In “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis called drinkable water a human right. But as Nathan Beacom writes, our methods of farming and raising livestock are degrading our soil and polluting our waterways.
Nathan Beacom
Nathan Beacom writes from Des Moines, Iowa. His writing has previously appeared in Plough Quarterly, Comment Magazine and elsewhere.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
What a 19th-century Catholic addict and poet can tell us about the modern-day opioid crisis
The current opioid crisis has strong parallels to drug addiction in Victorian England, writes Nathan Beacom, and the struggles of the Catholic poet Francis Thompson.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
The Midwest is underwater. Here’s why we should care.
This spring’s floods devastated farming and rural communities in the middle of the U.S. that were already struggling with economic and social decline, writes Nathan Beacom. But ”blue” America may find it difficult to sympathize.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
A 50-year farm bill can break our wasteful patterns of production and consumption
The latest five-year farm bill continues a pattern of subsidizing corporations while squeezing every last drop of use out of farm families and cropland.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Why Catholics should care that wilderness preserves in Utah are shrinking
Preserving wilderness areas is a way to preserve the idea of the sacred. But the Trump administration is seeking a huge reduction in protected land.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Why should Catholics care about Trump’s tariff war? American farmers.
All those who eat are called to care about the plight of those whose work produced the eating.