(images: “Bishop pulling the plug” from Inquirer.net, ”Laudato Si” from ICN, indicatholicnews.com, “Philippines” from Shutterstock.com)
And, as far as I know, I am the only journalist in the world who has called for the complete cessation of Chemical Agriculture and institutional initiation of Organic Agriculture by my country. Actually, I did that almost 6 years ago yet! (Read my essay, “BIAG Economics: Brand-New Intellectualization of Agriculture,” 14 April 2016, Primate Change, Blogspot.com.
The Bishops are not talking about the Science of Climate Change – rather, they are talking about the Conscienceof Climate Change.
Just last week… the plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) adopted a stance that would surely prove controversial and perhaps even put in peril the Church’s financial security. The bishops, headed by CBCP President Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, decided that henceforth local churches would no longer accept donations from enterprises that are “destructive” to the environment, such as fossil fuel production, mining, and logging. The CBCP statement also urged Church organizations to withdraw, “not later than 2025,” Church resources from banks and other financial institutions (that are) “without clear commitments... to divest from fossil fuels.”
Catholics making History!
The policy adopted by the CBCP, the bishops said, was in line with a 2019 pastoral letter encouraging divestment from industries destructive of the environment, and with Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’, Mi’ Signore” (Praise Be To You, My Lord), which called on the faithful to “Care for Our Common Home.”
My recommendation as a Catholic is less directly combative but as effective, if not more so: For farmers to stop causing the generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides they apply on crops season after season!
Go whole-hog organic!
My organic fertilizer comes from what I call the process of weeds-enriched agriculture layup (WEAL) – how to do WEAL, see my essay, “For A Happier & Healthier Habitat Philippines! Triple A For Agriculture,” For A (Happier) Philippines! Blogspot.com. Unbelievably negligible cost!
In Sunday sermons, the CBCP should demand that priests relate to the conscience of Catholics the science of chemical agriculture because the hand-tossing of chemical fertilizers and hand-spraying of chemical pesticides are very personal – let the conscience bother the Catholic! The left hand knows what the right hand does!
Further, my advice to the CBCP is “to clear the conscience of Catholic farmers guilty of producing GHGs in their farms” by urging them every Sunday to shift 100% to organic fertilizers and organic pesticides – zero GHGs!
This tiny country in Southeast Asia will then show the big wide world how to defeat climate change and simultaneously solve farmer poverty as well as supply society with healthy foods!@517
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