Don’t blame climate change on God – priest

TACLOBAN CITY – Blaming God for climate change is wrong,” said Fr. Oscar Lorenzo of the Archdiocese of Palo in his homily at the Sto. Niño Church today. Whatever is happening to Mother Nature now is a repercussion of the activities of man,” he reiterated.Lorenzo said a person who thinks God allows” environmental upheavals should rather admit that the climate change actually started with himself.Stuff of folkloreLorenzo cited folklore that circulates until today that describes how deep floods came when the image of the Sto. Niño was stolen.The people cried that God was punishing them for the loss of an image.”The flood subsided when the image of a then First Lady of the country was later stolen.According to Lorenzo, this mentality is not just eccentric but baseless because the real reason for the natural calamity was not God but man’s wrong habits.Illegal logging, mining, and massive gas emissions are among the destructive activities of man that ravage Mother Earth.He stressed that God has nothing to with such natural calamities, the real culprit rather is climate change.The cleric made this in the light of global leaders’ on-going effort to draft a framework to mitigate the effects of climate change and further address environmentally damaging factors.Lifestyle changeHe exhorted the people that, as the Catholic faithful enter the Advent season, they should adopt care for environment as a lifestyle.Lorenzo also pointed out that the frequency of unusually destructive calamities may not yet be what the Bible describes as the end of times.”According to the priest, it is possible that man’s destructive ways could be hastening the occurrence of these signs” by destroying Mother Earth.During Advent, he called on the faithful to be more concerned with the environment as they await the coming of Christ.Close to 150 global leaders are expected to converge in Paris, France for the UN climate change summit which aims to reach a landmark deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions.Leaders of the United States, China, and India, countries tagged as the top-three carbon-emitters in the world, are the expected to be present at the opening of the two-week event.(Eileen Nazareno-Ballesteros / CBCP News)