Church’s ivory cross

Catholics in the Philippines may have one more reason to say mea maxima culpa after the National Geographic Magazine reported that Msgr. Cristobal Garcia of the Archdiocese of Cebu may be involved in smuggling into and out of the country ivory brought from the black market in Africa.

“The writer Bryan Christy states that Monsignor Garcia, whom he visited in his church in Talisay, gave him the names of his ‘favorite ivory carvers, all in Manila’ and advice on how to smuggle an ivory icon to the United States by declaring them as antiques or wrapping them in soiled underwear to fool Customs checkers since a global ivory trade ban was adopted in 1989,” Cebu Daily News reported.

Christy said he visited all the shops Garcia recommended. The magazine expose, criticized as unfair by two priests in a CDN report today, tests the Philippine hierarchy’s commitment to its theology of stewardship over the earth.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has gained a reputation for environmental advocacies like his opposition to mining and his role in river basin management in Cebu.

Palma leads his flock together with a Pope Benedict XVI, who has earned the moniker “green pope” for his ecological crusade. (The Pope, during his inaugural homily in 2005, decried the phenomenon of desertification and also approved the Vatican’s building of Europe’s biggest solar power plant by 2014.)

Ivory, which is used in making pricey religious statues of santos , comes from elephants. The animals may go the way of their ancestors the mammoths, if collectors don’t stem their demand for tusks.

The Vatican condemned ecological destruction as a sin in an update of its list of transgressions in 2008.

“You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbor’s wife, but also by ruining the environment,” Bishop Gianfranco Girotti was quoted as saying. Girotti is the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican’s “tribunal of mercy.”

In Cebu, Fr. Tito Soquiño of the Augustinian order, has a special advocacy for respect for creation and the environment. What does he make of an expensive taste for ivory objects of worship that require the slaughter of wildlife in Africa?

The Church, its leaders and followers, can benefit from solid reflection on the cost of a penchant for ivory.

Only a privileged few can afford to accumulate objects of this rare material. Surely a call for temperance would not too serious a sacrifice.

With antiques, the damage done is already a thing of the past, but the international smuggling of ivory, and with it the decimation of elephant herds, continues stronger than ever in violation of at 1989 global ban, according to the National Geographic, an alarm that should be heard.

Do we need to add to more destruction of life when substitutes like resin and wood will do for symbols of faith?