Oil well drilling: Catholics and you know

While making the usual Holy Communion rounds in French-speaking Cajun-back-bayous-of-southern-Louisiana some decades ago, a grandma complained to me that her grandson was working the drills of the oil platforms out on in the Gulf. This was a complaint in that her grandson was writing to her, himself complaining that he couldn’t get promoted out of this most dangerous job in the world (really, take a look at that 59 second video… what a fright), that is, unless he joined up with, you know, one of those, you know, groups that are made up of, you know, members who are, you know… And he, good Catholic that he was, wouldn’t do it. Yep. That was decades ago. But this dynamic continues pretty much everywhere all the time. Yep. But we’re Catholic. We don’t pretend that we are the architects of the universe, bearing some sort of creative light. We worship God, not ourselves. That makes the self-absorbed-in-darkness-crowd nervous, but maybe that nervousness will bring to them to repentance and heaven. Great.