LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Ecological truth told by a child difficult for some adults to accept

Posted

TO THE EDITOR:

The Sept. 26 editorial in Rhode Island Catholic had many disturbing statements. Greta Thunberg is not promoting a “green dictatorship” but is speaking to the United Nations and indeed, to all of us, about the potential for an “ecological catastrophe” and “the urgent need for a radical change in the conduct of humanity” (St. John Paul II). I have seen no evidence of Greta promoting “one world government,” but I do see a young woman with the fierceness of a Joan of Arc and the dedicated purposeful decision to act of a Mary of Nazareth.
It has been suggested that grown men cannot handle the fact that a child is telling them the truth. I ask the editorial writer to marvel at the fact that the Spirit of God has ignited a generation! Pope Paul VI, at the closing of Vatican II, exhorted all youth “to open your hearts to the dimensions of the world, build in enthusiasm a better world than your elders had.” Greta has answered a call greater than herself. Can they not see? Can they not hear? The youth of the world are on fire with zeal!
Truly, I cannot let pass the smear on “ecology today.” “Laudato Si’” is a whole treatise on ecology! Pope Francis, in an address to a conference on the social teaching of the Church said:
“The task, he said, is to change “models of global development” to those that “promote economic, environmental and social solidarity and sustainability within a more humane economy, but also the welfare of future generations.”
“The world needs an ecological “conversion” in order to manifest the Church’s vision of an integral human ecology.”
I’m with him! And Greta!

Sister Mary Pendergast, RSM