by Jason WildeThis is the third in a series on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. As a kid, my favorite season of the year was just after those first few waves of Blue Northerners had blown through West Texas, causing the trees to decide to pack it in and drop their leaves for the year. It was a time when you could pile up all those leaves, now crispy and loud, and jump into the piles without fear of feeling the hard ground underneath. And after we had swept those leaves back, my dog and I would spend hours under the pecan trees, cracking shells open and enjoying a little snack (the dogs especially loved these!) The cotton bolls opened, giving an abrupt signal of snowy white fields that told us that the long, hot days of summer were over and the busy harvesting season was now in full force. © Derek Ramsey / derekramsey.com / Used with permission But if I could wrap up this time of year in just one image, it was this one week at the peak of the eastern monarch butterfly migration. I'd spend nearly every evening of this magical week walking around outside my house, watching the shimmering replacements for the leaves on our giant pecan trees, each one doing its own little independent thing - most just resting for a few hours during their long, 3000 mile journey, but others slowly waving their wings, as if stretching like a marathoner taking a water break in the middle of a race, and a few twitting back and forth playfully, trying to find that perfect resting spot for the night.
More often than not, this mischievous 10 year old boy would quickly get bored of just watching and then throw a nice hefty stick as high as I could into a pecan tree, hoping that it would strike as many branches as possible on its return to the ground. These little shock waves would travel and amplify through the smallest twigs, causing an orange and black cloud explosion of disturbed Monarchs that would keep me entertained for hours as they decided that one tree was a little too exciting and I'd have to go find another stick to throw in another pecan tree. I was reminded of those weeks again today when my kids noticed a lone monarch fluttering across our backyard. Even when I was in high school, the large clouds of orange had become quite rare, and these days, we get excited to even see a single monarch butterfly. This is a story I tell my kids that makes me feel old, like when I read about the days of the passenger pigeon. But, thankfully we had early warning signs of the decreasing population, and in very recent years, the population appears to be stabilizing. But, the golden monarchs are not out of harm's way by any means. Population counts are dangerously close to a tipping point where they will find it increasingly hard to reproduce and protect themselves in lonely packs instead of massive clouds. And while we know at least one major reason for the decline - the eradication of milkweed in the vast acreage of farmland in our country - it has been hard to replace what was once a thriving bounty of food for this butterfly. Economics alone do not allow non-productive species of plants to grow where a profitable plant could grow, much less a weed that is poisonous to all but the monarch butterfly. But the majesty of God's Creation is so connected that the loss of even a single species often causes unexpected catastrophes across the entire local ecosystem. We know this from examples in very competitive systems like the Amazon. Even if the Monarch is relatively unconnected due to its unique diet, it is a canary for other major changes that would result in its extinction. More importantly, the loss of even a single creature is a failure to protect the Creation that God entrusted to Man, "to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15, Laudato Si', 66). "'Keeping' means caring, protecting, overseeing and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature...to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations." (Laudato Si', 67) Just as it is our responsibility to protect the dignity of human life, even if it doesn't always make economic sense, the same is true for Creation. It is a world that we have inherited, and so it is our obligation to use all possible resources sacrificially - economic, labor, and capital - to ensure that it is made available to our future generations. This is an act of social justice for our children and our children's children. We also have to ensure that we do not become passive and indifferent to the risks posed to Creation by our modern world. Every day, new technologies and products are created, each of which promises to improve our life on Earth, but also can negatively threaten animals, plants, and marine life almost without notice. This is exactly what happened when genetically modified, herbicide-resistant crops were developed and planted in the late 90's. They allowed farmers to increase yield and decrease the amount of work required to cultivate, but they also resulted in the decimation of the milkweed - the primary food of the monarch butterfly. Few could have known the downstream impacts of this new technology, and so it is not in any way helpful to place blame. But, we must use these kinds of historical examples to learn from our mistakes and think more critically about technologies and actions we take for granted which can impact more than our own simple lives. Everything must not only incur engineering costs, but also environmental assessment costs. "It should be part of the process from the beginning, and be carried out in a way which is interdisciplinary, transparent and free of all economic or political pressure." (LS, 183) - this is the debt we must pay to the Creator for our conveniences and for the privilege of being his stewards. Concurrently, we have to ensure that protections such as wildlife refuges, hunting restrictions, and protected lands which have successfully saved more popular species from extinction are not eliminated in a lapse of memory. Finally, on an individual level, we must be aware of each personal act that we take out of convenience and learn how it can affect our Common Home. All of this is a part of a change in our way of thinking about only ourselves and our human race - an "ecological conversion" (LS 5, quoting St. John Paul II, 17 January 2001). I invite you today to remember the creatures that may have been a part of your childhood that are rarities today - the horned toad, the bumblebee, the monarch, or another, and pray for their population, work for their protection, and care for their home, our Common Home.
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On a MissionTwo passionate parents and their four children are excited to bring His Word to everyone in need while living a life of Gospel poverty as missionaries. They invite you to join them on a journey to encounter our global neighbors that Jesus commands us to love through works of charity and service. Archives
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