The Beatitudes, according to the Gospel of the Sierra Club

Since when did mention by the Sierra Club become the measure of charitable activity for Catholics?

Stories like this one ("Sierra Club book recognizes Catholics doing their part on environment"), especially perplex me.

The opening lines:

Don Conklin and Ellen Buelow are in good company -- and lots of it. The two New Mexico Catholics are, like Catholics everywhere, doing their part to help the environment and to make others aware of potential ecological dangers that arise from wasteful habits.

Catholics, in fact, are prominently featured in nine chapters of a new Sierra Club book, "Faith in Action," which highlights faith-led environmental action in each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Conklin and Buelow, members of Holy Rosary Parish in Albuquerque, N.M., helped engineer a light-bulb swap -- incandescent bulbs for energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, in March. Before the swap was over, 3,000 bulbs changed hands."

We did this as a Lenten project," said Conklin, a pastoral associate at the 2,700-household parish.

Energy saving replacing alms-giving. Wonderful. Conklin happily reports that the project "didn't cost us a thing." Hello, that's normally a sign that your activity of choice isn't really a penance. Buelow, meanwhile, is the parish's social justice coordinator. When the social justice coordinator is collaborating with the local electric company, something tells me this isn't distinctively Catholic or faith-based social justice. So why describe it as such?

I won't get into the other examples, but for most of them the same observation applies: one can make the case that these are good things to do, but I simply don't see how they are an integral part of what a parish should be doing per se, especially if these activities compete with or supplement things such as, say, celebration of the sacraments, adoration, care of the poor and sick, etc.