McDONAGH: THE DEATH OF LIFE: CAN CHRISTIANS BE PRO-LIFE . .

[Oscar]

McDONAGH: THE DEATH OF LIFE: CAN CHRISTIANS BE PRO-LIFE AND INDIFFERENT TO THE EXTINCTION OF SPECIES?

By Seán McDonagh Published by Columba Press, $18.95

Reviewed by Michele Saracino

http://ncronline.org/node/28939

My 6-year-old son has a deep interest -- an obsession practically -- with sea life, so much so that his grandmother once half-joked that the only person worthy of his love is a mermaid. Practically since he could speak, he has been telling me that if we humans -- “the top predator,” he calls us -- do not do something to change our ways, we will destroy marine life as we know it forever.

It is not as if I didn’t know we’re in trouble. What these four books do is help us face that trouble from different angles -- and help me keep one step ahead of a 6-year-old.

Yet something changed in me when I read Columban Fr. Seán McDonagh’s The Death of Life. It was not just that I’m convinced that Catholic social justice must include environmental degradation as a “life issue,” but that I have no choice but to create a space for these questions in my theology. Questions posed by such facts as 27,000 species being lost each year, reminding myself we are in the midst of the “sixth mass-extinction event” of world history, a “spasm” caused by one single species -- human beings.

I cannot go on with business as usual. I am converted.

McDonagh’s conversion to this ecological mindset unfolded in the Philippines when he lived with the T’boli people. They worked together to protect the rainforests from human predation by excessive logging. This missionary experience fueled his study of the ways humans cause extinction by destroying and polluting habitats, and introducing alien species into a stable environment. For McDonagh, Christians in general and theology in particular need to be more attentive to science nd nature. Even though there are myriad resources in the tradition that embrace the goodness and stewardship of creation, a Christology that emphasizes Christ’s divinity repels any ecologically sensitive theology because it subordinates the physical to the spiritual.

Sean McDonagh, SSC,
St. Columban's, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath.
tel 00353872367612
visit my blog at http://earthcaremission.wordpress.com