Marcellus Shale

Marcellus Shale is much in the news in Pennsylvania.  This is the huge natural gas formation one mile or more beneath the earth’s surface, over a large portion of Northeast and Appalachian states.   Big big money is being paid out to land owners for the right to dig, payments for placing drilling rigs and royalties for gas recovered.  There is much controversy about the environmental impacts:  to the underground water table, for road degradation (particularly in rural counties) and regarding whether the Commonwealth should tax the gas pumped out.

Many small groups of environmentalist activists have joined forces to raise a variety of timid protests.  Researchers haven’t had enough time to make judgments on the long term effects of our ecology.  State health officials seem to have stuck their head in the sand (pun intended).  A few of our fellow citizens are getting very rich very quickly.

But as far as I can see, the Catholic Church is silent about the morality of Marcellus Shale drilling and fracking.  Why?