Environmentalism

It just so happens that one of the featured saints for this month's Blue Knights meeting was St. Boniface. He is a really interesting guy, and I think he should enjoy a new wave of popularity in modern times. The most popular story involves St. Boniface cutting down a giant oak tree that some pagans had been worshipping as a god. Some reports even say there was human sacrifice involved. To prove that the tree was not a god or a holy object, St. Boniface took his ax and felled the tree. Many were converted when Thor failed to strike him dead for his blasphemy.

The way this relates to modern times is that it seems modern environmentalists are more concerned about "mother earth" than the human inhabitants. Large families are scorned as "using up" too many resources. Some people are even beginning to have no children at all. One foreign government (Australia?) proposed to tax families $5,000 for each newborn child, as reparation for the environmental damage the little CO2 breather would emit through his life. Modern liberals are more concerned with the baby seals than the baby humans.

I love the image in our book of St. Boniface with his ax swinging. I couldn't find that exact image, but ones here are nice too. Above, he is baptizing a convert with his foot on the stump. Below, he is in mid-swing.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be good stewards of the earth, but many are getting their priorities backward. I imagine St. Boniface would have liked to remind us of the right order in our day.