Gerard Manley Hopkins, a great Victorian poet who also happened to be a Jesuit
priest, once wrote a sonnet, called "God's Grandeur," about human misuse of
the planet Earth. The poem describes a defeated, exhausted world, "seared with
trade; bleared, smeared with toil/And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell."
Ironically, some of that "smudge" is today inflicted by health care organizations,
particularly in the ways they dispose of hazardous medical waste. In this issue's
special section, "Environmental Responsibility and the Ministry," Health
Progress takes a look at the ecological damage done by health care—and also
at the measures some Catholic organizations are taking to reduce that damage.
Our guest editor for the section is Sr. Mary Ellen Leciejewski, OP, coordinator
of the Ecology Program at Dominican Hospital, Santa Cruz, CA. Sr. Mary Ellen
has helped bring together articles on (among other topics) managing medical
waste, nurses as natural environmental advocates, launching mercury-reduction
projects, and the Catholic tradition vis-à-vis care of the natural world.
Hopkins' sonnet has a comforting, nearly eschatological ending, incidentally.
Just when all seems lost, morning, as Hopkins puts it, "springs":
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
In the meantime, leaders of Catholic health care organizations want to do
all they can to protect the environment. This issue's special section offers
some suggestions concerning how that can be done.
Copyright © 2003 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.