[TCCM] TCC response on climate change

[Adam Q Kuang]

To our Brothers and Sisters in Faith:


Recently the TCC Council was asked to sign a letter, jointly written by 
various MIT sustainability groups, to President Reif requesting him to 
step up efforts to make MIT a world leader in the fight against climate 
change. We debated about this issue quite heavily and the council was 
split on whether or not to sign. In the end, the vote swung towards not 
signing. We feel that it is important to make the reason for our 
decision clear.


As Catholics, we are called to be stewards of God’s creation. God 
created all that is and ever will be, and it is our duty to respect the 
goodness of creation and use the Earth’s resources wisely (CCC 339). 
 From a social/moral perspective, the changes predicted by climate 
change disproportionately affect those who are poor -- the people whom 
we are called most strongly to serve. Pope Francis has been outspoken in 
encouraging the faithful to be protectors of the environment, and we are 
all excitedly awaiting his next encyclical on the environment, due to be 
released sometime this summer. In the meantime, we encourage you to pray 
about your own personal impact on the environment with the following 
‘Ecological Examen’, by Father Greg Kennedy, a Jesuit priest in Canada: 
http://blog.jesuits.ca/index.cfm/2014/10/29/Ecological-Examen.


As a council, we acknowledge that although there is a clear mandate from 
the Church to take care of our environment, we felt that the tone of the 
letter and the content did not truly reflect a strictly Catholic 
perspective on the topic. Climate change in particular has become a 
highly politicized topic that has polarized our society. We felt obliged 
to remain neutral in this instance as we were uncertain if there existed 
clear agreement, within the TCC community whom we serve, for or against 
climate change. After all, acceptance of anthropomorphic climate change 
is not a requirement to being a Catholic and it is not necessarily 
agreed upon as being a Catholic stance on a secular matter.


We respect the intellectual identity of each of you as individuals and 
would like to encourage everybody to read more deeply into the matter. 
Apply the analytical thinking that we are here at MIT to cultivate and 
seek God's guidance. We would like you to decide for yourself whether 
you wish to support this initiative. If you would like to sign the 
letter as an individual, the link is available 
here:http://mitclimatelegacy.org/.


Yours in Service,

The TCC Council

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