A Dominican friar, Etienne de Bourbon, was sent as an inquisitor to Sandrans, a small village north of Lyon. He relates his findings in the work, De Supersticione. It was published in 1240 A.D.
One of the sections is called De Adoratione Guinefortis Canis, or, On the Worship of the Dog Guinefort. It relates the tale of the brave and loyal greyhound, Guinefort, or saves his master’s son from a snake who attempted to get into his crib. 
Guinefort defended the baby and tossed the snake across the room. The snake bit the dog, and there was blood all over the dog’s head and nursery floor. The mother and the wet nurse came in to find the bloody scene. They screamed, bringing the knight in with sword drawn, who killed the dog.
Finding the baby safe and sleeping peacefully, they looked around for an explanation for all the blood. They discovered the snake dead and torn to pieces.
Realizing what really happened, and what they had done, the knight and women were filled with remorse and inconsolable regret. The dog was buried in a well, and his grave covered high with stones. Trees were planted around the site in the manner of a sacred grove.
The manor was abandoned by the family and the estate became wild land.
“The local peasants,” relates de Bourbon’s account, “hearing of the dog’s conduct and of how it had been killed, although innocent, and for a deed which it might have expected praise, visited the place, honored the dog as a martyr, prayed to it..” when their children were sick or needed help.
Infuriated to find “St. Guinefort” was a dog, the friar preached against his veneration. “We had the dead dog disinterred, and the sacred wood cut down and burnt, along with the remains of the dog.”
The tragic story seems to end there, but the French film The Sorceress (Le Moine et la Sorciere, 1987), written by Boston College medievalist Pamela Berger and directed by Suzanne Schiffmann gives it a new twist. 
The premise of the movie is this: in a town near Lyons village people venerate Saint Guinefort, a greyhound who once saved a child from a deadly snake. When a Dominican friar repesenting the Church’s inquisition comes to town, he is outraged by what he sees as a mockery of the Christian institution of sainthood.
The friar destroys the grave of the holy dog and cuts down a tree nearby that the townsfolk believe to have healing powers. Later, however, he comes to regret his actions. As sort of a compromise with the villagers, the friar builds a chapel on the site of the sacred tree, and reinvents Saint Guinefort as a man-saint with a dog companion.
The shrine of Saint Guinefort continued to be visited for another 700 years, through the 1940s. Perhaps it still exists.
“Air pollution is an issue for the Olympics. The government has shut down all heavy industry within an enormous area for three months. Factories within 200 kilometers of downtown Beijing have been requested to close. Only a little production can relocate to more distant places on short notice. Severe restrictions on cars and trucks in Beijing are another drastic measure to ensure clean air. These inconvenient and costly steps tell the whole world that clean air for the Games is essential. I wish they would also realize the importance of great religious and social freedom.”
- Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong 
The Catholic bishops in El Salvador put forth their stance on mining in the country a little more than a year ago in the declaration: Let’s Take Care of Everyone’s Home. It is a strong, clear statement about the dangers of precious metals mining. The burgeoning gold and silver mines are primarily operated by Canadian companies and subject only to light regulation.
“Our small country is the place where God the Creator called us to life. This is the portion of the world that he has trusted us to take care of and use according to his will: ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it.’ (Gen 1:28). But this blessed Earth that we love so dearly, suffers an increasing and insensitive deterioration. We all have a responsibility to conserve and defend it because the environment is ‘the house of all’: it is ours and that of future generations.”
“From this perspective of faith we wish to share with you our pastoral vision on a problem that deeply worries us: the possibility that mining of precious metals is authorized, to pen cast mining or subterranean mining, mainly in the northern part of our country.”
“The experience in brother and neighboring countries, that have permitted gold and silver mining, is truly sad and lamentable. The bishops of those nations have raised their voice. We also wish to pronounce ourselves against (mining) before it is too late.”
SHARE Foundation recently sponsored a trip to the U.S. for Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador. Addressing a group in Kansas City, he said the mines have the potential to destroy El Salvador’s ecological system. 
“You know our country is very small,” he said. “Twenty-thousand kilometers (12,400 miles) square. Very crowded, 6 million people, or 300 people on each kilometer square. The mines are situated in the north of the country and the drinking water comes from the north. If the water is poisoned, everyone would be.”
The argument that such mining operations help the Salvadoran economy and provide jobs is fallacious, he said. “How much money remains in the country?” Bishop Chavez asked. “Two percent. There is no proportion between the profits and the damages.”
The 37th prayer listed “for special occasions” in the Catholic Sacramentary, the official Catholic worship book, is the prayer “to avert storms.” The text reads:
Father, all the elements of nature obey your command. Calm the storm that threatens us and turn our fear of your power into praise of your goodness.
When floodwaters converged on Iowa City in early June, Fr. Jeff Belger, director of the Catholic Student Center, said he started to say the prayer at daily Masses. “It was the first time in five years as a priest that I’ve had to use that prayer.”
I’m sure some people are saying it now, as Tropical Storm Fay approaches the Florida Keys. I am glad to know it, and will have it at hand, in my home out on the East End of Long Island once hurricane season gets underway.
Weather-related prayers - for rain in time of drought or protection from violent storms - are based on a concept of God as the one who controls nature. In many cultures, including our own, people expect priests and religious leaders to petition God for favorable weather, a good harvest, a safe voyage through the storm.
Some might say these prayers in times of terror and stress originate from the child within us. But a very famous scene in the Gospels - Christ rebuking the wind and calming the sea (Mark 4:37-41) - reinforces the belief God will intervene to save us, our loved ones and neighbors, our pets and property as the storm descends in fury.
If not, then to give us the strength to face what we must, and adapt with courage to the circumstances we are given, and trust that, whatever happens, we are always in God’s hands. 
Environmentalism is emerging as one key theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Australia for World Youth Day.
Even before he left Rome, the pope struck a “green” note. In a message to the people of Australia and the youth from around the world converging on Sydney, Benedict listed environmental concerns among the global phenomena faced by young people. 
“They see great damage, done to the natural environment through human greed,” the pope said in his message, released July 4. “They struggle to find ways to live in greater harmony with nature and with one another.”
The pope was asked by an Australian journalist about religious indifference in his country. Benedict replied that while religion does face something of a crisis in the Western world, various forces today illustrate the need for religious faith — among them, environmental challenges.
“In this historical moment, we begin to see that we do need God,” the pope said. “We can do so many things, but we cannot create our climate. We thought we could do it, but we cannot do it. We need the gift of the Earth, the gift of water, we need the Creator; the Creator re-appears in His creation. And so we also come to understand that we cannot really be happy, cannot be really promoting justice for all the world, without a criterion at work in our own ideas, without a God who is just, and gives us the light, and gives us life.”
Among other things, Benedict XVI sees the environmental movement as a promising route for the recovery of a strong sense of “natural law,” meaning the idea that moral limits to human behavior are inherent in nature. In fact, the pope believes ecology could hold the key to teaching young people about Christian morality.
If people are willing to accept that idea about the environment, Benedict may hope they will be more open to the claims of natural law in other areas of life, like sexuality and gender.
Catholics are prominently featured in a new Sierra Club book, Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet. The book highlights faith-led environmental action in each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. 
Don Conklin and Ellen Buelow, members of Holy Rosary Parish in Albuquerque, NM, helped engineer a light-bulb swap–incandescent bulbs for energy-saving compact flurorescent bulbs. Before the program was over, 3,000 bulbs changed hands.
“We did this as a Lenten project,” said Conklin, a pastoral associate at the 2,700-household parish. “And it didn’t cost us a thing. It was sponsored by the Sierra Club and PNM,” the electric company serving the Albuquerque area.
The bulbs were distributed during an annual parish awareness weekend. “We’re planning our next awareness weekend and we’re coming up with the theme of helping families,” Buelow told Catholic News Service. “We’d like to get the concept of simple living in there. Economize and save the environment.”
The Faith in Action book also included these Catholic-led initiatives:
- In Colorado, Bishops Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs and Arthur N. Tafoya of Pueblo called for a unified response after sewerage spills threatened Fountain Creek, which runs through their communities. The bishops’ statement had a “significant impact” said Ross Vincent, vice chair of the Sangre de Cristo group of Sierra’s Rocky Mountain chapter. “People who wanted to believe things were OK with Fountain Creek began to pay attention and realize something needed to be done. The bishops’ statement came at a critical time and it was deeply appreciated.”
- In New Orleans, members of Mary, Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church and their pastor, Father Vien The Nguyen, were able to halt post-Hurricane Katrina operations at a landfill that was not only close to their neighborhood, but was adajacent to a protected wildlife sanctuary. More than 200,000 cubic yards of waste from Katrina had been dumped in the landfill, which still leaks toxins into a canal used by the Vietnamese community for irrigation and fishing.
- The Michigan Catholic Rural Life Coalition used the National Catholic Rural Life Conference’s “Eating Is A Moral Act” program to demonstrate the many ethical implications of consumers’ food purchases. The coalition also educates the public about the need to promote stewardship of the land and promotes a sustainable food system that nourishes people, local communities and the earth.
- In response to the U.S. Catholic bishops’ call for action on global warming, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis co-sponsored, “Global Warming: A Catholic Perspective.” One thousand people from 95 parishes attended the event to address the effects of global warming on the environment and the world’s poor communities.
Several parishes have now established their own “global warming action teams.” One of them, St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, launched a Green Power Campaign to encourage parishioners to purchase wind-generated energy.
-In Caguas, Puerto Rico, Father Pedro Ortiz and the Catholic parish of Nuesta Senora de la Providencia formed the Alianza Comunitaria y Ambiental en Accion Solidaria (Community and Environmental Alliance in Solidarity) in April 2007. The parish sets aside portions of its liturgical calendar for reflection on relevant social issues. Now, 100 community organizations, nonprofits, churches and universities from across the island with common concern for the environment have joined the alliance.
Last weekend, a top female rep for Nestle pitched a fit at the Nantucket Film Festival, which Nestle co-sponsored, during a screening of Flow - a documentary clobbering Nestle Waters as harming the environment.
The film, distributed by Brooklyn-born Adam Yauch (best known as Beastie Boys rapper MCA) and his Oscilloscope Pictures, probes the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh-water supply. It blames the crisis on Nestle along with Pepsi and Coca-Cola. “It takes a good look at Nestle pumping communities around the United States and how they pull water out in order to bottle it and sell it. It depletes the water for farms and irrigation,” said one insider.
Yauch said the problem is that Nestle is “promoting bottled water in general. It’s the bottles themselves, the amount of pollution they create and then disposing them are problems.” 
“They put pretty pictures of springs and forests on bottles, but in this movie they’re getting called out. I think it’s great. They lock down water as a commodity they can buy and sell. It’s terrifying.”
The movie, directed by Irena Salina, will be shown in New York this September.
The Dominican Sisters established An Tairseach, the Dominican Farm and Ecology Centre, in 1998 on their 70-acres of land in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is an organic/biodynamic farm and Centre for Ecology and Spirituality. 
In addition to running the farm and shop, the sisters encourage field studies on the property, and also sponsor courses and retreats. Many of these events are inspired by Celtic Christianity.
A ten-week sabbatical programme is being offered September 7-November 14, 2008 and March 22-May 29, 2009. “Exploring Spirituality in the Context of - An Expanding Universe - An Endangered Earth - The Christian Tradition.” Contact Sr. Marian O’Sullivan for more information.
An Tairseach is the Irish word for threshold. It suggests a new beginning, an alternative and more sustainable way of working with the land as well as a renewed relationship with the whole community of life, human and non-human.
(Sigh…I’m so sorry I didn’t know about An Tairsearch when I was in Ireland in April. Next trip.)
