Can driving greener get you into heaven? Vatican says sure
The first hints that low-mpg cars were sinful in the eyes of the Catholic Church came last fall, when a spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that the Pope would use an April 2008 address to the UN as a way to speak to the moral implications of living a greener life. Today, the Vatican has gone a bit further and told its followers that polluting the earth should be considered a "new" sin.
Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, whom Reuters describes as "the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance," said over the weekend that pollution ranks up there with human cloning and other genetic manipulation as barriers to heaven. There have got to be about ten thousand great editorial cartoons generated by his statement.
As we know, the Vatican became the first country to fully offset CO2 emissions last summer by installing photovoltaic cells and buying carbon offset credits. If I had centuries' worth of booty stored in my basement, I could probably afford all those PVs as well.
[Source: Reuters / Yahoo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
psarhjinian 12:08PM (3/10/2008)
Well, I suppose you could make a case for it being a derivative of Gluttony or Avarice. I don't think it's going to keep you out of heaven, though the whole penance vs. grace vs. predestination thing is a nasty theological argument that's been going on for six or seven hundred years, if not longer.
Still, it's better that the "Man is given dominion over the earth and all creatures therein" diatribe that some people use as justification for irreponsibility (ie, if God didn't want me to pollute/murder/exploit/etc, He'd stop me).
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A.Brien 1:04PM (3/10/2008)
I consider that what im writing here on this site
are prayers that will bring on the market cars and trucks power by water electrolysis. Water proponents are like the first christians that were eated by lions in rome. There is pure and free energy in water if we separate the stuff( water molecule ). It is written in the bible that mosus
separated the water in 2, it was not understood very well at that time because there was no internet with films and diagramms and there were
no cars too..
This battle abouth free energy resume the last 3000-4000 years of human history. Scientists, engineers, politicians, journalists, car makers, business peoples are too afraid abouth their jobs
to look this phenomena and decide something abouth it. It will end dark age and pave the way to a recovery of lost paradise and nobody except jesus is strong enough to provoke it. Only believers have tempted and succeed to build some water electrolysers and use it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD6We_WhfEA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klDlEVkZh0A&feature=related
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zaedrus 1:08PM (3/10/2008)
This is interesting because in every discussion of 'green' there seem to be variations of 'greenness.'
Carry this into the discussion of pollution, and you realize that everyone does to some degree, whether directly or indirectly, no matter how vigilant.
So does my ticket to heaven ride on current CAFE standards, or is God more hardcore?
I endorse the idea of stewardship toward the environment, and wish it was that black and white.
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Rick 7:35PM (3/10/2008)
Wow, to avoid flame wars I won't even comment on this article and it's rediculous nature.
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Hank 3:05PM (3/10/2008)
My car gets better mileage than the Popemobile. I must be a Saint.
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Wildgoosechase 3:02PM (3/10/2008)
I thought all environmentalists were Atheists?
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Radlib 4:33PM (3/10/2008)
Heh-heh, heh, heh. He said "booty".
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Furion 3:57AM (3/11/2008)
Isn't pope driven around in an SUV? Does that answer "What would Jesus drive?"
You can pollute/sin, if you just remember to buy your carbon offsets/indulgences..
Let the Hummers roll..
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