
Br. Jaques, no! When injustice, abuse of power and a lack of charity are clearly demonstrated, a disciplinary response is called for. You’re correct, though, that retaliatory acts are uncalled for from any Christian . I’d classify the bishop’s acts as retaliatory.
I agree.
The “Spirit-of-Vadigun-Too” wages unrelenting war against The Word of Truth.
Perhaps it would deemed “unjust” if the Bishop Weisburger of Detroit should be relieved of his position without explanation by Leo XIV?
We shall see…
I don’t know this Bishop Weisenburger from a hole in the wall. I don’t know what his educational background is. I don’t know if he has the highest credentials in theological study or whether he’s like too many of our bishops in recent years who have graduate degrees in fields sociology and the like. I do know that bishops are like the rest of us i.e. given to one kind of sin over all the rest. Some of us are prone to the sin of avarice. Some of us to sins of lust. Some of us to the sin of sloth and some of us to the sin of envy. These alone do not exhaust the smorgasbord of sin to which man is prone.
But, I have begun to wonder whether about the motivation behind the bishop’s seemingly arbitrary, uncharitable and monomaniacal exercise of his episcopal office. I have begin to wonder whether the bishop here isn’t envious of the academic achievements of the three theologians involved in these seminary firings. I am wondering whether this relatively newly-appointed bishop isn’t a bit insecure in his role, eager to exercise power in his archdioese and just a bit envious of these highly-accomplished, well-published and well-regarded Catholic theologians. I don’t know the answer to these questions of mine since the answers lay wholly within the conscience of the bishop. It might be something that the bishop might want to address with his confessor the next time he meets with him.
DeaconEdwardPeitler have you ever heard of a well documented psychological condition know as Pathological Narcissism? If you haven’t, look it up and the scales might fall from your eyes about this Archbishop and a good few others of dubious reputation in the upper echelons of the Church.
My guess is that the skids were greased to fire these guys ahead of time through Cardinals Cupich and McElroy who sought Pope Leo’s approval.
Call me: I agree with your assessment that Cupich and McElroy are running the Church of Woke in America. In fact, they’re running the Catholic Church into the ground.
Weisenberger has also severely restricted the Trad Latin Mass is Detroit and forbade ad orientem posture by priests at Novus Ordo Masses. He also proposed Canton canonical penalties for Catholic ICE agents. He sounds very much like clerics Stowe, Cupich, and McElroy.
The Church has been wrong in the past (Saints – Joan ,Padre Pio . John of the Cross, to name only a few) but it is still the Church and we must accept its teaching and authority. Our leaders are human and they will sin and make mistakes, and we can question their motives and decisions; but at the end of the day we must either swallow our pride and go along with them or else jump ship and find another church.
I remember reading about the trials St. Louis de Montfort went through with his bishop.
Obedience is a very tough thing but necessary. Even when it doesn’t appear to make any sense.
not in today’s day and age of instant communication; you don’t have to live against the Gospel because the higher church authorities tell you it’s okay
James Connor: According to your warped thinking, it was fit and proper that those seminarians in the Metuchen and Newark dioceses should follow their bishop’s summons to his bed at the New Jersey beach house. Hmmm! It seems like we have a McCarrick apologist on our hands.
Make no mistake about it, we have a good many current bishops of the Bergoglian ilk who are followers of McCarrick and not followers of Christ. The Catholic Church is in dire trouble.
Believers are under no obligation to follow false, narcissistic, or sinful shepherds.
Thanks, dear ‘Athanasius’. This was always true . . .
The Holy Spirit of GOD, inspiring Saint Paul, warned us all:
” . . fierce wolves will invade you and will have no mercy on the flock. Even from your own ranks [that is bishops] there will be men coming forward with a travesty of the truth on their lips to induce the disciples to follow them. So be on your guard . .” Acts 20:30 see, also, Ezekiel 3 . . .
Thank you for this article; now we have a glimpse about the “theological perspectives” now in play, and with this glimpse the added knowledge that the controversy is not confined to “seminary personnel matters” as claimed by the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Two points:
FIRST, Bishop Wiesenburger is mimicking “saint” Francis I who not long ago forced Cardinal Muller (then the Prefect for the CDC which is now demoted as one dicastery among many) to fire three of his subordinate priests in Rome. When asked for a reason, the saint responded: “I don’t need a reason; I’m the pope!” So, now, what chance do three (“rigid, bigoted and backwardist”) peasant laymen have in forwardist Detroit?
SECOND, Detroit, the scene of the nationwide and orchestrated Call to Action crescendo in October 1976 (repudiated by the American bishops a few years later) and about which Rev. Vincent Miceli SJ wrote later that same year:
“[….] The radicals demanded: 1) Divorced, remarried couples to receive Holy Communion while still living in adulterous unions. 2) Ordained women priests and bishops. 3) Women given the power to preach the Gospel with authority. 4) A reversal on the doctrine of artificial birth control. 5) A mitigation of the doctrine on abortion. 6) A teaching approving Marxism, Socialism and pacifism as doctrinally true and morally good practice. 7) A denial of the right to property and to reasonable profit. 8) The creation of a new Church, democratic, non-hierarchical in structure, a classless church” https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4544
SUMMARY: Sound familiar? “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Beautiful. I was wondering who had been urging Weisenburger prior to his decision, eg., who from among the charismatics that Martin was working with and to whom he was making presentations in the last couple of years or so.
Feedback that is getting stopped up is not dialogue or openness or accompaniment, etc., it’s something else. Back in the day they were just speaking out and acting out, now they’re controlling and harnessing information.
Which could mean also that in the case of Martin (for example) it could be he had gotten set up and it then is impossible to clear the air on it.
There are now three vacancies at the Seminary that will have to be filled and so far we are able to identify only maybe a couple or maybe a handful of Weisensplainers.
These unjustified terminations were preceded by a full frontal attack on the liturgy in Detroit parishes, not only the Traditional Latin Mass but also any practice during a Novus Ordo Mass that would promote the teachings of the Catholic Faith. This tells you all you need to know about this Bishop Weisenburger. I suspect Pope Leo will do nothing. In everything but style, he is Francis 2.0.
“One thing all three now-former faculty members have in common is that they criticized Pope Francis publicly during the late pope’s pontificate” (McDonald for CNA).
During that period of darkness it was an obligation for the informed Catholic to underline the errors of Francis I – for sake of the salvation of souls including their own.
Our present concern is where will Pope Leo, who calls himself a disciple of Francis I – stand on this issue. Most US cardinals are either Pope Francis appointees or have similar leanings on doctrine.
Interesting that neither side is giving any full explanations. On the surface, it appears that the Archbishop is basically saying “my way or the highway”. But we don’t know that. If the three fired men pursue lawsuits, maybe then the full story will be revealed. Good or bad.
Having talked to one of the three professors, I’m quite certain that there is nothing to explain from their side. They were fired and were given no explanation why they were fired, even when they directly asked the question. So, yes, this will likely have to come out via legal channels.
Oh yes, you can trust that the full story will be revealed.
All three of these guys were too old. Time to retire and prepare for the Kingdom.
Kevin, would you mind telling us just how old you are?
Nope.
Conversely, it is likely that the Bishop Weisenburger is not too Christian.
Then give them a gold watch, a party and a pat on the back. No, these firings are a message to all at the seminary.
Don’t be a tall poppy…
At root in all of these firings is a willingness boldly teach seminarians the full Truth of Christ and proclaim everywhere the Gospel, especially: Humanae Vitae, pro-life, Heaven/Hell, sexual morality, and other unpopular teachings of Christ.
Aside from the issues Pope Leo appears an amiable, welcoming kind, as some say refreshing compared to the previous. We’ve about reached the one hundred day mark. Although there remain monumental unresolved issues for the ordinary Catholic. Leo seems impervious.
Perhaps, in a benevolent sense he has a laissez faire attitude, as many hold God is in charge, things will work themselves out in good time. But did Christ not institute the papacy for his vicar to defend the faith, or to simply be a smiling, quiet, nice guy? If so, we may as well have elected the old cigar store wooden Indian.
I do happen to agree with your thoughts on this matter.
I also remember the early days of the Bergoglian Papacy when the Faithful bent over backwards to give Francis the benefit of the doubt. But after awhile, even the most tolerant threw up their hands and said we’ve had enough of this guy running Holy Mother Church into the ground. As for me, I am happy that Bergoglio has vacated the See of Peter. That said, I doubt many of us will be as forebearing of Leo if he does not act more decisively in defending the Body of Christ against bad shepherds. Until then, we are sheep without shepherds.
Like that of most of right wing conservative Catholic media platforms, CWR’s framing and most subsequent readers’ comments about the firings at Sacred Heart Major Seminary take a narrow, sympathetic narrative that omits key context and consequences. While Canon Law professor Edward Peters’ credentials and academic contributions are notable, his and his colleagues’ public, sustained criticisms of Pope Francis, delivered not only in academic settings but in media interviews and blogs, crossed from scholarly discourse into disloyal and disrespectful ideological opposition. This pattern of dissent, cloaked in theology, contributed significantly to a toxic culture of “popebashing” within sectors of the U.S. Church – like here in CWR!
Critics may accuse defenders of these firings of “popesplaining,” but when Church unity and clerical formation are undermined by those tasked with upholding them, accountability is not censorship—it’s leadership. Archbishop Edward Weisenburger, newly installed in Detroit, acted not rashly but necessarily to restore order to a seminary long regarded as a bastion of anti-Francis sentiment. His actions reflect fidelity to the Church’s ecclesiology: that clergy and educators must uphold communion with both bishop and pope.
Though Peters has indicated legal action, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hosanna-Tabor decision (2012) affirms the wide latitude religious institutions hold in hiring and dismissing ministers and educators. His case, therefore, is unlikely to gain legal traction.
Ultimately, Archbishop Weisenburger did not create a scandal, he ended one. His firm action affirms that the Church must not be hijacked by culture war factions, but instead be defined by fidelity to the Gospel, unity with the pope, and a mission rooted in mercy and compassion. With the election of Pope Leo XIV, who is committed to continuing Pope Francis’s reforms, it is clear that the Church’s direction favors communion over division, and pastoral care over ideological rigidity. These dismissals, while regrettable on a personal level, were essential to preserve the integrity of priestly formation in Detroit.
Thank you, Michael Sean Winters, for your comment. I suspect it will not age well.
About legal action, what about Canon 221:1?
Dr. Peters did an excellent job castigating Mary McAleese, the ex Irish president who gained a JCD at the Gregorian and subsequently used it to attack the faith, Well done Dr Peters!
Bishop Hamburgler should be investigated for covering up, or committing, sexual abuse against minors. The worst heretics are always the worst perverts as well.
Diogenes: No Catholic (or Christian) is obliged to obey an immoral act requested by a superior, this also applies in the military. In this case it IS The bishop’s prerogative to make staff decisions and changes in his diocese. It’s my understanding that the Sacred Heart seminary is a diocesan seminary and is under the bishops jurisdiction. Make no doubt about it, I am and have been for many years and admirer of Ralph Martin and his work and he has been in my and is in my daily prayers. I also was delighted with the seminary and the numerous of exemplary priests that they helped to form and I am saddened that they can no longer teach there. That said,however, it was the bishop’s decision and clearly within his administrative right. We don’t need to agree with him, but we must accept his decision. Not being in his diocese, I don’t feel that I am in a position to express my opinions to him. If I lived in Detroit I may have second thoughts. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings you may have about what I stated previously. God bless , James
If anyone was disloyal and disrespectful it was Francis, him and his Liberation Theology so-called Catholics cronies. Just a truly sorry excuse for a Pope.
The Deacon Dom comment is the National Catholic Reporter set of talking points.
Praise the Lord, I think my little itsy Detroit points here and there cut deep when they got to it.
In this case, I learned more from comments than the “firings” per se. Thank you, and now due to the news, I (and others) have three more persons to explore regarding perspectives on the Papacy of Pope Francis (though I had previously known a bit of Edward Echeverria’s writings). Cannot make a full omelet without cracking some eggs. All will be good in the end, and Truth will prevail.