Superlatively thorough analysis of Laudato Si

This [also available here] is an analysis of Laudato Si, the Pope's "environmental encyclical," by 'Boniface', the moniker by which the author of Unam Sanctam Catholicsm is known. It is the most thoroughgoing analysis of Laudato Si that I have seen with penetrating evaluations and criticisms of those parts of the work that are bound to confuse and possibly mislead the faithful, yet not without appreciation for all that is positive.

This is one of those treatments that reminded me of how simply reading an ecclesiastical document, such as an Apostolic Exhortation, Encyclical, or Vatican II document, doesn't necessarily mean one has understood it. It takes a great deal of insight and background to analyze ecclesiastical documents; and reading this analysis, I thought to myself: I didn't realize half of what was in there. Good heavens! This is illuminating.

For example, the author points out how most conservative commentators objected to Pope Francis's critiques of western-style capitalism, whereas ironically he found these parts far from problematic: "they are," he writes, "some of its strongest parts."

By contrast, the parts that the author does find problematic may surprise some, especially in terms of the detailed analysis.

I wish I had time to do a justice to this analysis of Laudato Si that even approached something comparable to that which the author does to the Holy Father's work. Alas, the tyrannical business of the beginning of a semester prevents me.

But check out the work for yourself. It's an eBook and can be purchased here or here. It's entitled: Laudato Si: The 40 Concerns of an Exhausted Layman.

Vatican's greatest supporter and collaborator -- Jeff Sachs???

Elizabeth Yore, "Vatican Watch...The Vatican’s ‘Greatest Supporter’ and Collaborator" (The Remnant, July 19, 2016):

Despite the outcry from The Remnant, The Lepanto Institute, Voice of the Family and LifesiteNews and, many others, who repeatedly warned of the anti-life, anti-Catholic goals and tactics of the gender-bender, contraceptive ridden, and abortion laden UN/ SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals], Francis is not backing down of his SDG support. Since his election, his papacy quickly embraced the eco agenda of the secular global elite by collaborating with the United Nations, as the bureaucratic global savior of the environment.

In three short years, the unthinkable envelops the seat of Peter, a radical secular agenda which undermines the deposit of faith. How did it happen so quickly? The answer lies in the man seated at the papal dais. His name is Jeffrey Sachs and he is the UN/SDG mastermind behind the papal eco doctrine of faith. Make no mistake. He operates with impunity and with the explicit blessing of Francis.

Sachs dominates the Vatican as its prominent eco-mouthpiece who has racked up over 9 appearances and speeches at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy in the last 3 years.

Sachs serves as the United Nations jack-of-all-trades expert propounding on everything from rising seas to rising population.

Sachs squires around fellow secularists, Ban Ki Moon and Bernie Sanders throughout the halls of the Vatican.

Sachs drafts Vatican documents on climate change.

Jeffrey Sachs far surpasses the mere role of Vatican collaborator. He is described by Pontifical Academy President Margaret Archer as one of its “greatest supporters.”

Who is Jeffrey Sachs, this greatest supporter of the Vatican? He is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and director of the UN Millennial Development Goals Network, a special advisor to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and author of (what else) The Age of Sustainable Development.

More troubling, Sachs perches as a permanent fixture within the Vatican walls of the Francis papacy, acting as a one-man climate change curia, incessantly promoting the UN global warming agenda. He is the self-appointed expert on all things global and his troubling influence continues to grow in the Vatican.

This “greatest supporter” functions as the Vatican’s most frequent invited speaker and climate global advisor. In the last 3 years, Sachs opines from human trafficking, to climate change to income redistribution. Sachs poses as an expert on an array of subjects insisting that they all lead to the sustainable green brick road of his precious UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This greatest supporter of the Vatican wrote that abortion is a “lower-risk and lower-cost option” (that’s an economist talking) than bringing a child into the world.

This greatest supporter of the Vatican believes that “high fertility rates are deleterious to economic development.”

This greatest supporter of the Vatican forcefully argues “legalization of abortion reduces a country’s total fertility rate significantly, by as much as half a child on average.” That’s a good thing for Sachs.

This greatest supporter of the Vatican has advocated for 20 years a UN global reproductive health policy, which is flush with abortion and contraceptives.

This greatest supporter of the Vatican promotes the new UN Sustainable Development Goals which are replete with the promotion of sexual and reproductive health resources, including abortifacients, contraceptives and abortion services.

Read more >>

[Hat tip to JM]

R.R. Reno on the strengths and weaknesses of Laudato Si

R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, says in his substantial article that the conjunction of concerns in the Pope's recent encyclical is fitting [emphasis mind]:

The end of the Cold War has allowed global capitalism to develop as the world’s dominant system. Capitalism has many virtues, but there are “externalities,” as economists call them—social and environmental harms and costs that may end up being very significant. Global capitalism also resists political control, posing a challenge to existing governmental and regulatory institutions. Most important of all, perhaps, this global system requires and encourages a technocratic elite that now dominates political and cultural debates. As a result, it’s increasingly hard to imagine an alternative.

Pope Francis, he says, discusses these issues and more, making "a much-needed effort to grasp and respond to today’s global realities." Then he adds, "But, taken as a whole, Laudato Si falters." While advancing strong criticisms of the secular technological project driving modern capitalism, many aspects of the alternative he proposes "draw upon the achievements and methods of that very project."

Pontiffs who venture beyond instructing the faithful to exhorting the whole world by means of book-length encyclicals open themselves to scrutiny and criticism and manipulation by the media from multiple quarters in ways unimaginable in the past. Reno, a faithful Catholic, offers filial criticisms (as well as appreciations) of points in the Pope's publication. Interesting. Here is an abridgement:

Chapter 1, “What Is Happening to Our Common Home,” outlines Francis’s take on environmental issues.... If it were just a matter of landfills, industrial waste, and the failure to recycle, we’d be okay.... The issue is much larger, however. Francis addresses the mother of all problems—and the central ecological issue today—which is global climate change.

The position put forward is the worst-case consensus. It holds that the fossil fuel–dependent economies of the developed and developing world have set in motion a process of global warming that will accelerate.... The rhetoric of crisis runs throughout the document. “Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth.”

The encyclical then turns to a diagnosis of the theological and social-cultural roots of the ecological crisis, spelling out its social dimensions. Chapter 2, “The Gospel of Creation,” calls for us to acknowledge creation as a gift from God, our Father....

... God-forgetfulness is at the root of our global problems today: social, economic, and ecological.

This line of criticism follows a long tradition....

Chapter 3, “The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis,” analyzes what Francis takes to be the perverse spiritual logic of a scientific-­technological culture....

... A “Promethean vision of mastery” and “excessive anthropocentrism” lead to the same ecological and social disasters as ­God-forgetfulness.

At this point, Francis develops his fullest account of the crisis he believes we face.... Global capitalism is a Shiva-like force in human history—the Great Destroyer driving global warming.

... Francis is keen to point out that this suppression of larger ethical and spiritual questions allows the rich and powerful to disguise their unjust advantages and ratchet up still further their global oppression of the poor.

Given this dark picture of the global system, it’s not surprising that Francis calls for “a new synthesis,” “radical change,” and “a bold cultural revolution.”

There’s something to be said for his particular suggestions in Chapters 4 (“Integral Ecology”) and 5 (“Lines of Approach and Action”). Calls for action to address climate change are needed, as is a spiritual alternative to consumerism. But my concern is with the cogency of the encyclical as a whole. A great deal of what is commended as an alternative to the global system sounds to me like just another version of it.

Douthat: Pope's side in debate between dynamists and catastrophists

Ross Douthat, "Pope Francis’ Call to Action Goes Beyond the Environment" (New York Times, June 20, 2015):

What everyone wants to know, of course, is whether the pope takes sides in our most polarizing debate. And he clearly does. After this document, there’s no doubting where Francis stands in the great argument of our time.

But I don’t mean the argument between liberalism and conservatism. I mean the argument between dynamists and catastrophists.

Dynamists are people who see 21st-century modernity as a basically successful civilization advancing toward a future that’s better than the past. They do not deny that problems exist, but they believe we can innovate our way through them while staying on an ever-richer, ever-more-liberated course.

Dynamists of the left tend to put their faith in technocratic government; dynamists of the right, in the genius of free markets. But both assume that modernity is a success story whose best days are ahead.

Catastrophists, on the other hand, see a global civilization that for all its achievements is becoming more atomized and balkanized, more morally bankrupt, more environmentally despoiled. What’s more, they believe that things cannot go on as they are: That the trajectory we’re on will end in crisis, disaster, dégringolade.

Like dynamists, catastrophists can be on the left or right, stressing different agents of our imminent demise. But they’re united in believing that current arrangements are foredoomed, and that only a true revolution can save us.

This is Pope Francis’ position, and the controlling theme of his encyclical. It includes, as many liberals hoped and certain conservatives feared, a call to action against climate change, which will no doubt cause Republicans to squirm during political campaigns to come.

But reading “Laudato Si’ ” simply as a case for taking climate change seriously misses the depth of its critique — which extends to the whole “technological paradigm” of our civilization, all the ways (economic and cultural) that we live now.

... the encyclical’s most pungent lines are apocalyptic: “Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth.”

... its urgency, sweep, and apocalyptic flavor may make “Laudato Si’ ” more immediately influential, more likely to make both audiences think anew.

However, its catastrophism also leaves this pope more open to empirical criticism. For instance, he doesn’t grapple sufficiently with evidence that the global poor have become steadily less poor under precisely the world system he decries — a reality that has complicated implications for environmentalism.

Nor are questions related to population growth successfully resolved....

Finally, it’s possible to believe that climate change is happening while doubting that it makes “the present world system ... certainly unsustainable,” as the pope suggests.

[Hat tip to Fr. D. Jones]

For the record: Mullarkey on Laudato Si'

[Disclaimer: Rules ##7-9]
Maureen Mullarkey, "Where Did Pope Francis’s Extravagant Rant Come From?" (The Federalist, June 24, 2015). What, First Things wouldn't publish this? Heads will explode, if not roll:

Subversion of Christianity by the spirit of the age has been a hazard down the centuries. The significance of “Laudato Si” lies beyond its stated concern for the climate. Discount obfuscating religious language. The encyclical lays ground to legitimize global government and makes the church an instrument of propaganda—a herald for the upcoming United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Paris.

... Take no comfort from “Laudato Si’s” restatements of the Catholic Church’s traditional positions on the sanctity of life, the primacy of the family, and rejection of abortion. In this context, orthodoxy and pious expression serve a rancid purpose. They are a Trojan horse, a vehicle for insinuating surrender to pseudo-science and the eco-fascism that requires it.

... Replete with cooing reference to Francis of Assisi, “Laudato Si” ignores the single aspect of Assisi’s “Il Poverello” most relevant to our time. It is not the fey proto-hippie of high-fructose legend that speaks best to us now. It is the would-be martyr who sailed to Egypt alongside Crusaders to preach the gospel to a Muslim sultan.

Resurgent Islam and the spread of Sharia are the church’s enemies, not oil, coal, and gas. None are poorer than those who live, despised, in the path of ISIS. Where, then, is the encyclical calling for the conversion of Islam away from its murderous climate of hatred? Instead, the Vicar of Christ calls all the world—intending primarily the West—to “ecological conversion.”

Intellectual and moral confusion of such magnitude is a judgment on the ecclesial culture that produced it and the popular culture that consents to it.

[Hat tip to M.G.]

The Vatican, U.N., and Global Warming: the emerging battle lines

Elizabeth Yore, "The Pope's Encyclical: A Statement by Elizabeth Yore"


M. Matt, "Voice of the Family statement on the encyclical Laudato Si" (June 20, 2015)

Fr. John Hunwicke's pearls of wisdom on "Nature and Environment"

Fr. John Hunwicke, "Nature and Environment" (Fr. Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, October 3, 2014). A few excerpts ... or, pearls:

... What I find objectionable is an ideology which has grown up and which surrounds 'Nature' and 'The Environment' with reverence, even deference, and sometimes even what looks like a whole invented morality. (Whom should I blame as the begetter of the idea that Morality is derived from Nature? Wordsworth? Heidegger?) Take the concept of Biodiversity. We are under an obligation, it is suggested, to preserve threatened species and to expand the numbers of different species in the world around us.

Really? What about the small-pox virus? Or Ebola? How much do we welcome their spread? Do we encourage it? But they are parts of Nature, aren't they? Should I explain to my GP that he is wrong to discourage promiscuous young people from providing Welcoming Habitats for Chlamydia? What about fleas? Are they part of Nature, and, if not, why not? What about those wonderful little creatures, lice? Cockroaches in your kitchen and the maggots spreading from the bit of beef which slipped down behind the cupboard? And Weather is Environment, isn't it? Tsunamis are to be welcomed, aren't they? Volcanic eruptions? Floods resulting in the spreading of Bubonic Plague by large black rats? (Perhaps Dr Dawkins will write us a book, with enlarged colour photographs, about the elegant and beautiful symbiosis between the rats, their fleas, and the plague.)

... Recently a television 'Nature' presenter in England called Humble revealed that she liked going around naked so as to be "closer to Nature". She (and the journalist who wrote the story up) apparently saw no inconsistency between this affection for 'Nature' and the decision she said she and her husband had made "never" to have children. How 'Natural' are antiovulant contraceptive pills ... or whatever method she uses to achieve her elected infertility? She tells us that "We usually get up at 6 a.m. to feed the animals". One assumes that she seizes the opportunity to do this naked. I'm sure her house is exquisitely smelly (smells are 'natural') after she comes back indoors with animal excrement all over her (of course) naked feet (mammal excrement is 'natural', isn't it?). And Humble says that "there is something joyous about it [going naked]". I admire her ability to find 'joy' in circumstances which most of us would give a lot to avoid, like going out stark-naked to feed the pigs in a sub-zero temperature, two hours before dawn on a January morning. (Goose pimples are 'part of Nature', aren't they? And icy winter winds straight from Siberia? Or is Nature confined to agreeably warm days and a beneficent Jet-stream?).

[Hat tip to L.S.]

Interpretations of Laudato Si'

I plan to update this listing periodically. [Disclaimer: The views of the linked articles do not necessarily reflect my views, as most readers (and my seminary students) will know. Some are polite and charitable; others abrasive and bitter; still others inveterate fantasy. Advisory: I consider it important to arm oneself with a variety of perspectives -- See: Rules ##7-9]

• "Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' of the Holy Father, Francis, On Care for Our Common Home" (Vatican website, May 24, 2015)
• "A guide to Laudato Si" (ICN, June 18, 2015)
• Fr. Ashley Beck, "No Catholic is free to dissent from the teaching of Laudato Si'" (Catholic Herald, June 19, 2015)
• "The Five Things You May Have Missed in the Pope's Newest Encyclical" (Humanum, June 18, 2015) [See also this background on Humanum]
• Fr. George W. Rutler, "Mixing Up the Sciences of Heaven and Earth" (Crisis, June 18, 2015)
• R.R. Reno, "The Return of Catholic Anti-Modernism" (First Things, June 18, 2015)
• "11 Things You Probably Won't Hear about Pope Francis' Encyclical" (The Stream June 19, 2015)
• Kathryn Jean Lopez, "Consider Accepting Pope Francis’s Invitation to a View of Human Creation in Full" (National Review, June 18, 2015).
• George Weigel, "The Pope’s Encyclical, at Heart, Is About Us, Not Trees and Snail Darters" (National Review, June 18, 2015).
• Austen Ivereigh, "Laudato Si': a landmark in modern church teaching that will shape a new future" (Catholic Voices Comment, June 17, 2015).
• Christopher White, "Pope Francis' new encyclical is about climate change -- and much more" (New York Daily News, June 18, 2015)
• "Editorial: Care for our home" (Our Sunday Visitor June 18, 2015)
• Cardinal Seán P. O'Malley, "Laudato Si': Protecting 'our common home' and the dignity of the poor" (Echoes, June 18, 2015)
• Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, "Pope calls for action on climate change. Is it his most radical move yet?" (National Post, June 16, 2015)
• Fr. Raymond J. de Souza "Laudato Si: The Cheers and the Challenges" (National Catholic Register, June 18, 2015)
• Mark Shea, "John Allen, Jr. Gives Fascinating Background on Laudato Si" (Patheos, June 18, 2015)
• "Fr. Barron on Pope's Francis' Encyclical 'Laudato Si'" [video via Mark Shea on Fr. Barron's "typically intelligent commentary"]
• Christopher A. Ferrara, "On the Pope's Encyclical, 'Laudato Si’: Talk to the Animals - After All, You’re One of Them" (The Remnant June 18, 2015)
• Dave Armstrong, "Critique of Chris Ferrara's Radical Reactionary Hit-Piece in Opposition to Pope Francis' Christian Environmentalism"(Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, June 20, 2015)
• Louie Verrechio, "The single most important lesson of Laudato Si" (Harvesting the Fruit of the Vatican II, June 19, 2015)
• Samuel Gregg, "Laudato Si': Well intentioned, economically flawed" (Acton Institute blog, June 19, 2015>
• Jimmy Akin, "Pope Francis' Environmental Encyclical: 13 Things to Know and Share" (National Catholic Register, June 18, 2015)
• Fr. Robert Sirico, "The Pope's Green Theology" (Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2015), by founder of the Acton Institute [representing Austro-Libertarian "free-market" economics]
• Michael Sean Winters, "Laudato Si' - Magistra No" (National Catholic Reporter, June 19, 2015)
• John Vennari, "EcoEncy - Noah and Justice and Peace, Oh My" [video] (Catholic Family News, June 18, 2015)
• Atila Sinke Guimarães, "Who Is Inspiring Francis on Ecology?" (Tradition in Action, May 29, 2015)
• Anthony Annett, "Ten Quick Takeaways from Laudato Si'" (Commonweal, June 18, 2015)
• William L. Patenaude, "'Laudato Si' focuses on the heart of man and the disorders of our age" (Catholic World Report, June 18, 2015)
• Boniface, "The Curiosity of the Modern Encyclical" (Unam Sanctam Catholicam, June 18, 2015)
• Aaron Taylor, "Pope Francis's Conservatism of Joy" (Ethika Politika, June 22, 2015)
• Chris Jackson, "Why I'm Disregarding Laudato Si and You Should Too" (Remnant, June 19, 2015)
• Leroy Huizenga, "Why I Welcome 'Laudato Si'" (Catholic World Report, June 19, 2015)
• Kathryn Jean Lopez, "Pope Francis does not settle science or replace politics but opens doors and hearts to the fullness of creation" (National Review, June 22, 2015).
• Maureen Mullarkey, "Where Did Pope Francis’s Extravagant Rant Come From?" (The Federalist, June 21, 2015).
• Robert Royal, "The New Encyclical: Laudato Si" (The Catholic Thing, June 18, 2015)
• Ross Douthat, "Pope Francis’ Call to Action Goes Beyond the Environment" (New York Times, June 20, 2015)
• "Franciscan explains [and SINGS] 'Laudato Si'" [Video]
• Mark Brumley, Fr. Fessio, at al., "Ignatius Press discussion of Laudato Si'" [Video]
• "U.S. Bishops Welcome Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si'" [National Press Club Video]
• "The Theologians [at HQ of America magazine] Respond: Laudato Si" [Video]
• Yale University panel: "Pope Francis and the Environment: Why His New Climate Encyclical Matters" [Video]
• "Rush: Pope's Stance On Climate Science Proves He's Marxist" [Video]
• Augustinus, "The Holy See's New Alliances - I. Behind Laudato Si: Meet the Irish dissident who was one of the chief advisors behind this encylical - and what he said about its theology" (RC, July 14, 2015).

But remember, when all is said and done, what is far more important than any encyclical, or sorting out the cacophony of voices vying to interpret it, is the zeal and joy with which you embrace your life as a Catholic. To know the Faith requires no more than a Penny Catechism; and if you know your Faith, you will know how to live it, love it, and serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

Climate change doubter booted from Vatican summit

Mark Duell, "French climate change doubter was 'uninvited' from Vatican summit weeks before Pope declared global warming a man-made problem" (Daily Mail.com, June 21, 2015)

First Things' R.R. Reno compares Laudato Si' to Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors

Don't you LOVE being Catholic?!!

R.R. Reno, "The Return of Catholic Anti-Modernism" (First Things, June 18, 2015), begins his essay thus:

Commentators are sure to make the false claim that Pope Francis has aligned the Church with modern science. They’ll say this because he endorses climate change. But that’s a superficial reading of Laudato Si. In this encyclical, Francis expresses strikingly anti-scientific, anti-technological, and anti-progressive sentiments. In fact, this is perhaps the most anti-modern encyclical since the Syllabus of Errors, Pius IX’s haughty 1864 dismissal of the conceits of the modern era.

At which point you may be wondering, as I, whether Reno is writing entirely tongue-in-cheek, or whether he's serious. Well, read to the end, and I think you'll see.

Fr. Rutler on the "promise and peril" of Laudato Si'

Fr. George Rutler, "Mixing Up the Sciences of Heaven and Earth" (Crisis, June 18, 2015), writes:

It is noteworthy that Pope Francis would have included in an encyclical, instead of lesser teaching forms such as an apostolic constitution or motu proprio, subjects that still pertain to unsettled science (and to speak of a “consensus” allows that there is not yet a defined absolute). The Second Vatican Council, as does Pope Francis, makes clear that there is no claim to infallibility in such teaching. The Council (Lumen Gentium, n.25) does say that even the “ordinary Magisterium” is worthy of a “religious submission of intellect and will” but such condign assent is not clearly defined. It does not help when a prominent university professor of solid Catholic commitments says that in the encyclical “we are about to hear the voice of Peter.” That voice may be better heard when, following the advice of the encyclical (n.55) people turn down their air conditioners. One awaits the official Latin text to learn its neologism for “condizione d’aria.” While the Holy Father has spoken eloquently about the present genocide of Christians in the Middle East, those who calculate priorities would have hoped for an encyclical about this fierce persecution, surpassing that of the emperor Decius. Pictures of martyrs being beheaded, gingerly filed away by the media, give the impression that their last concern on earth was not climate fluctuations.

Saint Peter, from his fishing days, had enough hydrometeorology to know that he could not walk on water. Then the eternal Logos told him to do it, and he did, until he mixed up the sciences of heaven and earth and began to sink. As vicars of that Logos, popes speak infallibly only on faith and morals. They also have the prophetic duty to correct anyone who, for the propagation of their particular interests, imputes virtual infallibility to papal commentary on physical science while ignoring genuinely infallible teaching on contraception, abortion and marriage and the mysteries of the Lord of the Universe. At this moment, we have the paradoxical situation in which an animated, and even frenzied, secular chorus hails papal teaching as infallible, almost as if it could divide the world, provided it does NOT involve faith or morals.

Read more >>

[Hat tip to C.B.]

Vatican's global warming extremist attempts to deflect criticism

"Vatican’s Newest Global Warming Extremist Calls Critics ‘Vicious Liars’" (Church Militant, June 22, 2015):

ROME, June 22, 2015 (Austin Ruse) - Veteran Vatican reporter Edward Pentin interviewed Hans Schellnhuber about controversies swirling around him and his reputation as one of the more aggressive theorists of global warming. Schellnhuber said reports that he said the Earth has a "carrying capacity of less than 1 billion" are a "complete lie."

But the backpedaling Schellnhuber did say precisely that, as reported by the New York Times -- namely that the carrying capacity of Earth is estimated "at less than 1 billion," which is what Breitbart News and other outlets reported. As the Church Militant article added: " should be noted that radical environmentalists have long proposed what Schellnhuber proposed at Copenhagen, that the carrying capacity of the Earth is 1 billion or less, leaving open the question of what to do with the dangerous excess of six billion."

A Franciscan Woodstock: "We are billion year old carbon, we are caught in the devil's bargain, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden"

POPE FRANCIS' ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

"Unlikely New Foe for Republican Candidates: the Pope"

Vanity Fair, June 17, 2015.

What is the appeal in looking like a branch of the UN?

Guy Noir - Private Eye, our underground correspondent we keep on retainer in an Atlantic seaboard city that knows how to keep its secrets, also seemed quite excercized about this, as he communicated recently:

Much better to sound like a government official than a Pope, even if we insist we are no NGO. When there is a "Speaker's Line Up" and an "official presentation," you realize we have ceased to be dealing with religion and are instead competing with government and celebrity machines. How long before we see The EarthKeeper's Bible or Spiritual Disciplines for the Environmentally-Aware...?

Here were are: Augustinus, "For Pope's Environment Encyclical, an unusual line-up of presenters for official Vatican press conference, including climate change radical" (Rorate Caeli, June 10, 2015):

he Vatican has just revealed in today's Bollettino the line-up of speakers for the official presentation of the "Environment Encyclical", Laudato Si, on June 18 at the New Synod Hall.

The most interesting is probably Prof. John Schellnhuber, Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, proponent of a "zero-carbon world," known for his "aggressive stance on climate policy," and for having famously declared in 2009 that the "carrying capacity" of the Earth is less than one billion people! He is also known, according to Augustinus, for his "intense advocacy of rapid de-industrialization in order to stave off global warming." You've really got to read the quotes to believe this guy's for real. And, last but not least, he is an advocate of a real form of "World Government," something advanced also in the cause of climate control. One has to wonder why the Vatican selected him to be the sole layman and environmental "expert" to present on the occasion of the debut of the Pope's new encyclical. Really.

Vatican & the UN "environmentalist" pro-abort agenda

You doubtless know about the Papal Environmental Conference at the Vatican on April 28th hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which, when all is said and done, looks for all the world like social grandstanding extravaganza mutually exploited by the Vatican and by UN leftists (see, e.g., Rebecca Terrell's "How Green Was My Vatican"). Everything, it seems, from international poverty and overpopulation to human trafficking and modern slavery, and the sexual abuse of children, supposedly can be blamed on environmental problems.

The notable International Child Advocate Elizabeth Yore attended the conference in Rome and offered her incisive rebuttal to the alarmist remarks of "environmentalists" like Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Ehrlich. Yore states, "There is an undeniable, profound moral and ethical schism between the moral teaching of the Catholic Church on life, and the Sustainable Development agenda and its draconian anti-life means promulgated by Sachs and the UN."

If that is true, we have reason to be concerned. If even a third of the concerns raised by Michael Matt's otherwise equally alarmist account of the Vatican event are true, we may have serious a problem.

"Environmental Gospel" as social grandstanding

Hello folks, it's Guy Noir again, with another happy message for your giddy souls, namely this: 

If the Catholic Church is trying to push the gospel, you could've fooled me -- with this: Thomas Reese, "Encyclical on environment stimulates hope among academics and activists" (National Catholic Fishwrap, April 24, 2015).

This is the same inanity currently infatuating the more avant-garde evangelical community, and it confuses social grandstanding with faith. When the pope and his handyman start sounding like James Cameron and Al Gore, or Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle for that matter, we have a problem.

The Idols of Environmentalism

Maureen Mullarkey, "Notes on an Idol" (First Things, April 21, 2015):

... Growing mightily all the while is the cult of environmentalism, a burgeoning state religion summarized in the catechism of sustainable development. It is the ascendant idol of our time, as magnetic—and totalizing—as the Leninist-Stalinist doctrines were to Milosz’ contemporaries.

.... There is little need to wait for the climate encyclical to know which way this trolley is headed. On its website, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences announces an April 28th conference: Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity: the Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Humanity. Its mission statement is steeped in the received wisdom that enchants today's collective mind....

... The Vatican's slouch toward salvation-by-ecology did not begin with Pope Francis. Daniel Stone, writing in National Geographic in 2013 stated that one lasting legacy of Benedict XVI, dubbed the “Green Pope,” was how he steered the global debate over climate change: ” . . . the pontiff has made environmental awareness a key tenant of his tenure.” In Caritas in Veritate (2009), Benedict signaled his hope for a “world political authority.”

... The mission of the Church is to keep man mindful that he has another life to live. When the Church maneuvers to be counted a player among the principalities and powers, the subversion of Christian truth and charity has begun. The true object of Green globalism is not human needs, but those of the planet. The culture of death wears many guises. Among them are the anti-humanist assumptions of environmentalism.

Yesterday's Gospel reading (John 6: 28-29) hovers over this discussion:

Then they said unto him: What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom he hath sent.

All the rest, with its time-bound, tragic burdens, is the work of man. And men of good will, in their God-given freedom, differ in definitions of the common good and in means to achieve it. Turning stones into bread is not a work for the Pontifical Academy.

[Hat tip to Dr. M. Latkovic]

Related - Despite media spin, Pope Benedict XVI expressed 'GRAVE MISGIVINGS' about modern environmentalism

• John-Henry Westen, "Pope [Benedict] Speaks on Church's 'Grave Misgivings' about Modern Environmentalism" (Time Out of Joint, February 28, 2011) - "Darwinist mentality leads to disregard for the environment"
• "Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI emeritus) Severely Criticizes U.N.'s Proposal for New World Order" (Time Out of Joint, August 28, 2010) - For the Church to Oppose Abortion, Contraception & Depopulation Is to Oppose the Whole Tissue of the Proposed So-Called New World Order; It Is To Stand with the Poor and Vulnerable of This World

Ambiguity and indeterminable meaning

A colleague of mine at the seminary where I teach emailed several of us (his fellow professors) the link to the following article, with this remark:

The following lines from the piece are a brief but brilliant summing up of the problem:

"In the words of Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Francis means 'to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion.'

"There is a muddle for you. The bishop asserts a causal relation between two undefined, imprecise phenomena. His phrasing is a sober-sounding rhetorical dodge that eludes argument because the meaning is indeterminable. Ambiguity, like nonsense, is irrefutable [The problem with Francis!! -- his words]. What caliber of scientist speaks this way?"

Maureen Mullarkey, "Francis & Political Illusion" (First Things, January 5, 2015):

In the cap and bells of Flip Wilson’s Church of What’s Happening Now, Pope Francis is readying an encyclical on climate change. He will address the world’s latest mutation of the grail quest: human ecology. Abandoning nuance for apocalyptic alarmism (“If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us.”), Francis has signaled the tenor of his utterance.

It comes as no surprise. Handwriting has been on the wall along the Viale Vaticano from the get-go. At the beginning of his pontificate, Francis revealed himself to be fastidiously attuned to image. He refused to give communion in public ceremonies lest he be photographed giving the sacrament to the wrong kind of sinner. So, when he agreed to pose between two well-known environmental activists and brandish an anti-fracking T-shirt, we believed what we saw.

It was a portentous image. Press toads hopped to their keyboards to correct the evidence of our lying eyes. Francis was neither for nor against fracking, you see. Nothing of the sort. He was simply using a photo-op to assert blameless solidarity with the victims of ecological injustice. (Both a decisive definition of such injustice and its particular victims went unspecified.) Read more >>

[Hat tip to MSL and JM]

Assured of their loyal subjects' security and comfort back home, with global warming and universal healthcare, Obamas live like royalty on lavish Hawaiian vacation

"REGAL R&R: Obamas live like royalty on lavish Hawaiian holiday" (Washington Times, January 2, 2014):

History will record that on the 12th day of his latest Hawaiian vacation, President Obama tweeted about Obamacare....

Otherwise, the trip has been an unbroken stretch of luxurious living for the president with his family at a beach house in trendy Kailua, an oceanfront neighborhood in Oahu where the homes rent for $3,500 per day — more than many families earn in a month. The Obamas are paying for the $56,000 cost of the rental home, although taxpayers foot the bill for the first family’s travel on Air Force One — which, at more than $180,000 per hour, makes for a couple of million-dollar flights. A cool treat: White House officials allow the press to watch as President Obama takes family and friends out for shaved ice on New Year's Eve.

What’s more, hundreds of federal workers — from White House staffers to the Secret Service security detail needed to protect the Obamas — join in for what turns out to be an all-expenses-paid vacation. According to watchdog.org, the government rented at least seven homes in the area, costing taxpayers more than $183,750 of what the organization says will likely be a $4 million bill.

And come on ... how many of you ever believed that idiocy about global warming for which Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Prize anyway? Today the Antarctic ice shelf melt is "lowest ever recorded"; Minnesota is enduring the "worst" deep freeze in 20 years; and your tax dollars have nonetheless paid for $7.45 billion to fight "global warming" in other countries.