Pagan Weekend

Christians are celebrating Good Friday today and Easter on Sunday, but the pagans have other ideas for this weekend's church services:

Some Catholics are concerned with what they see as an attempt by environmentalists to hijack Easter for their own Earth Day purposes.

In a letter dated April 1 to churches across the country, the environmentalist group Earth Day Network encourages priests to remember Earth Day Sunday, even though Easter is that same Sunday.

“This year we again invite you to celebrate Earth Day Sunday and share with your parishioners a story of creation care that will impart to them the importance of protecting a nurturing the planet that was provided to us,” the letter reads. “Earth Day Sunday is a great way to bring your parish together through community building and sharing the faith with those in the community while improving the world around us.”

The letter does add that if priests want to celebrate Easter instead, they could consider delivering a climate change sermon on the following Sunday. Michael Voris of REAL Catholic TV, however, is not buying it, calling the campaign a push for a “pagan takeover of Easter”

“Earth Day 2011 falls on Friday, April 22, which is Good Friday so on the following Sunday, which is two days later, the Earth Day Network wants Catholic priests all over the country to devote their homily to Earth Day. Slight problem, the next Sunday, the one after Good Friday, is Easter,” Voris said. “Imagine going to mass to hear about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead only to be told to go clean up a park.”

Although Easter and Earth Day certainly cannot be easily confused, they're both religious holidays because worship of the earth has become a religion of its own.