From Catholic Guilt to Climate Guilt
Moving past the collective angst with better transport choices.
The Vatican was concerned over neo-paganism.
I remember that back in 2010, following the release of the motion picture Avatar, Vatican Radio reviewed Avatar, stating the film “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.”
At the time, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the need to protect the environment but warned against “neo-paganism” and the danger of turning nature into a “new divinity.”
Avatar went on to earn more than $2.79 billion at the box office worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of all time, beating Cameron’s previous record with Titanic.
The Vatican Press concluded, “Ecology is here to stay, and possibly will become the religion of the 21st century.”
Climate as a common good.
Five years later, these words reverberated within the Vatican and coaxed Pope Francis to issue one of the most solid and most important documents in the times of the climate change emergency.
In his 2015 social encyclical on the environment and human ecology, “Laudato Si’, Care of Our Common Home,” Pope…
