From the Director - "Houston, we have a problem"

A memorable line from the film, Apollo 13 said by Tom Hanks: "Houston, we have a problem" has passed on into the English language. Originally said as a genuine report of a life threatening fault on a space flight, these days it can refer to any problem big or small.

In May of this year, Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew met in Jerusalem to celebrate the meeting, 50 years before, of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem. This meeting was the beginning of healing a split in the Christian Church between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church or the Roman Church and the Byzantine Church. The Churches have had a problem since 1054 and after the extraordinary events of the Second Vatican Council a new mood seemed to sweep through the Churches which brought about the first rapprochemen in 900 years.

This Common Declaration is another step in establishing better ties with a view to understanding each other's religious tradition in depth with a long time goal of uniting, 'unity in diversity' being the phrase used to explain what would come to be. There is no timeline for this work of dialogue, but  the music of Czech composer Bedrich Smetana in his symphonic poem, The Moldau reminds me of what that dialogue might be like. The Vitava River (in German, The Moldau) which rises in the Bohemian Mountains, flows through the Czech countryside to the beautiful city of Prague. The music flows like a stately river, smooth, easily and powerfully. Time is not of essence, the river will flow, nothing will stop the river from reaching its destination.

On the other hand when I read the report, Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature, Our Responsibility from a workshop of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences the music I associated with this paper (as I read) was the late string quartets of Beethoven's final creative period. Beethoven's music is challenging and extraordinary and not everyone would have been happy at the time of its release, as he would have changed people's expectations about what music is.

This Vatican report, like many other reports, warns us of impending disaster as the planet on which we live goes through unprecedented climate change. Like Beethoven's music, this is something new, unexpected and threatening. Simply put the world is in danger and the reason is caused by humans, especially by our use of fossil fuel. The world suffers from many problems and climate change is a major issue.
 
We are familiar with these apocalyptic predictions that we are destroying our environment by the demands of the affluent lifestyle of some people throughout the world. We are also familiar with the warnings that the impact on poorer people in the world will be destructive and cause major breakdowns in society. The oceans are warming, the hurricanes will be devastating, not necessarily bigger but more of them.

But there are people, climate change sceptics, some of whom are scientists who do not believe this is happening. They are treated even-handedly in the media and people are confused, not knowing who to believe. The fact is that while the media reports both sides of the argument, the peer review of scientific journals clearly states that climate change is occurring and has held this position for quite a few years, even allowing for scientific discrepancies.

"Houston, we have a problem"


Fr Gary Walker
director@columban.org.au

 

LISTEN TO: From the Director - "Houston, we have a problem"
(Duration: 4.28mins, MP3, 2.04MB)


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