Thoughts About the Mass for Care of Creation
The Vatican, on July 3, approved a new votive Mass “for care of creation” which Pope Leo XIV celebrated for the first time on July 9. A follow-on from the Francis pontificate promulgated to mark the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’, the new votive Mass has elicited a variety of contradictory responses. I’ll weigh in: I think it is balanced in the middle, and in medio stat virtus. It’s in the middle because it avoids two extremes: the Scylla of secular environmentalism and the Charybdis of disregard for the inherent good of the temporal world. Let’s examine both.
Secular Environmentalism
Vatican sources said the new text was a response to Laudato Si’s call to recognize human life is “grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself” (66). That insight is biblically grounded. It is part of what I call our “Genesis heritage,” the common Jewish-Christian patrimony about seeing the world that comes from the first book of the Bible.
That book also teaches that those relationships are warped by sin. Man hides from God (Genesis 3:8). With only two people in the world, one already blames the other (3:12). The postlapsarian resistance of nature—even one’s body—is already announced by God (3:16-19).
Genesis also teaches a truth we cannot lose sight of: man
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
