Priest in UK offering confession for "eco-sins"

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That’d be because we’re stewards over God’s creation, not tyrannical masters free to rape and pillage it, and we’ll have to account to Him for the fact that we’ve left it in a much MUCH worse condition than we found it!
 
is throwing a gum wrapper or cigarette butt out of your car window really a mortal sin though?:confused:
 
repo_man said:
is throwing a gum wrapper or cigarette butt out of your car window really a mortal sin though?:confused:
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Confession is for venial as well as mortal sins, remember. There’s no suggestion in the article that they are mortal sins. More serious neglect of the environment, of course, could be a mortal sin, just as neglect of your child would be.
 
If you thought about it, realized you would be defacing God’s creation and still decided who cares, it’s better to have a clean car - let the rest of the world deal with my detritus -
why wouldn’t it be a mortal sin?

You would be self-serving, disobedient of His request to be a take care of His creation (that’s what “dominion over plants & animals” means), you would know it & yet you do it anyway.

Add to that the fact that you are setting a horrible example for others and possibly leading them into the same sin - just like women in tight short skirts & men in speedos lead others to lust.

It’s a small act with potentially huge consequences.

Go with Love, Go with God
 
It’s quite obvious that many of today’s Catholics have been as influenced by the modern media as the secular culture. Mind you, I do my part. But not doing so is not a sin. I can’t imagine that this would have even been an issue 50 years ago when the culture didn’t worship at the feet of creation instead of the creator.
 
Truth said:
It’s quite obvious that many of today’s Catholics have been as influenced by the modern media as the secular culture. Mind you, I do my part. But not doing so is not a sin. I can’t imagine that this would have even been an issue 50 years ago when the culture didn’t worship at the feet of creation instead of the creator.
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St Francis of Assisi would thoroughly approve - do you think he was wrong in his extreme love of creation?

As long as we realise WHY we’re trying to do good by the Earth - that it’s due to respect for God’s gift of creation - rather than seeing it as some sort of end in itself.

And wilfully misusing any of God’s gifts absolutely is a sin. Whether it’s the gift of our mind or body, the gifts that are finances and possessions, abusing the spouse or family He has given us - or the environment.
 
LilyM said:
St Francis of Assisi would thoroughly approve - do you think he was wrong in his extreme love of creation?

As long as we realise WHY we’re trying to do good by the Earth - that it’s due to respect for God’s gift of creation - rather than seeing it as some sort of end in itself.

And wilfully misusing any of God’s gifts absolutely is a sin. Whether it’s the gift of our mind or body, the gifts that are finances and possessions, abusing the spouse or family He has given us - or the environment.
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St. Francis worshipped the creator, not creation. That’s the difference. As an Archbishop in Australia has recently stated, environmentalism is now a religion and those who don’t believe in it are considered heretics.
 
There is absolutely NO action a human can take that does not impac the environment around him. Thus, unlike REAL morality, it can be hard to discern what is ‘eco-friendly’ and what is not.

Was it good to ban DDT? Sure, if you are an eagle. But maybe not so good if you are watching your child die of malaria in the Congo. Used sparingly and properly, this chemical could save a LOT of lives, but because of stupid overuse in the US and the corresponding greenie knee jerk reactions, it is effectively banned worldwide.

Was it good that they have nearly ended old growth logging in the Pacific Northwest? Probably not. Recent research shows that NW forests evolved in a setting where Indians periodically burned portions which resulted in a patchwork of mature and immature forest areas. This patchwork was crucial to the food chain network of the region. When the eco-crusaders stopped logging and the government simultaneously stopped the burns, a mature forest monoculture has now developed and fires cause MORE damage when they happen and the biodiversity has DROPPED. (In a Dark Wood - Dr. Alston Chase) Makes for a dramatic protest though!

In my area, people almost religiously recycle plastic and glass, but there is no established market for it, it burns a LOT more fuel because of the need for separate collection, and a lot of it ends up in landfills anyways because the collectors won’t hold it for more than a week due to food residue. (BTW, paper and aluminum are both financially and energy efficient to recycle)

Is that better? Not in my opinion. Is it better to throw your apple core out the window on the highway or put it in a landfill where it will mummify and sit for 1,000 years?

Defining an eco-sin sounds pretty tough to me.
 
But suppose you’re recycling glass?

It takes more energy to process recycled glass than it does to make new glass. And sand is not in short supply.
 
Thanks guys! I appreciate the common sense approach. It does bring out the point that what is environmentally friendly to one group is not necessarily environmentally friendly to another. In the end as I have alluded, there are other issues at work here. Namely, who is in control? Wonton waste is not good and I’m opposed to unnecessary use of chemicals, but things like recycling may even be harmful to the environment if they use more energy. So the bottom line is that “confession” for so-called “eco-sins” is really just a PC action on the part of a certain priest who’s made his form of environmentalism a psuedo-religion.
 
Truth said:
So the bottom line is that “confession” for so-called “eco-sins” is really just a PC action on the part of a certain priest who’s made his form of environmentalism a psuedo-religion.
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Exactly. Responsible environmental stewardship is a good thing, but it’s not a sin to drive to Mass, or fly to Australia, or not recycle your soda can. The idea of confessing to “eco-sins” is just wierd.
 
aurora77 said:
Exactly. Responsible environmental stewardship is a good thing, but it’s not a sin to drive to Mass, or fly to Australia, or not recycle your soda can. The idea of confessing to “eco-sins” is just wierd.
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Over-scrouplousness is itself a sin.
 
Thanks, but I"ll just stick to recycling the old sins.

When I get to the point where there are none of those left to be tossed out into the trash, I’ll worry about other things.
 
LilyM said:
That’d be because we’re stewards over God’s creation, not tyrannical masters free to rape and pillage it, and we’ll have to account to Him for the fact that we’ve left it in a much MUCH worse condition than we found it!
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Amen.
 
Vern, you assume that glass recycling involves making it into more glass products.

I recently did a pilot project that mized glass cullet (pulverized) with asphalt grindings (another recyceld product) to use as the base course under pavement. Used a ton of the stuff that the collector couldn’t get rid of otherwise. But not yet commercially viable, they did it for the PR and green brownie points.
 
When you think about it everything we toss out goes back to the earth where it came from. So don’t worry about it, go ahead and be a slob. Things will look a bit messy for awhile but will eventually re-cycle themselves. That way you don’t have to go to confession for it either…👍
 
retrovert said:
When you think about it everything we toss out goes back to the earth where it came from. So don’t worry about it, go ahead and be a slob. Things will look a bit messy for awhile but will eventually re-cycle themselves. That way you don’t have to go to confession for it either…👍
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Problem is plastic, unlike organic or degradable rubbish - will take tens of thousands of years to ‘recycle’ itself if not longer.

If we keep creating and using it at the rate we are now and each piece doesn’t break down for millennia, there’ll be far too much of the earth’s surface covered in plastic in a very short time. it’ll be more than ‘looking’ messy - there literally won’t be enough room for us.

And plastics actually destroy wildlife - animals either ingest or get snagged on plastic bag handles, plastic beer-can holders and so on, and die.
 
Like most earth-firstie propaganda, the plastic ‘problem’ has undoubtedly been overstated by those who put sand fleas above God.
 
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