Once that line has been re-drawn (and, it has already has been for some), there is no firm ground on which to stand. Inevitably humanity is reduced to its apparent utility. Of course, using their logic, one has to wonder why one bothers at all. After all, you’re just taking organs from a “mostly dead” (to quote Miracle Max) person to put into a “marginally” dead person – or else they wouldn’t need the organs, right? So, if you didn’t bother with transplants at all, you’d have two “low cost” deaths. (Fewer mouths to feed – a boon to statist governments – and unsaved Scrooges – everywhere.) Does this strike anyone else as more than vaguely . . . well, Nazi?

This is evil and must be denounced as evil. That it could be published as an honest suggestion (rather than a satirical indictment, ala Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”) is a wake-up call. In my view, the EP would serve humanity far better by standing up against the culture of death as Pope John Paul II did (to whom the world owes more than it can repay) than by carving out a political niche with a Green agenda. Especially since the science is not settled and the planet may, in fact, be cooling. (Where can you get a Hummer when you need one?)
Of couse, as I noted before, being Green does let you pull off that extremely rare feat of being both prophetic AND popular – so it really works out well that way.
So, when the culture of death has eventually corrupted human existence, and invariably begun to persecute those who resist it, at least our environment will be “really purdy.”

Despite Al Gore’s protestations to the contrary, climate change is not a moral issue. I can accept an EP that calls for people to be good stewards of the land. I cannot accept an EP that picks a side in a scientific debate where one’s position is more determined by politics than scripture.

It is sad to see a religious leader allowing himself to be dragged into a very contentious political fight.

I’d suppose it would be great if he came out with a strong statement supporting my pet political causes, too – but, so far, nary a word to chastise our pro-choice Orthodox representatives. I’m glad you like his and the UN’s position, but anthropogenic “climate change” – at least as promoted by the environmental lobby – is hardly conclusive and the potential consequences of the policy being promoted offers the twin disasters of being both ineffective and economically destructive. Sure the poor will suffer inordinately and the CO2 levels will be reduced by an almost immaterial percentage (of course, when I was young, CO2 was also called plant food), but at least we will “feel” better because we “mean” well.
Then again, maybe I missed the point, because being “green” lets you be both “prophetic” AND popular. How often does that happen? (Might also explain the relative silence on abortion – definitely not popular among the glitterati.)

Now I can appreciate the need to be better stewards. To me that stewardship must begin with the proper ordering of our own passions (which seem to be driving an awful lot of the “climate change” agenda); if it doesn’t start there, there is little hope of anything much more “meaningful.”

While there is nothing wrong with speaking about politics – especially in so far as the integrity of our spiritual calling requires it – our Church suffers when our leadership decides to focus its efforts on the specialties and vocations of others. No one else on earth has the mission to divinize the human person save the Church. If she decides to spend her limited resources elsewhere, neither the “new agenda” nor the ancient mission are done well.

Hopefully, a viable climate agreement will be achieved at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen this December.

I was thinking the other day that if the EP ever gets the Nobel Peace Prize which the Phanar greatly covets, he will receive that award for something other than preaching and teaching the Gospel.

I would just be content for one simple news story that is not about the environmentalism of the EP but his defense of the faith handed down from the Apostles.