The 7th Catholic Social Teaching Theme is Care for God's Creation. It teaches is that we, as humans, must take care of God's creation because the earth is a special gift from God. It could mean either caring for the environment, such as being green and caring for animals, or caring for people, such as being kind and not vandalizing.

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We must care for the environment because the earth is our home, as well as the home of all the plants and animals, and we must take care of it for ourselves and generations to come. We have to care for people because they, too, are a very special part of God's creation, so special in fact that God made us in God's own image and likeness. Care for God's Creation is a very important part of a Catholics faith, and therefore we must work to honor it so as to honor God, our Father.


In our world today,our environment and people are in danger. The environment is in trouble because people have not taken action to take care of the world around us. With everyone's help, the environment could be helped. People in our everyday world need to realize what danger they are putting the world and themselves at. Some examples of how people do not protect the earth are: Americans consume 50 million tons of paper and that equals more than 850 million trees being cut down, whenever someone in our world leaves their tap running, they are wasting over 13 liters of water per day, and whenever a plastic water bottle is left in a landfill, it takes over 450 years to degrade.
Nature is one huge part of the environment. Animals and plants are at risk of becoming extinct because people are, again, not taking action. When there could be 30 million animals on this planet, only 2 million have actually been identified. It is actually so bad, that this is even worse than when the dinosaurs became extinct. One statistic is that 70% of marine life is at risk of being extinct. Another part of God's creation are human beings. It is our responsibility to take care of ourselves. This means that we must protect ourselves by making sure that our bodies and mind
happy and healthy. An example would be intoxicating our bodies with drugs. Many young teenagers today use abuse drugs and alcohol.


Many companies today are trying to help the environment too. On May 4th, 2010, the Tastykake factory, located in South Philadelphia, celebrated its title as the "world's greenest bakery." The factory is installing solar panels in their already LEED-certified building. Apple is going green too. In 2006, they recycled about 13 million pounds of electronic waste, or "E-Waste." It is expected that by the end of the year, Apple will be recycling a significant amount more than Dell or HP. Another company that is going green is Starbucks. Since 2006, they have used recycled paper for their coffee cup sleeves, saving an estimated 78,000 trees a year. Hopefully, the big businesses will influence other businesses to go green as well.


1. Kayla and her friends get separate rides and they ride the bus to school. What are three different ways Kayla and her friends can help the environment?.
2. Jack works as a chef at Dominoes Pizza. He works hard to help the environment, but his job does not always benefit the environment. Jack wants to suggest some ways to that the company can help. What are some suggestions Jack could make to help the environment?
3. Jessica has just thrown out a banana peel, grass clippings, and a salad. What are some things she could have done to help the environment?


Caring For God’s Creation.” Catholic Charities Central Texas. Diocese of Austin, n.d.Web. 18 Apr. 2010.
“20 Shocking Facts on the Environment.” Green Expander. Green Expander, 30 Oct. 2007.Web. 18 Apr. 2010.
Le Page, Michael. “Living: the shape of life to come.” New Scientist. New Scientist, 26 Apr. 2010. Web. 18 Apr. 2010.
“Selected Quotations on the theme of Stewardship of Creation.” Office for Social Justice. St.
Paul and Minneapolis. Offfice for Social Justice St. Paul and Minneapolis, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2o1o