Letters to the Editor: September 2025

Love Where There Is No Love

William Goodman’s account of his prosecution and imprisonment for pro-life rescue efforts in his interview with Bernadette Patel (“Prisoner of Love,” June) was familiar. I followed his trial, and those of his fellow rescuers, with intense interest. I admire his witness and am troubled by the government’s action.

Pro-life rescue requires courage and determination. Mr. Goodman exemplified Jesus’ call to “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Mt. 5:6), and he made heroic sacrifices to do so. Not everyone is called to his measure of action or public witness, but Christians are called to recognize injustice and show solidarity with the oppressed. Abortion is the pre-eminent example of injustice in America, of which there are many manifestations.

Goodman’s observations about the zeal of the U.S. Department of Justice to secure convictions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act exposes efforts at the highest level of the federal government not merely to rebuke and punish people but also to intimidate others of like mind. Moreover, the action of the DOJ arguably served as a propaganda effort, implying that the legal judgment against Goodman and his companions should be perceived as vindication for the abortion agenda.

Accepting the reality that neither the U.S. government nor its political system operates from a Christian worldview is an essential first step in fostering change. Whether that realization is followed by engagement in civil disobedience, public demonstration, political activism, or other respectable action, it should begin with prayer and be conducted with humility, following William Goodman’s lead.

Peter Sonski

Higganum, Connecticut

I have had the blessing of knowing William Goodman for over two decades as a dear friend and an example of someone earnestly seeking to follow Christ and bring His light and love into the world. Will has learned from, and loves, the One who has shown us “no greater love,” and time and again I have witnessed him laying down his life, little by little, for this Friend and for many who would otherwise be friendless. He has taken to heart the wise counsel of St. John of the Cross, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.”

In the summer of 2002, while hundreds of thousands of pilgrims like myself and my teenage brother were delighting in the World Youth Day joy that permeated Toronto, Will gathered a couple young men to “watch and pray” at a downtown killing place. Their decision to depart from the joyful crowds and to “put love where there is no love” resulted in at least one child being spared from death that day. A few years later, Will, who has lived on Divine Providence for as long as I have known him, received a settlement for an assault against him while peacefully intervening at an American killing place. Having kept in contact with the child’s mother, who was struggling financially, he gave it to her to support her child.

The peaceful presence of Christians, especially men, at killing places is often misunderstood, even by fellow Christians and pro-life advocates. Will’s conviction that men have a duty to protect women and children from the imminent violence of abortion has led him to become an object of hatred, derision, and violence, yet he remains committed to standing in the gap at these places where there is no love. He knows in the depths of his soul that, no matter how small, hidden, or forgotten, no matter the “distressing disguise” (to quote one of his favorite saints), each human being is worth fighting, living, and even dying for, because He has loved us in this way first.

Mary Wagner

Ladysmith, British Columbia

Canada

My brother once told me he wished people’s true characters were reflected in their names, like those in John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress: Christian, Great-heart, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Pliable, and so on. I told him I know at least one: Mr. Goodman!

I believe it will take more men of courage and compassion like William Goodman to end the abortion holocaust in America. He was tried and convicted for being part of a violent conspiracy, though none of his actions or intentions were violent, and his sole purpose was to stop violence.

During Goodman’s incarceration, I was able to communicate with him. He was a great encouragement to me and my family as we faced similar charges, trials, and convictions. Here are two excerpts from emails he sent while he was in federal prison:

•  “As you know, I really wish I could have been present at your TN & MI trials. But the Lord permitted me the honor of being able to lift you up in prayer & offer my support from here in prison, as well as recruit our Bible study to pray for your cases. The guys continue to pray for you all. ‘Worthy is the Lamb!’”
•  “I believe it is a great grace that God has allowed me to see the evil in our midst & has called me to rescue the innocent. To be honest, I am not worthy of this calling. But Christ is the one working the good.”

William Goodman’s consistency and conviction have greatly inspired me.

Eva Zastrow

Dover, Arkansas

Bernadette Patel’s interview with William Goodman, who was unjustly imprisoned for defending the unborn, provided validation of the conditions I witness as a prisoner of the American administrative state.

I watched President Trump sign the pardons for the “J6ers” who were incarcerated with me, and then I watched them being escorted off the compound within 30 minutes of that signing. For an organization that can’t get prisoners to dinner on time, that was amazing. Perhaps Trump recognizes how bad the American judicial system is and will continue his reform of corrupt agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and give deserving individuals a second chance.

Mr. Goodman made excellent points about the overly punitive sentences given to nonviolent offenders. It’s a fair statement that most criminals have pre-existing mental-health or addiction issues that led them to commit their crimes. Either way, each crime is rooted in one of the seven deadly sins, and a long sentence (at least for nonviolent offenders) will not change that on its own.

The BOP does little to incentivize anyone to do anything, and their claims to the contrary are nothing more than window dressing. The guards bring in drugs, tobacco, and cellphones, while enjoying treating prisoners like chattel. Meanwhile, federal prisoners can serve their sentences anyway they like — by sleeping in, getting high, watching sports on TV, and eating cookies all day. All this with three hot meals a day — and all at taxpayers’ expense. Nevertheless, some prisoners do get into programs and make a solid effort at rehabilitation.

One point I would add to Goodman’s list of needed prison reforms is that short sentences should be the norm, to prevent offenders from becoming acclimated to prisons, gangs, and the abuses of life behind bars. Another is that society would be better served by sending nonviolent offenders to rehabilitative programs in a college-like setting, instead of to facilities that resemble the old Spandau Prison in Berlin.

Advocating for a reform of the wasteful U.S. prison system and sentencing scheme would go a long way toward making society safer and purging the wasteful glut within the BOP. Yes, there are many who belong in prison for a long time, but when I met a fellow inmate serving a six-month sentence for driving with a suspended license on federal property, it was obvious this system is broken. This man is 70 years old with serious heart problems and is someone’s grandfather.

Keeping the judicial system fair is everyone’s concern, because anyone could wind up here at any time for any of the thousands of laws under Title 18 of the United States Code. This is a system that does not discriminate. Agents will ram down your door, put you in restraints, beat you if you show resistance, and hand down a crippling sentence that your overworked attorney can’t defend against. After that, you’ll be put in a facility with violent criminals and noncitizens, despite your having been convicted of a nonviolent offense.

Trump has shown promise with reforming the DOJ, but true reform starts in the hearts and souls of us all, and that reform starts at the foot of the altar, with the words Introibo ad altare Dei.

Jon P. Frey

Federal Correctional Institution Fort Dix

Fort Dix, New Jersey

A Failure of Formation of Fad-Followers

In response to Pieter Vree’s question How did we get here? regarding the explosion in popularity and profitability of so-called gender-affirming care for minors (“Transitioning Back to Sanity,” New Oxford Notebook, April), I have some observations. It seems certain behaviors are really just fads. Remember the cult fad? Parents had to rescue their children and have them “deprogrammed” because they became so entranced by a cult leader. Then there was the fad of eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. Some carried it so far that they actually died from starvation. Now we have the fad of transgenderism.

These passing phases seem to affect white, middle-class, adolescent girls the most. This cohort has been given no direction, no aim, and no purpose in life — except improving their appearance.

The fad-followers need help. They need the words of St. John Henry Newman: “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another…. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work…. I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.”

Clara Sarrocco

Glendale, New York

Does He Have Better Evidence?

God bless Robert James Stove for his service as an organist (“The Strange Death of Australian Catholicism,” June). Liturgical music accompanied by an organ is as close to celestial choirs as we will obtain on this earth. But I disagree with his assertion; Australian Catholicism is not completely dead. It has a rockstar in terms of evangelization in Matthew Kelly, whose work is impressive and relevant, among the best. I also understand that my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame (BA, 1982; JD, 1985), set up a school there a few years back. Granted, Notre Dame might not help my position, but what the heck!

Mr. Stove states that George Cardinal Pell “may have abused boys in the Victorian city of Ballarat during the 1970s.” What is his evidence to support this assertion? To suggest as much without clear evidence is called libel in the legal world. My own view is Cardinal Pell suffered enough, and only with really solid evidence should such a suggestion be made. And even if true, did that really contribute to the alleged decline of the faith in Australia?

Stove mentions Pope Paul VI’s “excruciating weakness against Kremlin pressures,” which may have led to the Pope’s having a “blackmailable private life.” Yikes! Does Stove have better evidence than the Vatican, which declared Paul VI a saint?

Finally, Stove takes a shot over the bow at Pope St. John Paul II’s “blind trust in the loathsome pervert Marcial Maciel.” I know something about Maciel, having been a Legionary of Christ for some three and a half years (1974-1978). The rector during my novitiate was John Vaca, one of the original nine who brought a case against Maciel. It took over 20 years for that case to be resolved, and only under the direction of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who instructed now-bishop Charles Scicluna that every case needed to come to a conclusion. Maciel was a world-class actor and very conflicted person (including in the sacristy, where I saw him preparing for Holy Mass); he makes Bill Clinton look like an amateur. I defended Maciel for some 20 years — until the CDF rendered its finding.

So, here’s to Catholicism in every nation, where the faith struggles with human nature in all its fallen, divine glory. Give Australia a little latitude, as they say in Stove’s nautical-loving country!

John A. Roda, Esq.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

A Pick-&-Choose Approach to the Papacy

Kudos to Pieter Vree for his superb and balanced analysis of Francis’s pontificate (“Farewell, Francis. Hello, Leo XIV,” New Oxford Notebook, June). Francis’s leadership style was indeed confounding and confusing. Hence, he repeatedly disappointed observers, and Americans in particular, who sought to label him as left-wing or right-wing, liberal or conservative, radical or reactionary. These secular political categories just didn’t fit!

The foregoing can also be said of Francis’s arguably more articulate predecessors, Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II, whose teachings also defy easy political categorization. A more fruitful way to make sense of the legacies of all three popes is to recognize that they were simply imperfect men who struggled — sometimes successfully, sometimes not — to convey the Gospel message to the faithful. Each brought a distinctive quality to his ministry. For Francis I believe it was empathy, for Benedict wisdom, and for John Paul courage.

Looking forward, we should see a comparable quality in Leo XIV’s stewardship of the Church. In doing this, we can stave off the mentality that leads some American Catholics to treat the papacy as a political smorgasbord from which we can choose the popes we like and reject the ones we don’t. After all, this pick-and-choose approach to the papacy isn’t orthodox Catholicism. It’s the hallmark of Protestantism!

A. James McAdams, William M. Scholl Professor of International Affairs Emeritus

University of Notre Dame

South Bend, Indiana

I departed my cradle faith of Catholicism for 20 years in favor of evangelical fundamentalism, which is very anti-Catholic. This journey started in 1987 when I was in college and ended in 2008 when I returned to the Church. The reason for my departure was simple. I was a very devout Catholic, but I didn’t know the reason why we believe what we believe. I attended public, not parochial, schools, and my catechism classes were not informative.

Pieter Vree mentions the high percentages of U.S. Catholics who don’t agree with the Church’s teachings on birth control, in vitro fertilization, married priests, women deacons, and the ordination of women as priests. I shudder to know the percentage of those who don’t believe in transubstantiation, the absolute foundation of the Mass. But none of this is the fault of these (likely uneducated) sheep. The blame lies with their parish and diocesan shepherds. There is a wealth of arguments against these non-Catholic positions, but I don’t see discussions of them except in publications like the NOR and the National Catholic Register or on EWTN. When will American dioceses quit ignoring the problem, take initiative, and combat these awful statistics? A little sensitive and truthful teaching would go a long way.

P.S. I totally enjoy and appreciate your continuing my scholarship subscription!

Chris J. Sommer

Federal Correctional Institution Forrest City Low

Forrest City, Arkansas

PIETER VREE REPLIES:

Chris J. Sommer “shudders to know” the percentage of Catholics who don’t believe in transubstantiation. He might not want to read the following.

In 2019 the Pew Research Center released the findings of an eye-opening survey about this very subject. It found that a mere one-third of U.S. Catholics (31 percent) believe that “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus” — otherwise known as transubstantiation. The flipside is that more than two-thirds (69 percent) believe the bread and wine “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

More troubling — and a confirmation of Mr. Sommer’s speculation about “likely uneducated sheep” — was that in addition to asking what they believe about the Eucharist, Pew asked Catholics whether they know what the Church teaches about transubstantiation. Of those who believe the bread and wine are symbolic, most do not know that the Church teaches that transubstantiation occurs during consecration. Overall, 43 percent of Catholics believe the bread and wine are symbolic and that this is the position of the Church. One in five Catholics (22 percent) rejects transubstantiation, even though they know that this is the Church’s teaching.

So, yes, what we have here is mostly a failure to communicate Catholic teaching, and only partially a willful rejection of that teaching. And yes, as Sommer indicates, it is the role of the bishop to impart this and other teachings of the Church to his flock. In fact, you could say it’s in his job description. As it says in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying, and governing in his name and by his power” (no. 873; italics added).

I will say this for the bishops: they are trying. A three-year National Eucharistic Revival concluded this summer with a month-long pilgrimage from Indianapolis to Los Angeles and Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi (June 22). Organizers estimate that 250,000 people participated in pilgrimage events (my parish did), including in the miles-long eucharistic processions. The pilgrimage was preceded by a National Eucharistic Congress, held in July 2024 at the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium, attended by more than 50,000 people.

Congress organizers are considering holding the next National Eucharistic Revival in 2033, the Year of Redemption, marking the 2,000th anniversary of Our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection. Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, chairman of the National Eucharistic Congress, however, said that date might be too distant, and “maybe it should be something like the Olympics, every four years.” Given the “awful statistics” regarding Catholic belief in and understanding of the Church’s teachings on the Eucharist, holding these kinds of events more frequently seems to be the prudent path.

Will this initiative affect the percentage of Catholics who are ignorant about (or reject) Church teaching regarding transubstantiation? Who knows. But one thing is certain: Doing nothing would have zero impact.

Cultivating a New Class of Catholic Entrepreneurs

John M. Grondelski, in “That ‘Poor Church for the Poor’” (From the Narthex, June), explores how and why the Church is in the business of professional beggary. He critiques her reliance on public sentiment for donations and on American funding streams for her charity services, hospitals, and schools. That produces a biased system dependent on the shifting winds of politics, which recently resulted in ecclesial compliance with ultra-left liberalism.

Grondelski wants a Church that can support her own “schools, presses, media ministry, and public presence herself, without constantly running around with skullcap in hand.” He suggests that providing her own source of funding would induce vigilant prevention of “buggering priests and cover-up clerics” who have cost the Church billions in lawsuits and settlements. Losing donated or federal aid money is not as traumatic as losing your own hard-earned cash.

Grondelski quotes the Italian journalist Gaetano Masciullo, who calls for “a new class of Catholic entrepreneurs” who will “create an alternative economic ecosystem capable of supporting” the Church’s various endeavors. Grondelski writes that the “false imagery” of the early Church as “a gathering of proto-socialists,” coupled with a “quasi-Gnostic approach to the ‘evil’ of money and how it’s made,” continue to “handicap the Church from carrying out her mission.”

I have good news. Any well-heeled entrepreneur can generate a boatload of cash by learning to invest in big-cap, deep LEAPS, or Long-term Equity AnticiPation Securities, and then write quarterly call options in a tax-free Roth IRA. Professionals call them buy-write options, minimal-risk money trees. Robin Hood would have loved to have had a formidable band of option traders “to take from the rich and give to the poor.” It’s feasible and legal. If only the Church would shed her false imagery and go for it!

These gifted and talented men and women could trade from the comfort of their homes, vowing to donate all — or maybe as little as a ten percent tithe — of their profits every year. The Church could organize and expand this into an option-trading academy with free classes and annual conferences with honors for those devoted to this vital financial ministry.

Let it begin with NOR readers who want to know more and are willing to act.

Richard M. Dell’Orfano

San Marcos, California

JOHN M. GRONDELSKI REPLIES:

I don’t know much about the investment strategy Richard M. Dell’Orfano suggests, but he’s captured my point: The Church should be self-reliant, not relying on skullcap-in-hand handouts. In addition to all the good points he cites, I’ll add one more: A Church that learns to depend on her own money to carry out her mission would also be less susceptible to visions of socialist sugarplums dancing in her liberation-theology head because she would gain experience in what most Catholic parents (at least in the United States) have already learned: how to make one’s own living.

Discerning Tongues

Regarding the questions and thoughts Christopher Beiting raises in his reviews of the first and second volumes of Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination (April 2024 and May 2025, respectively): This series is aimed at academics and those with a genuine curiosity for knowledge. Modern biases, unreliable sources, and oversimplified explanations plague many books on this topic. These issues motivated me and my co-author, Philip E. Blosser, to create this series, which seeks to provide substantial information, accurate facts, and a thorough examination of the technical aspects involved.

Dr. Beiting notes that the reverse linear chronology is less effective in Volume 2. In hindsight, a chronology that starts from the early inception of the rite of tongues and continues to the present would have been a better approach.

Our references to the Greek or other source texts do not require readers to “take our word for it.” Readers can utilize the Gift of Tongues Project, found at charlesasullivan.com, to find further information to confirm or build an alternate framework. The Gift of Tongues Project contains digitized and searchable texts in their original language, and these sources often come with translations and analysis. It is the largest digital resource on the Internet regarding the Christian doctrine of tongues.

Beiting is correct that “Montanists, Jansenist Convolutionaries, Camisards, Ranters, Shakers, and so on, all of whom did feature prayer traditions involving unintelligible speech,” are not included in the book series. However, the Gift of Tongues Project provides the source texts and analysis for many of these. For example, the website has the following information:

•  The Camisard miracle did not involve ecstatic utterances but individuals who only knew the Occitan language. They allegedly were miraculously speaking/prophesying in French — a language they did not know.
•  The Jansenists and Convulsionists miraculously spoke in foreign languages, not in ecstatic utterances.
•  The Greek word for tongue (glossa/γλῶσσα) does not exist in any Montanist text. The Montanist description does not make any association with the Christian doctrine of tongues. It was something else.
•  Even though not mentioned in Beiting’s reviews, we must include the Delphic priestesses. They spoke in poetic meter, not in unconnected sounds, or glossolalia. There is no association with them by the Church or early authorities with the Christian doctrine of tongues.

On the other hand, the Ranters, Shakers, and many Holiness groups during this period are not found in the series or on the website. The strength of the Gift of Tongues Project is in Patristic literature, and coverage is less for later movements. The goal in tracing the doctrine of tongues in recent centuries is to find why there was a shift in definition, not to study Holiness or likeminded groups in detail.

Beiting’s question about the history of the Christian doctrine of glossolalia is critical for many readers. The coverage of glossolalia within the series and on the website is comprehensive and traces the beginning of this theory to the late 1700s.

The series and the website prefer to use the term “Christian doctrine of tongues,” instead of glossolalia or “speaking in tongues,” because it allows flexibility to trace the different perceptions and practices throughout the centuries without being forced to subscribe to one point of view.

This approach is about perceptions, not realities. The people and institutions throughout Christian history perceived the overwhelming majority of tongues events as xenolalia (the ability to speak a foreign language one has never previously spoken, studied, or heard), but the realities may have been different. There are three possible outcomes.

1. An individual miraculously spoke one or more foreign languages. As there are no recorded audio files or firsthand transcripts from these events, no one can verify them. We can only state that the description of the person or occasion was a perception of what happened.

2. The individual or group thought they were miraculously speaking foreign languages, but their overactive imagination to recreate Pentecost or Corinth in their own lives demonstrated otherwise. They were producing ecstatic utterances. This scenario was the case with the Irvingite revival in the late 1820s and Pentecostals who started with the perceived ability of xenolalia and later shifted to something that resembled glossolalia.

3. Or an event was a created myth with political motivations behind it, such as the battle between two French religious orders, l’abbaye Saint-Clément and l’abbaye Saint-Arnould, for superior authority. The Saint-Arnould group claimed their founder spoke in tongues, which supposedly gave them higher authority.

There are exceptions to these three possibilities, but this generally works. Most cases throughout history were likely the second option: People thought they were miraculously speaking a foreign language, but they were really just producing glossolalaic sounds.

The question arises: Can persons be miraculously endowed with the ability to speak one or more foreign languages today? The Lord could endow someone with this ability, but there are two problems. With everyone’s being exposed to different languages through various means almost daily, it is hard to separate a miracle of speech from natural subconscious prompts. There would be serious difficulty verifying this from an empirical perspective. Second, with the availability of artificial-intelligence and automatic-translation programs, it is unnecessary in most situations for this miracle to occur.

As a side note, Volume 3 of Speaking in Tongues, which focuses on the tongues of Corinth, and Volume 4, which is the wrap-up, are coming out this fall. These volumes will answer the many questions on Corinth absent in the previous volumes.

Charles A. Sullivan

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Canada

Missing the Point

In “Theosis: The Nexus of Ecology & Eschatology” (April), Louise Zwick cites Matthew 25:31-46 as a call to save the planet. But in this passage, Jesus says to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. It’s a stretch to say this includes ecological and environmental activism. Jesus says nothing about “the earth’s air, water, and climate.” It’s true we need good soil to grow food and feed the hungry, but that wasn’t Jesus’ point. His point was that we should be charitable and perform good deeds directly for our fellow human beings.

In promoting environmentalism, the Catholic Church has become more aligned with secular humanism than with the teachings of Jesus.

Rosalyn Becker

Fort Myers, Florida

THE EDITOR REPLIES:

Pope Benedict XVI said, “If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation” (2010 World Day of Peace message). Was he a secular humanist?

Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “One cannot use with impunity the different categories of beings, whether living or inanimate — animals, plants, the natural elements — simply as one wishes, according to one’s own economic needs…. When it comes to the natural world, we are subject not only to biological laws but also to moral ones” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, no. 34). Was he a secular humanist?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says we can “understand what God tells us by means of his creation…. Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness” (no. 299). Is that more secular humanism?

On the contrary. The Church has long urged an abiding respect for the integrity of the created world, the beauty of which “reflects the infinite beauty of the Creator” (Catechism, no. 341). In fact, “on many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world” (no. 299). That sounds suspiciously like environmental activism. Indeed, environmentalism, or “defending the goodness of creation,” is a time-honored aspect of the Church’s social teachings. The topic first appeared in these pages as early as our December 1989 issue in an article by Stratford Caldecott titled “On the ‘Greenness’ of Catholicism & Its further ‘Greening.’”

Yet secular environmentalists (and other pantheists before them) have commandeered this movement and, following the pattern of all heretics, blown a traditional teaching of the Church out of proportion, imbuing it with more importance than originally intended or now necessary. They have made an idol of the earth.

Benedict, the so-called Green Pope, identified the limits of Christian environmentalism in his 2010 World Day of Peace message, saying that “a correct understanding of the relationship between man and the environment will not end by absolutizing nature or by considering it more important than the human person. If the Church’s magisterium expresses grave misgivings about notions of the environment inspired by ecocentrism and biocentrism, it is because such notions eliminate the difference of identity and worth between the human person and other living things.” Benedict is cautioning not against environmentalism itself but a deviant form of it in which man is removed from his place as the pinnacle of creation and denied his intrinsic value as made in the image and likeness of God.

It is true, as Rosalyn Becker states, that Jesus says nothing in Matthew 25:31-46 about “the earth’s air, water, and climate.” But that hasn’t prevented the Church from identifying a link between them, from connecting the feeding of the hungry with the need for good soil. Again, it’s right there in the Catechism: “Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity…. Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor” (no. 2415) — yes, our neighbor, in other words, those fellow human beings for whom, Mrs. Becker rightly notes, we are to perform good deeds. In fact, our “use” of the environment “entails a shared responsibility for all humanity, especially the poor,” Benedict said (op. cit.).

Benedict expanded on the link between environmental degradation and our duties toward others in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009). “The subject of development [of nations] is…closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment,” he wrote (no 48; italics in original). “A link has often been noted between claims to a ‘right to excess’…within affluent societies, and the lack of food [and] drinkable water…in areas of the underdeveloped world” (no. 43).

According to the logic of the Church, Jesus’ command to feed the hungry could be interpreted as including environmental activism, with a focus on macro-solutions. This does not, of course, relieve us of our Christian duty to perform charitable acts directly for the poor in our own communities. Suffice it to say that direct charity and environmental activism are not mutually exclusive.