Theologian on churches' responsibility for environmental damage

Mark Colvin reported this story on Monday, October 4, 2010 18:32:00

MARK COLVIN: Christianity and all the major religious faiths have devalued and abused the natural world.

That's the message of a new book by the former Catholic priest and broadcaster Paul Collins.

Judgement Day says Christianity has been a major part of the planet's ecological problems but argues that it can also be art of the solution.

I asked Paul Collins to what extent Christianity had been responsible for the many species extinctions of the last few centuries.

PAUL COLLINS: No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that the… I've heard various people claim that but no, I don't think so. I think that if you look for instance at the extinction of animals in Europe, most of that has come from hunting. Much of it has come from so-called sport. The- much of it has come from - and here perhaps you could perhaps blame the churches - and that is clearing of landscapes.

You know, Europe for instance. Well, just take the Po Valley. The Po Plain in Italy in the 10th Century, for instance, was completely forested. If you fly over it now you'd be lucky to see a single tree.

So yes, it's true that landscapes have been cleared - cleared by monks, cleared by monasteries - in order to if you like cultivate and civilise the world - so-called civilise the world. But again they're sins of omission rather than commission.

MARK COLVIN: But should the churches have been standing up to try and protect those species?

PAUL COLLINS: Well perhaps they should have. Perhaps, perhaps. But there was none of… I mean, I get kind of a bit uptight with this notion that somehow or other people in the past should have had environmental awareness. Environmental awareness is- it's a very modern reality.

MARK COLVIN: But look at the 19th century in America, for instance. You've got the bison or the passenger pigeon. Let's talk about the passenger pigeon. There were millions and millions and millions of them in the middle of the 19th century…

PAUL COLLINS: Probably billions, actually. Yes.

MARK COLVIN: And by the end of the 19th century there were none. Should the church not have tried to do something about that?

PAUL COLLINS: Well perhaps it should have. But I'm a historian by training and yes, perhaps the church should have done. Perhaps it should have drawn on its theology of Creation. The problem with both Christian- with Christianity generally, with Protestantism and Catholicism - the problem was that in that period the emphasis was very much on human kind.

You've got to remember that this was a period when human population was growing inexorably. I mean, the take-off human population begins in the, if you like, in the late 18th century. It's been increasingly before that but… And so the kind of emphasis is very much on the social.

If you for instance look in the 19th Century you'll find a very social doctrine. For instance, within Catholicism, you'll find it within Methodism, within the Protestant tradition. So the churches I think were- had become, if you like, myopically focused on the human.

MARK COLVIN: You've already mentioned population. I was coming to that. Isn't the Church now in the same position on population that it was with the extinctions of the 19th Century?

PAUL COLLINS: Well certainly the official Church, if we're talking about Catholicism specifically. You'd certainly have to exclude the Protestant churches from the because the Lambeth conference, for instance, of the Church of England back in the 50s gave people- gave Anglicans the choice of whatever form of contraception was aesthetically pleasing to them. So that the Protestant churches certainly don't have to cop this.

Catholicism gets it in the neck for the simple reason that its teaching on contraception has created real problems here. What is interesting though that there is always - and I think you can show this from Australian history - a disconnect between what is if you like preached from the pulpit and what is in fact acted out in peoples ordinary lives - especially in areas that concern family and fertility.

It's very interesting that if you look back from when we have reliable statistics in the late 19th Century in Australia, Catholic fertility was exactly the same - just a shade, about half a per cent higher than the general fertility of all of the colonies put together.

MARK COLVIN: Are you saying that there are a lot of priests in say Latin America who are turning a blind eye to the doctrine?

PAUL COLLINS: Yes, of course there are. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I as a priest- my complaints about contraception were certainly not part of my leaving the priesthood. That was, if you like, a row with the Vatican and myself over the doctri- over the doctrinal teaching authority of the Papacy. The reality…

MARK COLVIN: But for a parishioner it's a bit of a lottery, isn't it? You might get a priest who turns a blind eye or you might get a black letter lawyer.

PAUL COLLINS: Yes but you're assuming that Catholics take notice of that. I mean Catholic fertility…

MARK COLVIN: Well, clearly the fertility rates in South America - in Latin America - are still pretty high, aren't they?

PAUL COLLINS: Yes, they are.

MARK COLVIN: That would indicate that they are taking some notice.

PAUL COLLINS: They are. Well I mean, I think the question you have to ask….

Well look, this is, in a way an argument I don't want to have. I mean, I'm prepared to grant a technical knockout, if you like. I'm not supporting the Church's teaching on contraception because I see population as the greatest environmental problem that we're facing and I'm one of the few Catholics who is prepared to say that.

But at the same time, just as I'm not prepared to cop it sweet from someone like Geoffrey Robinson or Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens on religion, I am prepared to stand up and-and counter what I consider to be factually incorrect attacks on the Catholic Church.

I cop it sweet where we are responsible and yes I really, in the end, don't want to deny that the point that you're making does have cogency but at the same time I don't think that we can blame religion for the whole of that problem.

I think that much of that… You immediately refer to say, Latin America, in which you're talking about a highly patriarchal society. You're talking about a kind of a society that reflects those kind of values where women - who control the issue of fertility- where women are liberated and educated then women make decisions about these things. I mean…

MARK COLVIN: But the Church can have very strong moral force.

PAUL COLLINS: Oh there's no doubt about that. No doubt about it. And the reality is that many priests, many members of religious orders, down at the base level are doing that.

MARK COLVIN: You have a lot of…

PAUL COLLINS: They are calling for responsible fertility.

MARK COLVIN: Paul Collins, author of Judgement Day, the Struggle for Life on Earth.
And if you have a spare quarter of an hour, you can hear a longer version of that interview, ranging across Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, as well as Christianity, on our website from this evening.