Wait a minute, wasn't the selling of indulgences a bad thing?

Back in July I blogged about the Vatican's decision to become the "world's first carbon neutral sovereign state." CNA covered the story here shortly thereafter. I questioned at the time the wisdom of granting de facto Vatican approval to companies that make a profit from selling carbon offsets.

Sure enough, by early August, folks were declaring that the Roman Catholic Church was "dabbling in the hottest new religion – environmentalism" (and followed that up with saying it was now time to discuss the problem of overpopulation). Okay, well, people say the darnedest things.

Fast-forward to late August, where we first heard about a Benedictine Monk hearing "eco-confessions", during which people confessed to him sins they had committed against the environment. Okay, well, misplaced zealousness and abuse of sacraments often go hand-in-hand. Some commentators joked at the time that the penances given out probably involved buying carbon offsets and taking the bus to work.

Well now, with the coming of mid-September and the first chills of fall, the New York Times has noticed the Vatican's recent carbon-neutrality bid. The resulting article, entitled "Vatican Tree Penance: Forgive us our Co2", for the most part covers old ground. The last two paragraphs, however, I think are unsettling:

Klimafa has been given the right to restore the land by the Bukk National Park, which owns it; costs will be covered by carbon credit purchases. Mr. Torda said it would take 50 to 150 years to produce a mature forest.

After the Vatican agreement was announced, Msgr. Melchor Sánchez de Toca Alameda, an official at the Council for Culture at the Vatican, told the Catholic News Service [here] that buying credits was like doing penance. “One can emit less CO2 by not using heating and not driving a car, or one can do penance by intervening to offset emissions, in this case by planting trees,” he said.

In other words, if one has "sinned" against the environment by, say, failing to recycle or owning an inefficient car, this representative of the Vatican's Council for Culture is saying that one has a moral imperative to, if possible, purchase a carbon offset, which will result in some company like Planktos/Klimafa planting a tree (the same CNS story gives the details).

Okay, IF human-emitted carbon dioxide damages the environment to where it will in the future harm human beings and IF therefore emitting too much carbon dioxide is a sin and IF therefore people must do something to make up for their impact and IF planting a tree will ammend that evil which they have done ... EVEN THEN ... is paying a company the right way to fix this situation? Is offsetting personal carbon emissions the most important issue that the folks at the Council for Culture have to address currently? Isn't this purchasing of carbon footprints a luxury of the rich, in most cases? Is this truly the face of authentic Christian conservationism?

I just don't think so. And I'd like to see this issue addressed more comprehensively. Because I think that when the NYT is publishing articles that quote Vatican officials telling Catholics to consider purchasing carbon offsets, we've reached some sort of critical mass.