EarthSpirit Rising Over Mount St. Joseph
Eco-Feminist Descend Upon Catholic College in Cincinnati
from the July-August 1998 issue

Rosemary Radford Reuther, eminent Catholic feminist and population-control advocate, echoed the cold sentiments of eugenicist Margaret Sanger when she suggested that we should "find the most compassionate way to weed out people." At a four-day eco-spirituality conference hosted over Memorial Day weekend at Cincinnati’s College of Mount St. Joseph, operated by the Sisters of Charity, Reuther provided a keynote address, outlining her plan to save planet Earth from the "patriarchal-minded, elite male humans" who are living in "ecological sin." Approximately 400 attended; the majority of them were consecrated women religious.

Retired bishop of Covington, Kentucky, William Hughes, was joined by 31 religious orders—mostly from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, two Catholic colleges, two Catholic retreat centers and the Diocese of Covington, to sponsor a veritable parade of New Age neopagans known as "EarthSpirit Rising: A Midwest Conference on Healing and Celebrating Planet Earth."

Notwithstanding the fact that the New Age movement espouses a confused religious syncretism which is not always well-intentioned, some of its ideas, as manifest at EarthSpirit Rising, have found a warm reception among some people and institutions in the Church. This can only cause deep concern in the hearts of the faithful. In fact, there is so much open concern these days about heterodoxy being taught, one might expect that special concern would be felt by the sponsoring religious communities, prelates, and Catholic colleges to avoid any outward demonstration which would cause participants to question the Catholicity of the event.

Sorcerers, shamans and Mother Earth
The increasing public awareness of serious abuses that endanger the life of the planet, and campaigns to achieve a climate of responsible cooperation among rich and poor nations are certainly positive advances. Nevertheless, much of what is posited as endangering the planet is based on "junk science." Environmentalism has moved from a well-meaning idealism to counterproductive eco-terrorism.

The environmentalist movement, as co-opted by the "New Age," has developed its own vision of the relationship between man and the planet, which it often refers to as "deep ecology." This ideology denies the basic difference between human and non-human existence. It speaks of a "biocentric equality," whereby a frog, a wolf, or a Douglas fir would have the same right as would a man to its own fulfillment.

The opening speaker of the conference, barefooted David Abram, for instance, spoke about his travels through Asia, living among various folk shamans and sorcerers. Punctuating his talk with Norwegian haiku and impressively lifelike animal grunts and raven caws, Abram lamented what he sees as the greatest problem in history: that we evolved from primates into creatures who could speak and communicate with one another. That destroyed the equilibrium of the animal-human relationship, he suggested.

Abram, who identified himself as an ecopsychologist and itinerant street magician, said, "The sorcerers, shamans and witch doctors of indigenous communities, however, have been able to maintain that primal communication with the Earth and all its creatures because they understand that "everything on Earth is animate, including the non-living."

The New Age ecology movement also considers that the cosmos is animated by one spirit or is guided by a universal consciousness of which man is merely one more participant. It fosters a religious worship of nature (pantheism) or of Mother Earth as if it were a divine reality. It ends up labeling man as an intruder and considers him a curse for the cosmos.

Espousing such ideas, deep ecologist John Seed promoted his "Council of All Beings," a community therapy workshop intended "to reconcile the human community with the Earth." He said that we should consider the Earth "our Sacred Text."

Demonstrating one of his conventional rituals he asked his audience to project their energy fields down into the Earth. "Thank the soil for sustaining you," he said; "feel the presence of long-gone beings." He then asked everyone to project their energy roots deeper. "Will your energy to proceed down even further into the molten mass of inner earth, down into the solid iron crystal that forms the densely-packed core. Honor it as the heart of Mother Earth," he said.

At the heart of the radical "green" movement, eco-feminists pressure governments for legislation that would cut back the human population in order to heal the planet.

In her keynote address Rosemary Radford Reuther said we need to slow population growth. "To allow unrestrained fertility is not pro-life," she said. "A good gardener weeds and thins his seedlings to allow the proper amount of room for the plants to grow. We need to seek the most compassionate way of weeding out people. Our current pro-life movement is really killing people through disease and poverty," said Reuther.

From exaggerated environmentalism emerges a kind of spirituality of the cosmos that desires to "ensoul" the entire universe or to bestow on creation a magical force. The eco-fem movement rejects the Christian notion of a personal God, above creation and outside the history of time, in favor of an impersonal, divine force that is in everything and is everything. This return to naturalistic pantheism finds support in many religious movements coming from the East and in a return to pagan religions.

Clues to a "healing culture," said Reuther, will come primarily from the Eastern religions of Tao, Hinduism and Buddhism which promote "compassion for all sentient beings." We cannot properly draw upon our Judeo-Christian roots, she explained, because these traditions are the primary source of domination and subjugation. "We western Christians need to give up the idea that there is a one true way," remarked Reuther. We need to engage in a "process of converging dialogues," she suggested, to integrate our different cultures.

This so-called "global theology" espoused by Reuther and others at this conference traces the signs of divine revelation in all known religious expressions, in search of a common denominator that can serve as a meeting point for religions—a harmonic convergence, so to speak.

The Christian typically misunderstands the Incarnation, explained Reuther. "The cosmos is the real incarnation," she clarified.

An Irreligious Panel
Five speakers formed a panel to discuss the "religious connection" of reconciling with the Earth. Fr. Al Fritsch, SJ, a founder of Priests for Equality, described religion as "a binding of ourselves to a greater being." It is creation-centered, he added. He presented his theory of the four seasonal stages of our human lives—Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

Sr. Virginia Froehle, a Sister of Mercy who penned the book Called into Her Presence: Praying With Feminine Images of God, spoke of the Catholic sacramental life as "rooted in the Earth." She berated the pre-Vatican II Church as subscribing to a patriarchal perversion of Jesus’ Gospel.

Rev. Mendel Adams, pastor of the Church of Christ in Union, Kentucky presented a Protestant viewpoint. He lamented how "Christianity is so arrogant." He suggested that rather than focusing on ourselves as Christians we need to "practice Christianity in an ecumenical way that is open to other myths and sources of wisdom."

Reuther rounded out the panel, accusing Christianity as being at the root of the environmental crisis. Traditional Christianity, she said, makes the "elite male humans" feel as if they have the right to dominate the Earth and all its creatures, including women. This might be, she suggested, "because Christians believe that they are sojourners on their way to heaven."

Most of our ecological problems stem from this insistence on patriarchal domination, she said. But "nature does not need us to rule over it. We are parasites," she asserted, "utterly dependent upon the rest of the food-chain. Nature would be much better off without us."

Androgyny and the God-within
Reuther also promoted the popular concept of androgyny, a belief which denies that there is any meaningful biological base to male and female sex roles. In the androgynist’s world-view each person has his or her unique mix of male and female biological traits. Androgyny was a concept heavily promoted by population control advocates during the recent U.N. conferences in Beijing and Cairo.

Reuther said whenever she is asked whether God is male or female, she always responds, "God is not a mammal." She explained that eco-feminists such as herself reject the idea of a Father-God and the "male-identified intellect" that rules over nature. Eco-fems embrace the God(dess) within, the Cosmic Christ, the incarnation of the cosmos. "That is true transcendence," Reuther remarked. "Transcendence needs to be liberated to mean a constant renewal eliminating dominance and male distortions." The patriarchal theologians’ concept of transcendence is merely a delusion, she added.

Incompatible with the Gospel and the Church
If nothing else, EarthSpirit Rising has effectively proven that these many New Age eco-feminist ideas have worked their way well into the Church. For many of our women religious, revelation in Jesus Christ has lost its unique and unrepeatable character. For them, Christianity can no longer be anything more than a fleeting period in history. Please register your protest with the following religious communities and Church institutions. —Michael S. Rose

Catholic sponsors of EarthSpirit Rising: Most Rev. William Hughes, retired bishop of Covington KY; Diocese of Covington KY, Office of Peace & Justice; Jesuit Community at Xavier University, Cincinnati OH; Xavier University, Cincinnati OH; Franciscans of St. John the Baptist Province, Cincinnati OH; College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati OH; Marydale Retreat Center, Erlanger KY; Milford Spiritual Center, Milford OH; Mother of God Church, Covington KY; Franciscan Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation Office, Cincinnati OH; and

Franciscan Sisters of Mary, St. Louis MO; Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Center, Nazareth KY; Sisters of Loretto, Englewood CO; Sisters of Mercy, Chicago Region; Sisters of Mercy, Cincinnati Region; Sisters of St. Francis, Oldenberg IN; Sisters of St. Francis, Tiffin OH; Sisters of the Humilty of Mary, Villa Maria PA; Sisters of the Precious Blood, Dayton OH; The Ancilla Domini Sisters, Donaldson IN; Andrian Dominican Sisters, Andrian MI; Byzantine Nuns of St. Clare, North Royalton OH; Dominican Sisters of Springfield IL; Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine KY; Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe MI; Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Augustine, Richfield OH; Sisters of Charity, Cincinnati OH; Sisters of Divine Providence, Melbourne KY; Sisters of Mercy, Cedar Rapids IA; Sisters of St. Dominic, Akron OH; Sisters of St. Joseph, Tipton IN; Sisters of St. Joseph, Cincinnati OH; Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Paul MN; Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Ft. Thomas KY; Sisters of the Incarnate Word, Cleveland OH; Ursuline Provincialate, Chrystal City MO; Ursuline Sisters, Louisville KY.

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