Even the World Wildlife Fund had put out a statement Nov. 7 saying, “cutting a tree of this size in the midst of a climate crisis is a debatable decision,” which required “greater transparency.”
I saw a Catholic News Service (CNS) article in the Boston archdiocesan newspaper The Pilot several weeks ago (Nov. 18) describing a dust-up concerning the Christmas Tree planned for St. Peter’s square this year. The Vatican had planned on installing an impressive, 98-foot silver fir taken from the mountains of central Italy, until activists started objecting to a lack of “transparency” or of “environmental impact studies”. One activist even wrote to Pope Francis, appealing to the author of Laudato Si to practice what he preached, in avoiding any unnecessary human impact on the environment. Meanwhile, forest service rangers had tree cutting preparation work halted, to complete “documentation”, and the village donating the tree eyed an alternative tree growing in a different jurisdiction. It appears the Vatican got the tree they’d wanted, although follow-on details of the story are sparse.
It was hard for me to know for whom to root in this debacle. It’s easy to be contemptuous of the enviro-tyrants demanding an environmental impact study to justify cutting a fir tree from a mountainside. One could be excused for guessing that they’d want to conduct the study themselves- and get paid for it – in order to come to a predetermined conclusion that nobody can be allowed to enjoy themselves at the expense of “nature” – unless an adequate sum of additional money is provided to pay for vaguely defined reparations. Activist environmentalism is nothing if not a grift.
On the other hand, there is no lack of hypocrisy in the Laudato Si pontificate taking a tree like that from its living environs to construct an ostentatious display in the courtyards of Rome. It is superfluous and wasteful, not only destroying a 200-year-old tree, but using it to host burning electric lights in a winter in which many poor Europeans are suffering from the cold – due in no small part to the small-minded and self-righteous insipidity of the same phony environmental alarmism that seems to inform Laudato Si.
Of course, one can argue that the celebration of the birth of Christ justifies the extravagance – and we do well to recall that it was Judas Iscariot who complained about the “wasteful” outpouring of expensive nard on Jesus at the house of Lazarus to prepare him for his execution and burial. But it’s hard for me not to come to the conclusion that the public celebration of Christmas – even by the churches – has veered far too far toward elements that render it superficial, and weaken the ability of its witness to even tell the actual story unfolded in the Christmas drama. Buried under all the expendable presents lying under all the gaudy Christmas trees dotting the land this evening lies a humble truth of inestimable wonder and amazement which is all too hard to hear among the noise:
God has bridged the gap between Him and us, and has become one of us, so that we might become like Him. That’s astonishing. Merry Christmas.