Church Effort Slows Philippines Mining

WSJ.com this evening has quite a story. Check out the effect the Catholic Church is having in the Philippines on mining specifically, but ecology in general.

The Church plays a prominent role in the Philippines. The Spanish conquistadors enlisted friars to convert many local inhabitants to Catholicism after arriving in the sixteenth century. They used religion to govern this unwieldy archipelago and unite it into a single nation.

The Church's political role has resurfaced throughout the Philippines' history. In 1986, Church leaders urged Filipinos to take to the streets of Manila to support a military coup against dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

In recent years, Church officials have stirred protests against other mining projects, including the Tamapakan site in the southern Philippines led by Xstrata Copper, a division of Xstrata PLC, and Australian firm OceanaGold Corp.'s planned gold and copper mine in Nueva Vizcaya, north of Manila. Both companies say their operations follow environmental safeguards.

When the Church began campaigning against mining in the 1980s, more than 50 mines operated in the Philippines, contributing a fifth of the country's exports. The number of mines declined to 12 in 2003 as opposition increased. 

Read the whole thing.

The most striking thing is this: The reason the Philippine Catholic Church has been so effective in conserving that nation's ecology is the great influence it continues to have in the public square.

Evangelicals of late have been "secularizing" themselves by aligning with scientists, politicians and others. Certainly we've been moving away from our Christian roots as a nation. Most of the churches actively involved in ecology in the US are dying progressive denominations.

What bodes well for the Philippines must be a wake up call for the U.S.