CBCP issues pastoral on poaching

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines – Don’t bless any new statue, image or object of devotion made   from materials considered endangered or protected like ivory.

That’s the request of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Socrates Villegas to other Catholic bishops.

Those statues and images made of ivory and other analogous materials from protected and endangered species probably in use for centuries should be safeguarded, the Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan said yesterday in his pastoral moral guidance on the poaching, trafficking and decimation of endangered species, “The Lord God made them all.”

He urged bishops “to enforce the directive that no donation of any new statue or religious object made from ivory or materials extracted, taken or derived from protected and endangered species shall be accepted and blessed.”

“No matter the beauty of a work of art, it cannot justify the slaughter of wildlife, the use of endangered organic forms and lending a seal of approval to the threat posed to biodiversity by poachers and traffickers,” Villegas declared.

However, those already in use may remain for purposes of devotion and in recognition of their historical value, he added.

Every instance of beauty is a reflection of the infinite beauty of the Creator, Villegas said.

“We cannot, without offending the Creator, deface his creation,” he said. “All creatures great and small, the Lord God made them all.”

People are called to share in the awesome work of creation, not to deface it, Villegas said.

“The divine persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships,” he said. “Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships.”

Biodiversity and spirituality

In his acclaimed encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis points to the relation between the defense of biodiversity and Christian spirituality, Villegas said.

“This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfillment,” he said.

“The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures.

“In this way, they make their own that Trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.”

The Catholic Church in the Philippines is concerned that enough dimension has not  been  given this mportant aspect of spirituality: respect for the will of the Creator manifest in the diversity of life and in the crucial role each plays in the wisely balanced scheme of nature, he added.

In the Philippines alone, endemic species are hardly protected, Villegas said.  

“Poaching is rampant,” he said. 

“Our seas and waters are overfished. Wildlife is surreptitiously traded – because there are both buyers and sellers.” 

Globally, the problem is nothing less than alarming, Villegas said.

“More and more species pass into extinction, while we go on with our reckless ways, failing to see that we diminish ourselves tremendously and probably imperil our own future in the measure that we lead other species to their doom,” he said.