Scottish Catholic Observer

IT is difficult to write with any degree of certainty or insight this week into what will be the burning issue, no doubt, by the time the SCO reaches parishes. Pope Francis’s environment encyclical Laudato Si’ (Be Praised or Praised Be), which was due to be published yesterday after the SCO went to press, is likely to call for stronger climate action.

While there remains climate change ‘deniers’ within the Faith community and in wider society, Church agencies such as the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF) know that those in the developing world are disproportionately impacted by changing, and increasing unpredictable, weather patterns. Those in absolute poverty have no reserves, nothing to fall back, on when crops fail in drought or are washed away in flood.

Even in the unlikely event that humanity’s efforts to minimise climate change are futile, wouldn’t we rather fail trying? Isn’t that our Christian duty?

Of course we are not just looking to preserve God’s gift, our planet for today, we must also think of future generations, for example: The young Catholics who gathered for the ACN youth rally in Carfin last week to show their solidarity with persecuted Christians; the Caritas Award winners who are just leaving school; the women farmers helped by this year’s SCIAF Week Box Lenten appeal.

June 11 was a glorious sunny Thursday in Motherwell Diocese for the ACN youth rally, the kind of perfect summer’s day reminiscent of the June 1 1982 Papal visit (quite a few of us included sunburn as a souvenir that day.) And while we in Scotland welcome the all-too-few sunny days we get, let’s not forget this year’s June torrential rain and floods, nor the heavy snows of a few years ago. We have the resources, even if only barely, and the infrastructure to cope. Yes, our fuel may bills rise, and our food may cost more. For some of our brothers and sisters in Africa or Latin America, however, extreme weather washes or withers away their very basics for survival.

As Bishop John Keenan of Paisley recently said, Faith and science can work hand-in-hand. Let’s hope that this is the case after we get to grips with Laudato Sii.

It is not arrogance or naivety in the face of God to use our gifts and talents to work together to protect the earth and its inhabitants. After all, Noah built an ark. Science and Faith have to work together, we have to work with what God gives us.