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Challenging the Earth Charter
Two correspondents have challenged us for presenting the Earth Charter on our website. The more extensive comment came from Bill Jacobs of Wading River NY. The Earth Charter, he said, fails to recognize the sovereignty of God and respect for life and for the human person. It must be rejected because of its “underlying principles of atheistic and secular humanism, pantheism, neo-paganism, and other beliefs that are in conflict with Christianity.” This new global ethic, he added, "is designed to supplant the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to replace the Ten Commandments… with a new ‘Sixteen Principles’.” In his view, “the charter is part of a larger agenda to establish a centralized, socialist global super-government.” Mr. Jacobs directs the website of THE CATHOLIC CONSERVATION CENTER in Wading River, NY which presents much more criticism of the Earth Charter.
It is mere surmise that the Earth Charter is “designed to supplant the Gospel” or is part of a plan to “establish a centralized, socialist global super-government.” It is true, however, that it does not explicitly refer to the Old or New Testaments. Must Catholics therefore reject the Earth Charter? Some light is shed on this question, we think, by the teaching of Vatican II. In its decree on missionary activity, the Council said Catholics must be present even to those who sometimes attack the idea that God exists, and “uncover with gladness and respect those seeds of the Word which lie hidden among them.” Even more powerfully, "LUMEN GENTIUM"-
THE DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH says God does not “deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those who, without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, and who, not without grace, strive to lead a good life. Whatever good or truth is found among them is considered by the Church to be a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may have length of life.”
In our view, therefore, Catholics can and should welcome “whatever good or truth” is to be found in the Earth Charter. We present the Charter along with the statement on the environment by Canadian
Bishops. Regarding current abuses of the environment and our responsibilities as stewards of the earth’s resources and life systems, the two texts seem to us to be in full agreement.
Bernard Daly
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