It’s embarrassing!
Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, has proposed that a new Canon be inserted into the Code of Canon Law.
The new Canon would be dedicated to the “grave duty” of all the Christian faithful to not only “not harm” but even “improve” the environment.
The Cardinal has called on Pope Francis to require Catholics under Canon Law to care for the environment, calling it “one of the most serious duties” for the faithful today.
His Eminence stated: “The Code of Canon Law, at the beginning of the second book, in Canons 208-221 under the title ‘Obligations and rights of all the Christian faithful’, an authoritative sketch of the believer and his life as a Christian. Unfortunately, nothing is said about one of his most serious duties: to protect and promote the natural environment in which the believer lives.”
“My proposal,” the Cardinal said, “would be to ask the Pope, on behalf of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, to insert into the Canons I have just cited a new Canon that sounds more or less like this: ‘Every faithful Christian, mindful that creation is our common home, has the grave duty not only not to damage, but also to improve, both through normal behavior, as well as through specific initiatives, the natural environment in which each person is called to live.’”
He first announced this proposal during a July 12th event in Rome entitled “Dialogue on Catholic investments for energy transition.”
The closed-door (why I wonder) meeting brought together representatives of the Vatican and Catholic organizations to discuss how to invest responsibly towards a transition to renewable energies.
Inspired by Pope Francis’ 2015 Encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’, and by his recent address to CEOs of major oil and gas companies, participants in the July 12th event agreed on the importance of the Catholic Divest-Invest Program currently being sponsored by the World Catholic Climate Movement.
According to the organization’s website, the Catholic Divest-Invest Program calls on Catholic institutions to commit publicly to completely divest from all fossil fuels within five years, and to invest in “socially and ethically responsible companies that protect creation and all who share it.”
What an embarrassment to the proper and dignified role of Canon Law in the governance of the Church and care of the Christian faithful!
The Cardinal trivializes the importance of the Law by such a nonsensical proposal.
Unfortunately, Pope Francis has created his own Frankenstein-like monster in his call for a kindler, gentler hierarchy and Presbyterate.
The Pope loves to paint a picture of how the Church should be, a Church wherein Bishops and Priests accompany the Christian faithful with compassion and empathy, sensitive to their needs and capacities to submit themselves to Evangelical counsels.
But, much too often in my opinion, the Holy Father is figuratively slapped in the face by the reality that the hierarchs and Clergy presently in positions of authority and influence are completely incompetent to fulfill that very mission of accompaniment.
These European pseudo-aristocrats in the Curia and elsewhere are so completely out of touch with the modern world.
In a recent post, I referred to a plaque here in my home-office which reads: “If you can’t convince ‘em, confuse ‘em”, a jibe at another Cardinal (Farrell) who suggested that Priests, whom Francis is depending upon to accompany those in irregular marital situations, are the least capable of providing counsel to married people!
I rather pointedly suggested to Cardinal Farrell that he reflect upon his own inadequacies in ministry before pointing a defamatory finger at his brother-Clergymen.
But, Cardinal Coccopalmerio journeys even further into absurdity as he suggests an even more ridiculous strategy of evangelization and governance: “If you can’t convince ‘em, coerce ‘em.”
Well, Your Eminence, outside the walls of the Vatican where the real world is, where people are not so readily disposed to surrender their common sense and personal dignity in obsequious hopes of attention and promotion, where people claim the right to personal freedom and discretion over their investments and property, your proposal is just plain goofy.
Propriety and etiquette prohibit me from telling Your Eminence what response you’d receive from the man on the street versus the sychophants who attend these lofty-sounding yet completely irrelevant Vatican seminars.
Canon Law, as Your Eminence must of all people rightly know, is rightly ordered to the governance of the Church and offers the Christian faithful the reasonable and justice means by which they are to be incorporate into and cooperate with the mission of the Church.
Canon Law does not exist as a separate Gospel which values material creation over spiritual redemption.
Rather, Canon Law exists for the “for the salvation of souls, which is always the supreme law of the Church.” (Canon 1752)
Your Eminence, Church law is about saving souls not trees!
May I offer Cardinal Coccopalmerio, now retired President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the simple and clear admonition my mother addressed to me when, as a child, I was a bothersome and distracting: "Now be quiet, and let Mother get on with her work."
It's a wisdom His Eminence should embrace.
Oh Lord, how long! How long, O Lord!
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