I heart...the Vatican? Wow.

I'm not a fan of religion. All it does is lead to war, to putting people into an "us vs. them" mentality, and causes all sorts of fanatics to hurt each other, often times taking along us innocent bystanders with them. Think about it- every major war in history was either based on religion or egged on by it (or religion was used as a veil for political dominance aspirations). Based on this long standing belief of mine, I was very surprised by a story that I heard on NPR this morning.

The Vatican is trying to go carbon neutral (the Pope hopes to install solar cells & preserve forests -do they have forests in the Vatican, or does he want to go with a carbon offset?). Pope Benedict XVI held a conference on global warming. The catholic church is listening to scientists. This is the same church that spawned the inquisition! But maybe there is hope yet.

"The Vatican considers global warming a pressing issue — in part because there is evidence that man is contributing to the problem, and in part because the effects will be felt most intensely by the poor."

This statement says a lot. A) The Catholic Church leaders are listening to science instead of persecuting the scientists. Think about that for a minute. B) The Catholic Church is stepping where leaders of some developed countries couldn't be bothered - to save those people on the so called margins of society - the poor. The Church recognizes this as a big social issue, a global social issue, (complete with real evidence) and not some theoretical discussion. The Catholic Church is saying that this is real, and needs attention.

I never, EVER thought that the Catholic Church would be more progressive than the President of the United States. Bushy should be ashamed of himself - he was one upped by the Catholic Church - an institution with a very poor track record when it comes to science.

Apparently, the church has decided that while the bible does say that man has dominance over the earth that "God" created, humans have to take responsibility of the earth as it's stewards on behalf of "God", and to clean up the mess we have made of "God's" creation. I could dance little circles up and down Main Street for this idea. I'm willing to ignore the other issues with this statement (umm...creationism?) in order to support the church in their attempt to practice stewardship.

Additionally, the NPR story mentioned above depicts how church leaders are trying to tell their followers that hurricanes & Volacanos aren't the will of God. It's not God's fault, it's ours. At this point, you might be falling off your chair. I'll wait.