Quotes on Ecology
Sister Joan Puls
LIVE SIMPLY so that others may simply live.
The quote was cited in an October 1974 newspaper article on Iowa religion students. “To live more simply so that others may simply live” was credited in November 1974 to Sister Joan Puls, a Franciscan from the Justice and Peace Center in Milwaukee, WI, who was speaking on world hunger. ‘We must learn to live more simply—so others may simply live” was cited in February 1976, also in a church talk on world hunger. The quote is often attributed to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and Mahatma Gandhi, but there is no evidence that either ever said it.
Sister Dorothy Stang, SNDdeN
I DON’T WANT TO FLEE, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment.
-Binca Le Breton, The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sister Dorothy Stang (New York: Doubleday 2008)
THE DEATH of the forest is the end of our life.
+ From a slogan Sister Dorothy wore on a t-shirt
Sister Dorothy Stang lived and worked among the peasant farmers of the Amazon, trying to protect their land and forest. Sister Dorothy died a martyr; She was killed by assassins working for powerful landowners.
Sister Paula González
MOST OF THE so-called environmental questions are not principally scientific questions. They are principally moral questions.
GOD COULD HAVE surely chosen an evolutionary mode of creating. Many people have the notion that evolution and Darwin are in opposition to anything spiritual or religious. Darwin said this happened naturally, so there is no need for God. Ultimately, it’s really a big mystery. There is a deep spirituality embedded in many people, and that is not just expressed in a religion. It is not problematic to think that this divine Creator may have decided to (create heaven and earth) in an evolutionary mode. The scientific evidence is so overwhelming that this is the way it has happened. If you follow the six days of creation in Genesis, what you’ll find is the evolution of these according to scientific information and the order of creation is almost totally identical. They are not opposed to one another.
ARE WE GOING TO let (carbon dioxide levels) continue to rise? What we have to say now is “no.” A lifestyle change is what we’re looking for. … Every day: How much electricity do you use? How much water? Do you use cloth napkins or paper napkins? Our planet is in serious trouble. But I don’t want people to despair. I believe in the creativity of people and that people will wake up.
-Cincinnati.com, April 11, 2015
Sister Paula was a Sister of Charity, environmental campaigner, and biologist known as the “Solar Nun.”
Sister Helena Burns, FSP
I WAS RAISED Catholic, but by the time I was a teen, I had rejected almost all Church teachings…
What I didn’t get is what no one ever told me: why the Church teaches what it teaches. No one ever told me that science and all kinds of data and studies back up God, the Bible, and the Church with regard to sex, the body, and relationships.
And wouldn’t it make sense? If God is the Creator of creation and the Revealer of truth, then nature, the Bible, the Church and science should be all saying the same thing. Science simply discovers how God created stuff, how it works, and how it works best.
-Posted on the Couple to Couple League website, July 25, 2016
Sister Helena was going to be an ornithologist before being called to join the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation founded to communicate God’s Word through the media. Sister Helena teaches Theology of the Body and is a popular “Social Media Nun.”
Sister Larraine Lauter
SUSTAINABILITY is—if you walk away and never come back—the solution will endure. That’s the real trick, and that eludes people. And I really believe the secret of that is a spiritual foundation.
Sister Larraine is the founder of Water with Blessings, which trains women in developing countries to use simple filtering devices in ministry of their neighbor. Sister Larraine’s Catholic faith aligns with her Chickasaw Native American heritage, which views everything in the universe as interconnected.
Sister Kathleen Storms
I DON’T SEE what science is telling us as any different from what our faith is telling us. We need to care for the Earth.
–Global Sisters Report website, April 27, 2017