Offbeat: Abp. Chaput agrees with me: Eat Fish on Fridays

AmP readers will recall that I've belabored the point that Catholics ought to eat fish on Friday.

This week Abp. Chaput makes the supporting point that Catholics ought to be concerned about the environment ... because no one wants to be eating queer fish. He says:

"Human beings have a natural sense, reinforced by experience, that things like murder, cruelty, theft, adultery, lying, greed, pride and exploiting the weak are wrong. Faith and reason can walk that common moral ground of the human conscience and, if we’re serious about protecting the environment, they must walk that common ground." he stated.

To illustrate his point, Archbishop Chaput related the story of what researchers found downstream of the University of Colorado in Boulder.

"When scientists at the University of Colorado studied the trout in Boulder Creek downstream from that city’s sewer plant a few years ago, they found that, out of 123 fish, 101 were female, 12 were male, and 10 were a very strange mutation with male and female features," he recalled.

Researchers were able to trace the cause back to "antibiotics, caffeine and especially the hormones from birth control pills can seriously contaminate a region’s drinking water," the prelate said, citing several local newspaper articles. One report quoted a biologist as saying that "the water effluent he found in Boulder Creek has unintended contraceptive effects in human beings."

The scientists expected to hear an uproar from environmentalists when their findings became public but instead they heard silence. "Nobody is to blame for this, and I don’t have a solution," one well-known environmental activist said.

In contrast, Archbishop Chaput lodged his disagreement with activists, insisting with the conference attendees, we "should have a solution. A moral solution."

Any solution, he insisted, should take the form of "a response flowing from a respectful encounter of faith and reason; a response that will help us, collectively, to make the behavioral changes necessary to protect this beautiful world we share, ensuring not only its God-intended harmony, but our own well-being." (CNA)

Catholics: Pro-Life, Pro-Environment, Pro-Fish!