God is Green
by John Pratt [0]

Last night the ABC’s Compass program ran a documentary called God is Green [1]. The program summary states:

Can faith pull us back from the brink? Award-winning documentary maker and former Dominican Friar Mark Dowd takes a challenging and somewhat humorous approach to the urgent issue of our time. He asks if carbon use is the new sex, i.e. a ‘sin’ in today’s world. He confronts religious leaders in Britain, successfully challenging the Bishop of London to give up flying for a year. He travels to the USA where he explores huge rifts among American evangelicals on the subject of climate change, and in a surprise revelation meets eco-Muslims who unveil the potentially green themes embedded in the Koran. Dowd also travels to Rome to ask what the Pope's right hand man on green issues is doing to shrink the Vatican's carbon footprint.

It was an excellent program which highlighted the lack of spiritual leadership coming from the mainstream religions on Climate Change.

It is interesting that the Catholic Bishop of London was willing to sign a pledge to give up air travel for 12 months, while at the same time his church was encouraging pilgrims to travel [2]:

ROME — While some passengers only turn to prayer when jolted by turbulence, the Vatican made it standard on Monday by launching the world's first airline for Catholic pilgrims.

Complete with Vatican logos on headrests and air hostesses' uniforms, the inaugural flight traveled from Rome's Fiumicino airport for the shrine of Lourdes in France.

The charter flight's slogan spoke volumes about what its clients are doing above the clouds: "I'm Searching for Your Face, Lord."

"It is a spiritual journey," explained Francesco Gherra, one of the pilgrims who boarded Monday's inaugural flight hosted by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the former head of Italy's bishops.

The Vatican aims to serve 150,000 pilgrims a year on its chartered Boeing 737, run by Italy's Mistral Air.

Destinations range from the shrine of Fatima in Portugal to Mount Sinai in Egypt, where Moses is said to have received the 10 Commandments from God.

It seems we are getting mixed messages from the world’s religious leaders. The leaders seem to be only now becoming aware of the moral dilemma the world now faces because of climate change.

The world is crying out for spiritual leadership the religions founded thousands of years ago do not provide spiritual leadership for a modern world.

Surely God is Green and all religious leaders should be setting examples of how we should live in this modern world – leading from the front not try to catch up with their flock.