Berkley Center

Writing in Emergence Magazine, Paul Elie is struck by the thought that the Catholic Church and the natural world have traded places as sources of transcendence and wonders how religion and the natural world might come together for shared renewal. He posits that if Catholicism is going to regain its role as site and sponsor of transcendence, it is going to have to recover the qualities of wonder and splendor that so many associate with the natural world. Concurrently, it may be that only the grave state of our environment is a circumstance broad enough and urgent enough to stir Catholics out of the narrow and seemingly never-ending institutional self-scrutiny in which they find themselves.