Among the generally poor conditions, certain neighborhoods face elevated risks when toxins and pollutants are released nearby. For the most part, such high-polluting facilities are generally located in low-income areas. It's cheaper to locate there and there is less moneyed-opposition. Who ever heard of a toxic dump in Beverly Hills? To the extent that affected communities have higher concentrations of people of color, we can label this "environmental racism." Environmental racism, or ER, means that communities of color pay a disproportionate cost in illnesses (and visits to the ER!).
One would hope that churches would take a consistently prophetic stance against such abuses. At worst, we might expect to hear silence. But only the cynics among us would expect churches to actually be profiting over such practices, like some bad movie where the villains are "Father Johnny Cashgrab" and "CEO Maxwell Profit." Sadly, that is the case with too many Christian congregations. As one particularly egregious example, the LA Archdiocese currently leases land for oil drilling and fracking to the Allenco Energy company in South LA. Even though the company has been cited for its polluting policies and is (for the moment) shut down, the Archdiocese has yet to cut the lease that's been around since 2009.
Theologically, severing this relationship should be an easy move. 1) Affirm God's preferential option for the poor? Check! 2) Reduce its complicity in the dual sins of environmental racism and ecological destruction? Double-check! 3) Care for the earth, love your neighbor as yourself, and support local parish communities? Triple-check!
Alas, power all-too-easily warps our priorities (Thanks for the insight, Niebuhr!), but that doesn't mean we have to give up on each other. Otherwise what hope would any of us have? After all, we worship a God of 70*7 chances (even if some of us are on #489). Let's help our misguided brothers in Christ see the light and end all oil leases on church properties, both for all our sakes and for their own. Heck, I'll even bring an air-freshener to the celebration party afterwards!
Itching and burning for justice,
Timothy Murphy
Executive Director