{"id":22569,"date":"2017-04-21T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T19:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=22569"},"modified":"2017-04-21T14:50:26","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T19:50:26","slug":"catholic-tree-hugger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2017\/04\/catholic-tree-hugger.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Be a Catholic Tree Hugger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"11010053294_e3f2121a75_o\"The Holy Father Pope Francis exhorted us all to be better stewards of the earth\u2019s resources, and that is not only good Catholicism. Its good common sense.<\/p>\n

However, has anybody else noticed how Catholics who are keen on Earth Day seem to be taking their cues not from our Catholic tradition\u2013which has a pretty good record for encouraging good stewardship of the earth\u2019s resources\u2013but taking the lead from the secular environmental movement.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m not down on environmentalism per se. I do suspect, however that the environmentalist movement is heavily infiltrated\u2013if not funded completely\u2013by powers with a globalist agenda. Furthermore, much of the environmental movement looks to New Age spirituality rather than anything Christian. Sniff around the environmental movement\u2019s spirituality fringe and you\u2019ll find Gaia the name for the Mother Earth Goddess, loopy types of feminism and various other \u201cearth magic\u201d hokum.<\/p>\n

Then we have the problem where conservative Catholics see all the New Age, globalist stuff and back off completely saying for Earth Day they\u2019re going to turn on all the lights, drive their cars more and use spray cans and cut down a tree. Sure, they\u2019re just joking but why not have the final joke and do Earth Day in a truly Catholic way?<\/p>\n

Its okay to be a little bit of a tree hugging hippie.<\/p>\n

Here are some suggestions:<\/p>\n