Guest essay by H. Sterling Burnett
Pope Francis evidently has decided to make fighting global warming an important papal cause in 2015. He praised the United Nations’ climate treaty efforts in Lima, Peru; the Vatican has indicated he will issue an encyclical letter to the world’s bishops; he is encouraging the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to take up the battle against climate change; and he’s planning to address the next UN climate conference in Paris to pressure world leaders to adopt a strong climate agreement.
The Vatican Pontifical Academy of Sciences may be behind the pope’s rising interest in global warming as a moral and political cause. Its chancellor, Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, said, “Our academics supported the pope’s initiative to influence next year’s crucial decisions. The idea is to convene a meeting with leaders of the main religions to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion.”
Many Catholics undoubtedly support the pope’s efforts and, unlike many of his critics, I would argue the views of the pope, a significant moral leader, should be considered as climate policies are shaped. As the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world, he is charged not just with saving souls but also with alleviating the suffering of the world’s least fortunate, and with leading the Catholic Church in efforts to make the world a better place.
Having said this, I also know moral imperatives and public policies should be grounded in the best-available science, in the reality of the human condition, and in the state of both the planet and the people. Concerning global warming, the pope evidently has been badly misinformed and led astray.
None of the disasters asserted by climate alarmists to result from global warming has come to pass. Hurricane numbers are down, deaths from natural disasters have declined, sea ice is on the rise, and crop production is increasing. Climate models have yet to be validated, missing the lull in temperature rise for the past 18 years and the declining rates of sea-level rise for the past decade. Instead, the gap between temperatures projected by climate models and temperature observed in reality grows yearly.
Investor’s Business Daily has speculated the Vatican is itching to tackle climate change, despite the above-stated facts, because,
[The] Vatican … has been infiltrated by followers of a radical green movement that is, at its core, anti-Christian, anti-people, anti-poor and anti-development. The basic tenets of Catholicism – the sanctity of human life and the value of all souls – are detested by the modern pagan environmentalists who worship the created, but not the creator. … Big Green believes that too many human beings are the basic global problem. People, according to this view, are resource destroyers. Climate change, they say, is due to the overpopulation of Mother Earth.
The pope would do well to question the sources of his information and to recognize his efforts should be focused on alleviating the poverty and suffering of billions of people in the world today. The best policy to accomplish that goal would be alleviating energy poverty worldwide.
As a CNS editorial stated,
Alex Epstein argues, rather than taking a safe climate and making it dangerous through the use of fossil fuels, we have been transforming a dangerous climate into a safer, more manageable one for human flourishing.
Humans have long fought a war with climate, and to the extent we’ve won it has been through the use of technology, most recently including, fossil fuels.
Note from Anthony:
As a Catholic myself, I’m disappointed in this stance, especially since it seems out of place with doctrines of the past where there Church denounced many issues of science through its history, only to later admit they erred, jumped to conclusions, and admitted such errors in judgment decades or centuries later.
For example, it only took the Catholic church 359 years to decide that Galileo was right after all, and that the Earth DOES in fact revolve around the Sun.
I plan to ignore the Pope and its science panel, as many are likely to do given their track record on getting science wrong in almost every case where science and religion have collided through history,
As population must be one of the biggest drivers of increasing CO2 , then you would expect him to pass an edict allowing birth control?
John F
I disagree that population is the biggest driver. There are many large and expanding populations that had a very low net level of CO2 production per person. It is the rich who produce the most CO2.
There is a well known correlation between income and fertility. As people share in the riches of modern civilization, they have far fewer children to the point that developed countries have shrinking populations.
This implies birth control is being used.
I welcome any initiative by the religious communities to expand the upliftment of those who are in need and welcome the elimination of excessive accumulation in the midst of want. We are our brother’s keepers. That does not mean we should lose sight of good science or adopt fallacious arguments. In other words, noble goals do not have to be undergirded by false premises. Noble goals are themselves sufficient cause for moral and ethical action.
It is plain and obvious from the Copenhagen Agreement text that the ‘real plan’ is to develop a funding mechanism for poor countries – something absolutely deserved in a world that exploits the daylights out of them. The rich countries, including those ‘making the most’ from cheap overseas labour, have failed to deliver either a sensible method of international governance of such reasonable assistance and have failed to make any budgetary provision beyond the need to ‘make friends’. Does anyone think this can go on indefinitely? If the sensible few won’t do it, then the crazies will.
Well I believe that you need to have the rich people / countries in order to provide for the continuing survival of the poor; well at least at some above sub survival level.
Stop knocking the rich; and the pope is among the richest people on the planet.
I never ever got a job offer from a poor person.
The pope could put his vast collection of artworks on the market, to fund his impoverishing encyclical.
“It is the rich who produce the most CO2.” And Al Gore takes the prize. CO2 being plant food, increasing CO2 fertilizes plants that help feed the poor. This must make Al Gore a great humanitarian – there you go another nobel piece price (butchered on purpose).
Without someone to buy what ever is being produced by so called “poor” countries, they will remain poor. I also believe you are confusing developed with rich and undeveloped with poor which then initiates the debate of the future make up of developed and undeveloped. (1) You also need to understand which “poor” countries are being targeted by the UN IPCC. A number of these so called deserving countries are not so “poor”. (Check out the section on the RAF (2))
(1) http://sputniknews.com/business/20141226/1016287362.html
(2) http://unfccc.int/files/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/application/pdf/background_paper.pdf
‘It is the rich who produce the most CO2.’
Today’s poor is tomorrow’s rich. The pope has not been helpful there, but OTOH, the population growth has very much ended in many papal countries, continuing fertility based only in equatorial Africa. Population growth elsewhere is caused by lowering mortality rate among elder people. That will come to an end soon.
China produces more CO2 than US or whole Europe. They have the strictest of birth controls. Germany bathes in coal power. They have totally outsourced fertility. But still the amount of Germans, Chinese and people in general has an effect on how much coal we need.
We just don’t find high fertility rates anywhere where coal is used massively. We will find coal use as soon as the fertility rate drops. The poor will come rich.
The window for papal birth control based environment protection closed already a generation ago. It’s time to use nuclear option.
By the nuclear option I mean nuclear power, of course. Birth control does not help in CO2 reduction.
Seems to me that most countries the have had daylights exploited out of them, have had corrupt leaders that were in collaboration with the “exploiters” and have expended a considerable amount of effort in establishing a culture of corruption and nepotism. This corruption has established an economic blackhole that no amount of cash redistributed from developed countries will ever be able to fill.
I think the Pope should concentrate his efforts on a much longer-lasting problem: eternal warming.
There is more than enough to deal with in “cleaning house”, as it were. Adding supposed global
warming to the to-do list will only make things worse.
Maybe the Pope/Church should be donating a lot of their riches disclosed in the recent church audit has disclosed. Wonder what their CO2 footprint is?
So much misinformation.
Here, how many people believe in the flat earth society? And was there actually one, or is it just a myth?
http://www.quora.com/What-people-fueled-the-flat-earth-theory-in-the-middle-ages-after-Ancient-Greek-astronomers-had-convincingly-shown-that-the-earth-is-round/answer/Tim-ONeill-1
‘failed to deliver either a sensible method of international governance ‘ by right thinking people who by lucky chance share the same views as you?
Oddly their has never been a muderious dictator that has come to power claiming not be interested in ‘the good of the people ‘ and amazingly its not been ‘good’ nor ‘for the people’
And by the way given endemic corruption often all that throwing endless money at poor countries has done in the past is made happier Lear Jets salesmen, Why should throwing even more money ,under ‘climate guilt ‘ at them make it different this time ?
Crispin-
You have given the wrong answer to Cain’s question. We are most assuredly not “our brother’s keepers” in the sense that we should be “keepers of sheep”. We, as Christians, are charged to love our brethren and not wish or do them ill, but we are not responsible to maintain or control them as if they were sheep. Cain’s question was a non sequitur, as both he and God knew where Abel was, and what was done to him.
Crispin: Well then, obviously we should base our “method of international government” on all the national or local governments that compelled the rich to “uplift” the poor and succeeded. You know, all those governments with a “funding mechanism” taking from rich and have the noble goal of getting it to the exploited poor. Please tell us which nation in history you’d base this on. I’m trying to make it easy on you, don’t need a gov’t that actually uplifted the poor, just give us one example of the gov’t that took from the rich and maintained prosperity. One. To G.E. Smith, the poor are very good at surviving everywhere, to the great exasperation of the greens. Humans can even adapt to poverty. When the poor do see prosperity, there are always some rich people around (who are smart enough to run when gov’t shows up looking for “funding mechanisms”).
Are you really that crazy to say that a world populate by ever growing multi billions is not going to have any impact on the environment and the availability of resources??
Paul Jackson you are right yet the champions of social justice never shine a light on the corrupt governments around the world that suck hundreds of billions of dollars out of their citizens for their personal use. Pretending that these governments are not a big part of the problem is astonishing and actually places the income redistribution agenda in the same vampire mould.
So just who (or what) is the pope giving the finger to ??
And yes, I think somebody should tell him about the population growth rate in his Brazil territory.
This UN One CC brochure to get the education systems throughout the world on the same voice regarding Climate Change makes it quite clear that CC is now just another reason for redistribution from the developed North to the South. http://uncclearn.org/sites/www.uncclearn.org/files/images/un_cclearn_brochure_final_oct_2014.pdf I think the Pope has fallen into the UN’s hype that it is a zero-sum world where economic gains have to come at someone else’s expense.
Errr…The pope is from Argentina not Brazil …
Reply to Robin below:
It should be made clear that this Pope is the first ever who is a Jesuit. If you know the history of the Jesuits, you will know that their members infiltrate to the highest levels of governments around the world, to influence policy and provide spiritual guidance to the rich and powerful. It is their modus operandi and stated goal. So it is not the Pope who has fallen for the UN propaganda, but “The Order” who is influencing the UN.
In addition to the White Pope now being under the control of the Black Pope, this Pope is a hard line “Liberation Theologist” i.e., a communist. Of course he would be for the redistributionist policies of the UN, as his Catholic Order has the stated purpose of converting the entire world back to Catholicism, by hook, crook or through the use of force (remember the Spanish Inquisition, initiated by the Jesuits and followers).
As noted in the article, his science advisor, Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, is also from Argentina, so he is without doubt a Jesuit and a Liberation Theologist also…..
For an unbiased look at the Jesuit Order (information taken from official Jesuit histories), see the Google book download:
https://books.google.com “A Candid History of the Jesuits”
The Pope simply realizes that Climate Change is no longer a scientific issue. It is a matter of Faith.
True. But it is not the Christian Faith.
The first commandment (1 of 10) is there to stop this sort of grievous error that leads to multiple breaches of the others.
Immediately, in this case, the sixth – by raising the costs of energy.
It has been a matter of faith for a number of years now. 😊
I wholeheartedly agree.
Jimbo,
If John Cooke et al had any idea of what will happen to the economy and the members of that economy i.e. you, him and me and our children- he might take another look at his faith. If it is faith that he has!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
The catholic church is not opposed to birth control, only those that are effective. Rather like the greens that are opposed to all effective sources of energy.
Robert,
The Church is first and foremost advocating that children being created remain a decision of the parents. The Encyclical Humae Vitae principally warned catholics against forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced infanticide brought upon parents by GOVERNMENT. That was written in 1968 just after China instituted a one child policy, regardless of the rights and interests of the parents. See Paragraph 17.
So they are opposed to those effective means that are imposed outside the marriage, artificial and especially by government or by pressure of social groups eg, the Club of Rome which started the AGW movement.
What is the MOST effective form of birth control? Abstinence. Does the Catholic Church oppose abstinence?
Namaskar,
Sustainability issue [from my book “Environment and People”]:
Few would disagree that economic development and environmental protection will top the national and international agendas in the 21st Century. Nations measure the monetary value of goods and services from economic activity as an indicator of national well-being. Current accounting systems used to estimate productivity do not reflect depletion or degradation of natural resources used to produce goods and services. During much of the 20th Century, both producers and consumers depleted natural resources with little thought for the environmental damage they were causing. We continued to overlook environmental damages until polluted land, water, food and air began threaten human health and until native species and ecosystems began disappear.
Sustainable technology focuses on pollution and cleaner technology. Pollution prevention minimizes undesirable effluents, emissions and wastes from products and processes that obviate the need for treatment and control. A preventive approach includes using fewer or non-polluting materials, designing processes that minimize waste products and pollutants and directing the latter to other useful purposes, and creating recyclable products. Cleaner technology uses less fuel or alternate fuels to produce energy and generates little or no waste for industry, agriculture and transportation. Thus sustainable technologies are those that can reduce environmental pollution through significant technical advances. Society as a whole benefits from sustainable technologies. Since the technology is the key to sustainable development, it must be commercially available, economically compatible and environmentally and socially acceptable.
The basic question that arises from how do we measure sustainable development, (1) what is it we wish to sustain and (2) over what time and what area and in locality in the world. Temporal scale of interest is probably relatively short when viewed in relation to geological time but quite long when viewed in relation to the lifetimes of people. The upper limits of special scale are constrained, with current technology, to the size of our planet. Locational prospective are also of interest in examining issues of sustainability. For agriculture systems in the developed world the main issues of sustainability include diversification from a relatively limited range of commodities and reduction of flows of nutrients and pesticides from agricultural system in to adjacent systems. For agricultural systems in developing countries the impetus must be to produce food in increasing amount without destroying the ecological base upon which plant growth is dependent. To assess the sustainability it is necessary to understand the extent and severity of environmental problems. This includes several areas but let us look at 12 priority areas, namely (1) population stabilization, (2) integrated land use planning, (3) healthy cropland and grassland, (4) woodland and re-vegetation, (5) conservation of biological diversity,
(6) control of pollution in water and air, (7) development of non-polluting renewable energy system, (8) recycling of wastes and residues, (9) ecologically compatible human settlements and slum improvement, (10) environmental education and awareness, (11) updating environmental laws, and (12) new dimensions to national security.
Industrial growth and employment is the powerful stimuli for the rapid urbanization of developing countries. Lack of planning, and collapse of infrastructure due to rapid migration frayed the urban fabric putting enormous pressure on shelter and services. It also put pressure on the water and energy. The energy needs of developing countries will grow at a faster rate than those of industrialized nations. Because 95% of the world’s projected population growth will occur in these nations, economic development is essential to their survival.
No doubt it’s exciting to search for new, supposedly “sustainable” sources of energy. But it would be great if there was also an equal emphasis placed on trying to find an economic model which does not require growth – as our current model does. That would relieve politicians of their obsession with insisting on a growing human population – which the planet clearly cannot accommodate, without extinguishing all other species but our own (except those we need for our food supply). Fewer humans would seem to be the best answer for a sustainable future for everyone.
Four decades back, governments in developing countries looked in this direction — population control. But now nobody bothered on this vital important issue except talking on greenhouse gases emissions and on this spending billions of US$ just to divert and pocket the money. In India, with the present population growth, power needs were estimated as 9% growth. The power share by source in India and USA at the end of August 2011 was as follows:
% share of source-wise energy production in
Source India/USA/Germany@
RES ——— 11%/03.8%/22.4%
Nuclear —— 2%/21.5%/15.9%
Hydro ——- 21%/06.0%/03.4%
Diesel/gas — 11%/19.8%/14.7%
Coal ——— 55%/48.9%/43.6%*
* coal + lignite in the case of Germany; @ it is for 2014 for Germany and India & USA it is for 2011
The basic question is, can we reach zero emission levels by 2100 either in USA or in India with the present fossil fuel share of power production along with the growth rate [9% for India]? We must look at practical aspects rather than speculative aspects. Through population control and control on lifestyles, we can bring down the growth rate in power sector. Then only we can achieve the target. With the population growth the population is going to reach 11 billion by 2100 and thus power needs are going to be trebled under new lifestyles!!!
Some argue” that population growth is reducing gradually: For example, during the late 1960s, world population growth peaked at over 2% annually; currently, WPG is 1.14%; for 2020 the estimate is that WPG will be less than 1%; and for 2050, estimate is less than 0.5%. The primary way this has been achieved is economic: the richer the country, the lower the population growth.” But the fact is not that simple. Please read John Bellamy Foster’s book “The vulnerable planet: A short economic history of the Environment”. This was translated in to Telugu by Prajashakti a daily newspaper in Hyderabad, for which I wrote a review published on 15 July 2001. In this book, the author discussed the issue of population growth prior to industrialization to after industrialization. He says the prior to industrialization, the births and deaths are also high. After industrialization the births and deaths are low. Also, prior to industrialization the longevity was short but after industrialization the longevity changed to longer life. This is associated with change in health care system.
Population raise was projected to reach 11 billion by 2100 and at the same time, technology based lifestyle is going in the multiple levels. They are associated with losses. Taking all these factors in to account, Indian government projected growth at 9% in power sector and accordingly power industry was projected. India is looking at power saving under national action plan on climate change. Also, proposed use of solar energy in thermal power plants and reducing losses. In practical sense the renewable energy including hydro power at the most reach 50% by 2100.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Global Warming
IPCC is a political body, prepares reports on global warming and its’ impacts on nature to serve political interests by distributing billions of US$ to serve its goal wherein top educational universities – NGOs – government agencies share.
Global temperature rise has three major components, namely, natural cyclic variation component, local and regional ecological changes component & anthropogenic greenhouse gas changes component known as global warming. Natural cyclic variation component present a 60-year cycle varying between -0.3 to +0.3 oC. Global warming component is about 50% of global temperature rise since 1950. Ecological changes play vital role at local and regional level but goes in to averaging of global temperature. They include heat-island-effect and cold-island-effect. The heat-island-effect is over emphasized in the global temperature averaging as in urban areas the met stations are densely located; and rural areas the met stations are sparsely located. Thus, the global average temperature is over estimated. This is the case with surface measurements. However, this is eliminated with satellite data. From this, it is clear that global warming component contribution to global temperature rise is less than 0.1 oC since 1950 to date. This may at the most reach 0.2 oC by the end of the century. Thus, its impact at global scale is insignificant. However, at local and regional scales, heat-island-effect and cold-island effect plays vital role.
The other major component that effect life-forms at local and regional level is the pollution and not the anthropogenic greenhouse gases. If we look at electricity production under different sources in India, USA & Germany, they all are on par in respect of pollution:
* coal + lignite in the case of Germany; @ it is for 2014 for Germany and India & USA it is for 2011
Extremes in weather over different parts of the globe are part of the natural rhythms in meteorological parameters. They are quite different over different parts of the globe. For agriculture and water resources they play important role and thus needs characterization of such rhythmic variations and thus homogenization of regions based on such studies critical. IPCC should look in this direction to help the developing nations. At Paris meet this must be emphasized and not the issue of carbon dioxide.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
[Set ASCII text format to clarify charted list. .mod]
But CO2 has nothing to do with climate change. The science, not models, contradict climatologists. Climate is driven by the sun and the atmosphere/ocean heat interactions. Most CO2 comes from volcanoes not humans.
John, you are a pawn in the climate-confusion chess game. Too many people believe exactly what they hear in the downstream media. Will Rogers said it best “Always drink upstream from the herd”.
If he is a pawn ( or shill ), so are you. Else we would be talking verified effect of CO2 rather than projecting all over the ballpark to find that when CO2 is added as a determinant that we get results which are not only unverifiable but do not obviously indicate the truth of the modeling assumptions. As it is, there are times when such an effect would have to go into negative numbers to work. In practice, Of course, this is exactly the case, as excess solar radiation during solar flares is deflected from our planet….by CO2 in the upper atmosphere. And this is a part of the theorizing ignored as inconvenient, irrelevant, and frequency dependent when it comes to the interference of passage of light energy from Sol which is taken as a constant value ( ! presumably shown by the lack of significant temperature variation in the short term …not exactly what is being promoted )….yet it too must have a value more than zero., varying in atmosphere in both directions due to breakdown of the compound as part of natural cycles both high in the atmosphere and by action of photosynthesis – especially in the oceans. It isn’t as if algal growth from imbalance in the Nitrogen Cycle is not so extreme as to cause proliferation of toxic blue green algae and oxygen depleted dead zones. Or that growth increase due to increased CO2 levels both causes more plant growth – and accelerates the rate of conversion, liberating free oxygen. Or we could simply note the obvious : when effects like wave patterns on the oceans increase absorption past even the levels for black bodies and cloud cover variation throws generalizations completely askew by chaotic energy transfer upwards…static models relying on CO2 dominating natural cycles aren’t going to work regardless.
I make no judgement, regarding his Popeness, and his beliefs; nor of anyone who chooses to allow him to make life’s decisions for them, or follow any beliefs that he promotes; nor of anyone who chooses not to follow his instructions or beliefs. That is up to each individual as far as I am concerned.
I choose to not base anything I do, or believe, on anything he says or might say; but it is ok by me if he says it.
My MIL follows him. She’s a good person. She thinks I am too. I am.
G
AW wrote:
Ah, my friend, this is just like before
For a Pope has misfired once more
On the science, he’s wrong
But it won’t take so long
For the truth to replace “Word of Gore”
==============/ Keith DeHavelle
🙂
The Pope has made his choice. So be it. His next logical move, then, will be to advocate for birth control in all its forms (why not abortion?). After all, if Man and his industries are the source of the evil CO2, then the fewer Men the better.
It will be interesting to see how climate is worked into the Holy Mass…maybe in the prayers eliminating the incense to carry the prayers message aloft, or confessional return to inquisition. Maybe the homily will be a power point presentation on polar bears population. My imagination is pegging! ( not to mock the church … of course)
John, we are talking religion here not logic!
ivor, you should apologise for that smear.
Just thinking out loud. Why don’t we wait to see what the Pope has to say and address it specifically to see what portions are reasonable, and what portions are not?
No doubt the Pope will announce that the Catholic Church is selling all the gold, jewellery and land it has amassed over the ages, and will donate this to the $ 100 billion a year UN Climate Fund to help poor nations deal with Climate Change. No doubt.
The money from St. Peter’s in Rome alone should be able to keep the UN GCF Secretariat in Korea in clover for a month or two.
FB,
I’m kinda doubtful there with you Ferdberple.
It’s entertaining to see this article based on an article. The words of the Pope have not yet been passed on so how in the world does it come about that this site has proactively taken to a skeptical discussion of that which has not yet been said?
I’m highly confident that someone will come along to correct my view, let me know that I’m applying an invalid source (probably a wiki), how stupid I am to think this way, and that “it’s all (always) about the science!
Thank you Danny Thomas. That was my thought exactly.
It’s why I didn’t comment over at the Grauniad.
We are reacting to spin that has been created in order to influence the Pope himself.
Dear Anthony, this is just a simple thought from a baffled (although not very practising) Protestant; how can one ignore the words of the supreme leader of one’s faith, without losing faith?
Just a question, no need to answer, lest we veer into the murky dephts of religious debate.
The Pope is not infallible in matters unrelated to doctrine.
The Pope is not infallible. Fixed it for you.
One does not ignore the supreme leader of one’s faith. You don’t even ignore a bishop or your local parish priest. You respectfully, and with love, disagree with him when he errs. Of course they all have masters degrees, doctorates, and training to be modest and not spout off where there is doubt and they don’t know what they’re talking about so it honestly doesn’t come up too often these days. See the arian heresy and the story of St. Nicolas for a rare and pretty extreme example.
The Catholic doctrine of infallibility is that God protects the Pope from making errors of faith and morals. It doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit will lead a pope to never endorse the miasma theory of disease, for example.
So veering back to climate change, if the Pope decides to wade into climate change, he is likely to do so in terms that are theologically sound whether or not they are scientifically correct. This is not a challenge to the faith. It’s also why Catholics can be modern bankers notwithstanding the encyclical Vix Prevenit that bans charging interest and ignores the issue of the time value of money.
As a Catholic also, i find it necessary to separate the essential beliefs of the faith from the clergy’s misguided statements and actions. As an example, I once had a priest tell me what a good man Bill Clinton is, in the context of his lying under oath about his sexual escapades as a married man. That priest is misguided, and i have ignored him since. That opinion is also not central to the Catholic faith.
Like many Catholics, I find it humorous that it took the Church nearly 400 years to un-excommunicate Galileo because he was right.
As a Pope with hard science background, is it possible to send him a resume(through an appropiate channel) as non biased as posible, for him to speak in a humanitarian way in a middle ground on the issue? The antihuman iniciatives are incompatible with the Church doctrine, as so many times it has spoken and clashed on almost every single issue with the UN and the EU, political correctness apart, the green lobby is 100% anti Christian and anti human, my hope is that this Pope seems to be able to find a way not to antagonize without giving in, neither giving up.
What did Bishop Sorondo mean with this; “…the tragedy of social exclusion.” ?
Was he thinking about the poor sods who do no regularly attend climate conferences?
Or perhaps the poor sods who pay for the presentations at said conferences but are financially debarred from reading the pay- walled results of the research which would not have been possible without their enforced contribution.
Welcome to the new feudalism – no surprise to see the established churches giving it their whole- hearted blessings.
I can’t speak for Bishop Sorondo but there are pretty legitimate uses of the term. If you need to spend $500 in court fees but you only have $200 to your name, you’ve been excluded from access to justice through the courts. Such exclusions disproportionately affect the poor but not exclusively so. Unless you are very well off, there are certain economic opportunities that you are excluded from due to the fact that you are probably not an accredited investor.
The exclusion of the poor from land registration and other economic protections that better off people have access to have been estimated to ‘freeze’ capital in Latin America to the tune of $1T. That’s a pretty big economic problem. It’s also a human dignity problem.
The real tragedy is that a false alarm effort to combat global warming increases social exclusion and would be a black mark against the Church.
Let’s hope he doesn’t attempt to use papal infallibility to push his views.
I don’t think you understand the notion of papal infallibility.
See here; http://www.catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility
” … This, too, shows an inaccurate understanding of infallibility, which applies only to solemn, official teachings on faith and morals … “
The Pope is wrong on the science just as he is often wrong on matters of economics; but that has nothing to do with the doctrine of infallibility.
Disclaimer: yes, I am also a Roman Catholic.
The problem is the way that AGW has been pushed. The Catholic Church should not concern itself with public declarations of its opinion on the science but how its portrayed. The stunt by Sorondo should be called out, as well as the use of ad hominem attacks, the propaganda and especially the worship of climate science as in “the Science says”.
Problem is, it brings the CAGW message to an audience who, otherwise may be totally uninterested and suddenly, it’s an issue for them. He doesn’t have to be correct.
Eamon.
markstoval
So the pope is right, except when he’s wrong, and (probably ) vice versa.
As Hillary so neatly opined on the deaths of 4 people who worked for the US government: “what difference does it make?”
You have the right to believe your doctrine, just don’t expect non-Catholics to ride that bus.
The church has too much demonstrated and painful history on science to be trusted.
“…thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matt 16:18,19. KJV
@ Chip Javert
January 4, 2015 at 8:41 pm
“So the pope is right, except when he’s wrong, and (probably ) vice versa”
No, as the link and my quote plainly says, only when there is an official statement on faith and morals that is in agreement with the bishops as a whole will the pope be infallible. And, infallible in regards to what the Roman Catholic Church has to say on faith and morals. He is “infallible” in regards to what the Church has to say on faith and morals. Most Catholics I know don’t pay much attention to that sort of ‘infallibility’. After all, saying he is infallible when speaking of church matters as he is speaking as the head of the church itself is not saying all that much.
If he does, it may mean the end of the Church as we know it. http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/is-pope-francis-the-final-roman-pontiff
This article on the prophesy that Francis will be the last Pop was a good read, but at the end of the day it’s all a load of Malachy.
One should think the Pope would recognize “The Lie” as it has manifested itself in these latter days.
By trying to reconcile all religions he is committing “The Sin” and by accepting the current narrative on climate change he is embracing “The Lie”. Here are some thoughts on “The sin of the world” and “The lie”, what does that mean?
http://lenbilen.com/2014/12/22/on-the-sin-of-the-world-and-the-lie-what-does-that-mean/
How does a man who represents an omnipotent being not accept that this may be part of His plan? Or is this related to the ability of man to choose?
And how does anyone educated person believe an agency like the UN, dominated by regimes that don’t respect basic human rights or abide by the rule of law, is interested in anything more than power?
You make a good point: do we now have the Pope ostensibly working to undo what is ordained? One thinks he would do better to reflect on his Christmas message re the on-going slaughter in the ME that getting involved in the CC discussion.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/pope-francis-defends-criticism-of-capitalism-not-marxist
a man who represents an omnipotent being
===============
if enough water can be turned into wine, we could use that in place of fossil fuel.
But who would drink all the leftover non-alcoholic grape juice. 🙂
The cool aid drinkers.
Sorry that should be any educated person
As of today I’ve left the Church (not the faith). Their position on global warming is the last straw for me.
Wow Pierre, that’s a pretty significant step.
Surely best to wait to see what the man has to say rather than leaping to conclusions?
Who knows, he might have something sensible to say about the ethics of advocating solutions for what may turn out to be an exaggerated problem (mostly the product of managed data fed into flawed computer models, few of which come close to predicting subsequent observed outcomes) when the solutions themselves could do more damage to communities, economies and local and global environments than what could in fact be a non-problem caused by an entirely natural climatic processes with no anthropogenic influences.
There must be a philosopher or two in the Vatican who can see through the “green blob” logic that because they want to ‘tackle climate change’ and ‘de-carbonise’ the global economy in order to save the world, anyone who doesn’t support them must want to destroy it.
This is a chance for the Pope to show real moral leadership and stand up for scepticism in science, even when it challenges the so-called consensus, as essential for humanity to develop a deeper understanding of creation and the Creator.
Since the Church has not actually issued a statement, perhaps you might consider waiting. You also might consider the long and broad history of Popes fouling up issues not related to faith and morals. Human fallibility is in play here.
WikiLeaks already blew the whistle on this a long time ago. http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikileaks-green-pope-co-opted-to-global.html
I can understand that Pierre G. I left years ago for various reasons and took refuge in the C of E. Unfortunately I find myself now feeling rather unchurched as I cannot respect trendy lefty bearded bishops who expatiate on matters for which they have no qualifications whatsoever. I’m sick of the ‘social’ gospel…let’s hear the real one thanks. Caring for those around us follows the real one naturally.
Fortunately we can worship locally…like you we haven’t left the faith…just cannot bear the institution as deformed by political correctness.
As someone who has actually had the words, “so, will you excommunicate me?” pass his lips on a dispute of public policy with my bishop, I’ve actually done a bit of research. There are two kinds of errors. The first is theological. The prelate in question has abandoned the faith as taught by Jesus, the Church Fathers, the Bible, and the Magisterium. That’s when it’s appropriate to start heading for the exits in my opinion but even then, only in cases where it’s hopeless to fight on.
The other error is when the prelate believes a non-Church fact. Perhaps it’s geocentrism, perhaps it’s catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, but here there is no reason to leave at all because the error is in the area of incidentals. Now incidentals can kill you if you get them wrong. Don’t think that I’m belittling their importance. But if you plug in the same theology and faith with accurate facts and achieve a correct result, you’ve got no good reason to leave.
“Cannot bear the institution defining social correctness.” Fixed that for you. And yes, I was raised in a state church ( C of E ) promoting what should obviously be acceptable cant. My protestant relatives ( rejecting authority and dogma ) still puzzle me, I admit. How one can take a story promoted by the state to demonstrate its fear and loathing of those rejecting its claims to act as an agent of natural order and ‘goodness’ by use of false accusation, rigged trials,imprisonment, torture and murder… and use it to instead to promote literal acceptance of doctrine declared false by its protagonist ( i.e. not to be taken literally ) who advocates compassion and moderation ( the missing story of Ruth has something to say about that )…ought to show that logic has been abandoned long ago by all parties. Online can be better…http://www.religioustolerance.org/
Pierre,
I think what many Catholics are realizing is that under this Pope the Church is leaving its faithful.
Don’t leave our poor Church – we need rational people to offset the Socialists like Pope Francis.
The Copenhagen Accords would have resulted in a huge “payday” for 3rd World countries.
I believe the Pope, I believe wants that “payday” no matter what else is in the final treaty.
No they wouldn’t. The global warming funds would end up in the Swiss bank accounts of a variety of presidents, dictators and UN enablers. It is a scam. Why do you think the fund has requested global diplomatic immunity, a la UN.
I looked up some of the ‘experts’ that were at the 2014 meeting with the Pope:
Joseph Stiglitz, former Clinton econ cabinet member and member of SocialistInternational.org.
Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia Earth Institute of which George Soros is an external advisor of. Sachs can also be seen in a Party of European Sociaists video (I think it’s on vimeo.com).
A member of the Mega Cities project of which there is Rockefeller money involved.
Most of the others I haven’t looked into yet. That said, either the Pope is totally clueless as to the rabid leftists he is dealing with or he is one of them.
Given that he recently gave communism an indirect compliment and given that he recently called for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor, I think he’s one of them.
Naomi Oreskes was there. Says it all.
See oreskes disinformation today in the ny times
he recently called for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor,
================
now that the Pope has called for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor, wouldn’t the Pope welcome the chance to do his part? The Roman Catholic Church has assets aplenty. Land, precious metals and gems. Isn’t it time the Pope did his part and redistribute this to the poor as well?
Here’s an idea. why doesn’t the church fill up the collection plate with money ahead of the service, then as the plate is passed anyone that needs money can simply take what they need? Need a new car, new house. Forget about the evil bankers. Just pop down to the church for a top-up. It would sure help fill up the mostly empty church pews. A win-win.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2014/08/catholicism-and-liberation-theology
It should be made clear that this Pope is the first ever who is a Jesuit. If you know the history of the Jesuits, you will know that their members infiltrate to the highest levels of governments around the world, to influence policy and provide spiritual guidance to the rich and powerful. It is their modus operandi and stated goal. So it is not the Pope who has fallen for the UN propaganda, but “The Order” who is influencing the UN.
In addition to the White Pope now being under the control of the “Black Pope”, this Pope is a hard line “Liberation Theologist” i.e., a communist. Of course he would be for the redistributionist policies of the UN, as his Catholic Order has the stated purpose of converting the entire world back to Catholicism, by hook, crook or through the use of force (remember the Spanish Inquisition, initiated by the Jesuits and followers).
As noted in the article, his science advisor, Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, is also from Argentina, so he is without doubt a Jesuit and a Liberation Theologist also…..
For an unbiased look at the Jesuit Order (information taken from official Jesuit histories), see the Google book download:
https://books.google.com “A Candid History of the Jesuits”
If he is a communist he is an extremely poor one . If the UK experience is a guide the only effect Green policies have had is to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich land owners ( eg Cameron’s father in law ) and to imperil the future power supply which will affect jobs for the many but not affect the champagne Greens of Islington, Chelsea , etc.
There was a report just before Christmas that said that in 2014 Britain 70% of elderly people were very worried about heating costs and 30% could only afford to heat one room. Redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor? Not in Britain .
I don’t know yet if the Pope is a communist, but if he is, he is an extremely rich one!
In any large wealth redistribution scheme (church or government) a significant share of the wealth flow tends to remain with the distributors. That does seem to be the point of setting one up.
Did you really think the communist leaders have the goal of helping poor people?
@Paul767: The communist leaders have the goal of helping poor people. But first the Pope must convince them that there is an afterlife of eternal paradise. Communist Bolshevik leaders helped 60 million of them get to the promised heavenly utopia.
No no no I mean distribute everybody else’s wealth.
Rabid leftists, or leftist Rabbis?
Sorry, Pope, but pro-choice or selective principles is not a Christian doctrine. The immediate, known mortal threat to millions of human lives is ending life as a statistic in the world’s abortion clinics. The imminent threat to millions of human lives is a financial bubble created by trillion dollar deficits, financialization schemes (e.g. health care “reform”), unreliable and inadequate energy production schemes, and the brittle economies left in their wake. The problem in second and third-world nations is violence, displacement, and corruption. As well as ignoring the problems through shifting unwanted men, women, and children to other nations.
“immediate, known mortal threat to millions of human lives” Not so much. Abortion affects those unborn and therefore not here. Would that you took some of your concern about killing potential humans and focused it instead on ending violent conflict…killing actual people resident on the planet. Abortion is not the issue anyway : only legality of the practice, which will be carried on with or without the consent of the state in its claim to regulate human reproduction as a right. That tends to be messy…which one might think is the point !
“The problem in second and third-world nations is violence, displacement, and corruption. ” Yes it is.
FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO SYRIA:
A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
http://www.leadingtowar.com/?gclid=CLHp59Pb_sICFc9lfgoddkwAmA
The child in the womb is not here? Go back and study your introductory biology. We kill more human beings through abortion in this country alone in one year than all the wars that this country has been involved in since its inception. Abortion deaths dwarf all of the world’s wars of history. Yes there is violence and displacement in the second and third world countries and the UN’s answer is abortion and forced sterilization. Thank God for the Catholic Church which is fighting these evils on all fronts. Abortion is a mortal threat…but according to you “not so much”? If one does not care for the most helpless among us (the child in the womb), they are not going to care about life at any stage.
[Reply: Everyone, let’s please make this the last abortion comment. That discussion never ends well. More references will be deleted, &etc. ~ mod.]
Christians hounded out of the MidEast by ‘the religion of peace.’ Not a Vatican problem. Churches going abandoned in Europe for want of paritioners. Not a Vatican problem. Priestly abuse… Only a little regional problem because of the financial damages consequences in the US. But…
Climate change merits a papal encyclical? At the same time Inhofe uses Genesis 8:22 (same Bible, same God) to argue climate change is the greatest hoax? Will not end well for either of them. Pope supporting pseudoreligious CAGW dogma while ignoring that there is no evidence for C and a long pause in W. Vatican did that before with Galileo and his telescope. Inhofe similarly spouting religious dogma arguments while ignoring evidence. Same blind faith problem, just on opposite sides of the worlds actual evidence. Warming–some. Anthropogenic– not so clear (natural variation and attribution problem). Catastrophic—evidence whatsoever given observational sensitivity and SRES.
These gentlemen provide strong reasons not to belong to either a political party or the religious equivalents.
Provide the source of the quote please.
And remarkably, Sen Inhofe has introduced a bill that would allow each state to run as much coal power as needed to meet the requirements of the state, as locally determined, making them immune from EPA restrictions.
Inhofe has done the calculations for the energy cutbacks due to coal plant shutdowns and found that there will not be enough power for winter.
If you want to wait until some proper atheist glitzy Boomer Harvard graduate does the same, please produce your man! Or is it that like most atheist libertarians, you got nothing but want to slander and kill papa, because he is not in your approved sect.
Zeke, you can get it two ways. Google ‘Inhofe greatest hoax genesis’. Takes you right to the Google owned YouTube video. Or, go to YouTube and view EKd6UJPghUS amongst several others.
A fuller discussion including Inhofe’s inconsistent previous Senate floor speech declarations is contained in the Climate Truth chapter of my 2012 ebook The Arts of Truth, on the second page of that chapter. With more references and exact quotations showing his purely political contortions starting in 2003.
Politicians like InHofe must really hate the internet, and through it the formerly inaccessible Comgressional Record. A memory they cannot now erase or hide.
Well, you presume much wrong because I criticized Inhofe for giving ‘flat earth’ ammo to Obama.
I did go to Harvard (and HLS, and HBS), but I have refused to contribute as an alum since they hired Oreskes, and will not ever again until she is gone. Wrote Pres. Drew Faust Gilpin on that personally, to get Harvard’s well organized office of big gifts off my financial back.
I am an agnostic, not an atheist. Because there are parts of all organized ‘Christian’ religions I find morally objectionable. A longer post for a different time to go into details by sect, the latgest being Catholic.
I am fiscally conservative (rules out Dems in US), socially liberal (rules out Repubs in US), and think that there are proper roles for government beyond simple obvious things like foreign policy and national defense– for example regulating any economic situation involving externalities (commons tragedies) like antitrust or pollution or public health (childhood immunizations). So definitely not Libertarian.
Which does not mean I think the EPA declaring CO2 a pollutant is correct. It is an abomination facilitated by a poorly drafted CCA, which SCOTUS was hamstrung to fix under the ‘ EPA finding of fact’ versus ‘matter of law’ distinctions that have generally served the US well for now over 200 years. Fixable by amending CCA legislatively, as anticipated by the Constitution.
Life is complicated. Get used to it.
I think it’s here.
Did Sen Inhofe really quote Genesis 8:22?
“While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
It does invite the imagination to ponder the amount of human sacrifices and temple prostitution that would have never taken place if this would have been understood. If we study the past of the many monolithic cultures, we find in general that at the heart of the power structures are “priesthoods” who offer their “services” in ensuring the stability of the seasons, timely rainfall, and the continued regular celestial motions of the planets. That is precisely the cultural and political realities the OT was written in.
The whole of Genesis is one in the eye for surrounding religious cults – from YHWH creating sun and moon out of nothing onwards. Whether this text proves CO2 emissions aren’t a problem is I think a stretch. If I was going to start anywhere it would be with Jesus in Matthew 5:43-48:
But there are other moral challenges here, before we get onto any promises for settled climate! As Anthony implies there’s a need for thorough investigation of the world we share, which some of us believe a perfect heavenly Father, uniquely revealed in the love of Jesus, made.
Zeke, the more juicy bits of archaeology are used to spice up books. The reality is that the priests were relied upon to guide the farming communities. They studied the stars because they clearly signaled the beginning of seasons. Their understanding did not progress to realising that weather patterns could not be predicted by the stars and it would always be (and looks like it still is) tempting for the superficial to jump on board because of its power over people – to be tempted by the privilege and not the responsibility.
The first contradiction of Copernicus’s model (after his death) was by those working on a new calendar. His model was just useless even if it is taught that the Earth orbits the Sun these days (the centre of mass is not always within the Sun). The winter solstice was a pagan celebration all over Europe (and so chosen to be the date of Christmas) with Advent and Lent important for conservation of resources in the NH. The practice of using religion to guide the community in practical ways as well as morally probably started with the regularly flooding communities of Mesopotamia and the Nile etc.
Robert B says, “The winter solstice was a pagan celebration all over Europe (and so chosen to be the date of Christmas)…”
What you say is true, that the thousands of different tribes and cultures that lived in Roman provinces had their own celebrations of the solstice. Obviously this would be the case for thousands agrarian and maritime cultures using the stars to know when to plant crops or cross the Mediterranean to trade.
When Rome conquered territories, it was standard Roman procedure to replace local gods with Roman equivalents, and to do the same with local traditional holidays. This was a matter of practice for Rome who had a vested political interest in maintaining control over these subjugated lands. So may I remind readers that in fact the Roman holiday of Saturnalia was a deliberate state enforced replacement of genuine local holidays, declared officially under the Caesars. The Roman Church with its Pontifex Maximus (the title of the head of the Roman state cult, and of the Pope) has simply continued.
The Chinese as well, Zeke? (and Slavs, Celts, Germanic tribes, all at war with Rome when they celebrated the solstice).
Yes, but as I pointed out, the festivals, holidays, traditions and what have you were celebrated by each of these hundreds of lost cultures differently, and were entirely natural since the sky and the stars provided the means of keeping time for planting and nautical travel.
In the case of the European cultures, I wish I knew what their celebrations were. What written history we have of them are through the lens of the Roman Empire. And then after that they come through a very thick academic lens – all in the absence of any writings of their own whatsoever. And as for the Chinese, as you know, Empires there also “unified” the regions and hundreds of languages were wiped out. It’s what Empires do.
inre: Sen Inhofe
Thank you both Rud and Jimbo for the source of the quote. He was answering a question during a radio interview about his own book. He said that this was one of his favorite verses, and went on to remark on the “arrogance of man” in assuming that he can control the seasons.
And now a break from our sponsor of religious freedom in the former Colonies!
So in this manner, the question that needs to be asked is, has Sen Inhofe disturbed others or caused civil injury with his sharing of his favorite verse from Genesis? My suggestion is that he has the enjoyment of his own judgments regarding the scientific paradigm that mankind is in control of the seasons. And further, Sen Inhofe has worked very hard to protect the people whose coal power is being needlessly closed, which would in turn prevent civil injury and the outward disturbance of others. He has done this by introducing a bill which would preserve the power of the individual states to have as much coal electricity as needed.
(PS I read and enjoyed your shared experiences Rud Istvan.)
This Pope is destroying the church. Practicing Catholics write about this in blogs. I can give you a really good one. Look at what has happened to Cardinal Raymond Burke. Prayerfully, there will be a new Pope this year. Also, most of the people in the “church” who adhere to this Pope’s views are NOT respecting the church with respect to abortion, contraceptives, homosexual marriage, and monogamy. PEW research indicates that Hispanic Catholics disregard the Church’s social teaching at the same time that they embrace AGW and Marxist “liberation” theology, which isn’t theology. I can not believe that my church is also disregarding its TEACHINGS instead of excommunicating these people. The blog that I can give you also suggests that this Pope was not in good standing with the church, that he had been excommunicated. It’s little wonder why this Pope is going to recognize “reformation” in two years, even though the most calamitous war in human history, the 30 years war, proceeded reformation. Of course, reformation was a result of global cooling, NOT the global warming that was occurring during the “Medieval” renaissance of Europe.
Joe, so your moral choices would seem to be to leave ‘the church’, or ‘stay’ while supressing your recognition of its errors. Good luck with either choice. I sleep better leaving unsuppressed.
Religious people should stick tp their religious belief which all operate in their virtual reality. Belief in an idol or entity of unproven worth or reality when all logic should be telling you it’s a scam is something I find hard to forgive. I have studied the faiths of the latterday saints, the catholic and the church of England. They all appear to originate from the samr pagan beliefs and rituals.
The pope should mind his own business and stay in his virtual reality. I do not want him in mine.
Okay so no jokes about the Vikings doing England a favor by removing the monks and moving in to the North Country. 😉 😀
I really do appreciate that little known biographical puzzle piece of AW’s life. And thanks for his perspective. The Pontifex Maximus did mention that some of American Catholics and Protestants would not care for this Encyclical.
He was right.
The Catholic Church has a very long history with science: all of it wrong. Why would anyone listen to the Pope on anything dealing with science?
..”The Catholic Church’s alleged hostility toward science may be her greatest debit in the popular mind. The one-sided version of the Galileo affair with which most people are familiar is very largely to blame for the widespread belief that the Church has obstructed the advance of scientific inquiry. But even if the Galileo incident had been every bit as bad as people think it was, John Henry Cardinal Newman, the celebrated nineteenth century convert from Anglicanism, found it revealing that this is practically the only example that ever comes to mind.”
From How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Chapter Five, The Church and Science P.67
Galileo..this is practically the only example that ever comes to mind.
What about the Inquisition? Didn’t expect that, did you?
Giordano Bruno said that the Sun was a star. He also maintained that the universe was infinite and contained an infinite number of worlds, inhabited by other beings. A Copernican theorist, he was eventually burnt at the stake. We’re not sure which of his extreme heretical notions caused this–the record of his trial has been lost or hidden or destroyed. He was rather unpopular in many quarters.
Johanus: “You can never expect the Spanish Inquisition” – Monte Python
David. You are simply ignorant of the facts. Hush.
Heh. “You are simply ignorant of the facts” says the theist? Surely not.
You need to find out who first came up with the Big Bang Theory, genes, fossilization of animals (shark teeth) etc.
Yes, Big Bang Theory is Vatican’s creation, and it’s a Big Lie.
Just because Mendel was made a monk when he was 10 years old (though later openly lived with a woman), the Church cannot be given any credit in the development of genetics — which it opposed fiercely, and keeps opposing (genetics = evolution).
Shark teeth, really? Stop trying to defend the indefensible.
This is a reply to Alexander–the Catholic Church does accept the premise of evolution. It is not accepted by many Protestant sects.
Alexander, the Big Bang Theory is not a Vatican creation. A Belgium priest )Lemaitre) came up with it but it lay idle for a few years because it was published in Flemish, until Hubble revived it.
Mendel became a friar at 22 yo. No reference anywhere to living ‘openly’ with a woman.
Nicholas Steno came up with stratification to explain the presence of shark teeth like stones embedded in sedimentary rocks. Look it up.
The Catholic Church never opposed evolution. There was a Papal edict in the 19th century that there was no conflict with the science and the Bible.
I think they did pretty well on the big bang.
If it hadn’t been for the Reformation we would still be in the Dark Ages.
” For the last fifty years, virtually all historians of science – including A. C. Crombie, David Lindberg, Edward Grant, Stanley Jaki, Thomas Goldstein, and J.L. Heilbron – have concluded that the Scientific Revolution was indebted to the Catholic Church. The Catholic contribution to science went well beyond ideas – including theological ideas – to accomplished practicing scientists, many of whom were priests. For example, Father Nicolaus Steno, a Lutheran convert who became a Catholic priest, is often identified as the father of geology. The father of Egyptology was Father Athanasius Kircher. The first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body was yet another priest, Father Giambattista Riccioli. Father Roger Boscovich is often credited as the father of modern atomic theory. Jesuits so dominated the study of earthquakes that seismolgy became known as “the Jesuit science”.”
From Chapter One of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
The list goes on. This is a fascinating book. I got interested in it because I’m interested in Austrian economics and many of the people of many religions or no religion who write about economics refer to St. Thomas Aquinas and others of the medieval scholastics. Thomas Aquinas was definitely a sceptic. Too bad that he isn’t here now to advise Pope Francis.
Thomas Woods is an Austrian economist – and a Catholic.
If it hadn’t been for the Reformation we would still be in the Dark Ages.
But the Reformation was led by Calvinists, who seemed to be very intolerant of “unorthodox” ideas .
Consider the case of Michael Servetus, a noted Spanish scholar, scientist and devout Christian, prosecuted for heresy (non-trinitarianism) by none other than John Calvin himself.
Isaac Newton, who also rejected the Trinity, was very devout in his Christian beliefs, but kept his heretical views mostly to himself, thus avoiding prosecution by religious authorities in England. Servetus made the mistake of attending one of Calvin’s services in Geneva, where he was promptly arrested, put on trial and subsequently executed.
At least Galileo’s life was spared by the Pope.
Johanus: An aside. In debates with Muslim radicals at Hyde Park’s famous Speakers’ Corner in London – some of whom have gone on to plan and commit atrocities against their fellow citizens here – I was surprised by some being so clued up on the story of Servetus. I told the first guy who mentioned it I largely agreed with him. I later got the better of him on Mohammed and the Qurayza Jews. Happy days.
I agree it wasn’t Reformers like Calvin who opened up things. He, like Catholics of the time, but with more ruthless zeal, followed Augustine’s pernicious teaching on dissenters, misusing the phrase “compel them to come in” to distort a beautiful parable by Jesus. Instead, I’d look to the best of a group sometimes called the radical reformation, who were persecuted by both camps. In the early North American settlements, for example, the life of Quakers like Mary Baker Dyer, who paid the ultimate price for her freedom to interpret the scriptures according to conscience, at the hands of so-called Puritans, led to the philosophy of freedom from Roger Williams quoted by Zeke above. Not unimportant history. But it doesn’t tell us about those pesky CO2 emissions. 🙂
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
–
Reblogging this from WUWT because Anthony has stood up as a Catholic on this. I’m standing with Anthony.
Hmmm… An article about what the Pope says without one reference to a Vatican document, or even a single quote from the Pope. Your quote source is a comment, or speculation from Investor’s Business Daily?
I am a political conservative, and a conservative, church going Catholic. The Pope’s predicted pronouncements are no surprise. He is a doctrinal political progressive, as are much of the Church’s hierarchy. The USCCB was a big supporter of socialized medicine in the US under Obamacare, and they were shocked, shocked when their progressive political partners used the act to force the Church to start funding contraceptives and abortifacients.
There are widespread reports that Pope Francis is consolidating power in the Curia, where “reform” has come to mean agreeing with the Pope. He has removed theological conservatives from positions of power and engineered the release of a communication from the “Synod on the Family” that sought to undermine core Catholic doctrine on divorce and homosexuality.
Like all progressives, he wants a seat at the tables of power. His environmental encyclical, if it is as described, is designed to make him a player on the progressive restructuring of the entire global energy economy. After decades of conservatism, under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, conservative Catholics have to get ready for a bumpy ride under Francis.
The Biblical command to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s,” is the source of the western principle of separation of church and state. It is sad to see the partnership between progressive politicians and clerics, embracing the efforts of the Catholic hierarchy to break down that barrier, for purposes of enlarging Caesar’s power.
There is plentiful greed and power at stake to deal unto the masses a repressive control. For all that is good in the doctrines of Christian faith, it is beyond logic what transpires from its leaders.
I’m a lefty Christian (Protestant).
Arguing for redistribution of wealth from a justification of Scripture is A-OK with me.
Arguing for redistribution of wealth from a justification of dodgy science is definitely not.
If we lefties think we are right we should argue for our position from a sound basis that we are expert in.
The Church isn’t an expert on Science..
Well the coerced redistribution of wealth are against Christian teaching. Judeo-Christian philosophy argues that the individual changes him/herself for the better and by improving him/herself – then they make the world better by the better decisions they make. That is what makes the world better – let people donate to the poor, let the Church teach this. Collective philosophies such as confucianism are false and usually lead to corruption. The Left borrow heavily from the latter.
It isn’t an expert on redistribution of wealth, either.
If it followed scriptural references, the Catholic church would be against it. But they’re not.
No surprise there but you’re right about the Church’s misanthrope stance in science.
Gary
I am becoming increasingly concerned about this Pope. He is a ‘populist’ but the Christian message is not about being popular it’s about being true to Christ’s teachings.
Is spot-on. But I’m afraid he is projecting liberal values onto the Church.
GaryM, I am a Protestant but otherwise share your conservatism. Do you give any credence to the, I guess we’d have to call them conspiracy theories, that Benedict was pushed out of the papacy by powerful persons who hope to increase their power and wealth with a more liberal and progressive pope providing theoloigcal cover for their actions? I refer to those persons and organizations that are using fear of CAGW to stampede the populace into giving up their freedom so that their grandchildren won’t be roasted to death?
Ed,, Just saw this. I wondered at the time about the rapidity with which Benedict left the papacy. But if there was a concerted effort to oust him, I suspect it was among the modernist Catholic clergy. The equally surprising rapidity with which Francis was chosen just heightens my suspicion. But suspicion is not knowledge, and we may never know.
It is strange that the Church seems to pick up political issues like climate change only after they have lost importance and interest among the populace. When was the last time the Church had any lasting influence on western society? Not since the Counter-Reformation, IMO.
Pope John Paul II played a large part in freeing his native Poland and eventually all of eastern Europe. The don’t try and assassinate you unless you are making a difference.
If this is really about wealth distribution to the poor it is very inefficient . By the time the vested interest middle men get their cut there is not much left over. It is really only fossil fuels that will lift the masses of poor people in populous countries like India and China out of poverty, but proportionally there aren’t that many Catholics there!
Religion, politics, and science; what an unholy trinity.
Science has always striven NOT to be the third leg of that Trinity. Only pseudoscience.
could it be that carbon indulgences are forthcoming? The logic would be that carbon-credits only buys corporeal forgiveness, not spiritual absolution. And guess who has a monopoly on access to forgiveness in the hereafter?
The Church has extensive experience with the selling of indulgences; and, with the consequences thereof.
Anthony Watts: “For example, it only took the Catholic church 359 years to decide that Galileo was right after all, and that the Earth DOES in fact revolve around the Sun.”
The Earth revolves around the center of gravity of the solar system. The Sun is usually there, but depending on the position of the planets, it occasionally is not (that is what I recall, anyway, from some Sun movement simulations I did a few years ago).
Further, Galileo wasn’t exactly right to proclaim that the Sun is fixed in position and that everything in the Universe revolved about the Sun. The Church would have been wrong to say that Galileo was completely correct in his teaching.
Michael Flynn (sci-fi writer and occasional contributor to this blog) has a fairly extensive smack-down of the whole myth of Galileo’s mistreatment at the hands of the Church, here: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html
Thank you Lee! What an awesome read. There should be a separate post on this.
Do be sure to read all nine parts of the Smackdown, of which Lee Bertagnolli linked only to the first. They are chained, but here is the Table of Contents:
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html
Apparently many Catholic philosophers (as they referred to everyone then who studied anything in addition to theology) and even the pope were sold on what Galieo said. They didn’t want to publicize that because they were aware that Protestants would object to their not interpreting the Bible literally. In addition, the Pope wanted proof and Galileo couldn’t provide that . But Galileo and others were perfectly free to refer to heliocentriciy as an hypothesis.
The other issue with the Galileo affair was that the Church really didn’t care if the Sun circled the Earth or vice versa – it worried about igniting 100 years of religious war.
Not necessarily a poor judgement.
Saying “Shut up, mate. It ain’t worth it” may be anti-Enlightenment but it wasn’t anti-compassionate.
Since gravity is one of the two infinite range forces of nature (well our models of nature), I would argue that earth revolves around the CM of the entire universe, which surely isn’t the solar system. But maybe each and every point, is the center of the universe, since everything else is expanding away from everywhere else.
This pope believes in redistribution of other people’s money, so it only follows he would embrace the tenets of global warming.
The announcement came out of the Vatican’s Office for the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and not directly from the Pope’s office. What should be noted that Pope Francis will be issuing a Papal Encyclical and not an advisory statement. In modern times Encyclicals are issued to stress some theological virtue, clear up some doctrinal issue, or re-teach some Church teaching. Encyclicals have never introduced some new doctrine or novelty. If a Pope wishes to comment on some political or sociological issue that has no bearing to doctrine or theology he will just issue a papal statement.
That is why I don’t think the Encyclical will not be about Climate Change. Stewardship of the world’s natural resources, perhaps. But not Climate Change. The Pope may mention changing climate in how it effects humans and civilizations; but, it will be in very general terms and it will not be from a perspective that Man is changing the world’s climate. For if he does that he will not only exhaust whatever moral capital he possesses, but he will directly take sides in a heated political debate that is far from settled. He will also dilute the moral seriousness of Papal Encyclicals, which to this day carry weight for both Catholics and Protestants alike. Again, Encyclicals are papal documents addressed to other Bishops, which are intended to be of a theological and doctrinal nature.
BTW, if anyone believes that the Climate Change debates are nasty, they should view the theological debates that go on behind closed doors in the Catholic Church. They are not for the faint of heart.
JP
If the debates are ‘behind closed doors’ how come you re so well-informed as to their contents?
Could you perhaps give us an example of such a debate.
Francis is committed to helping the poor and underprivileged. For him, then, pushing the CAGW Belief is a means to an end. He believes the CAGW religion will help the poor. What a doddering old fool.
Apparently, he’s committed to having them poor and die soon. Oh, the irony.
A low carbon economy is a Third World economy.
“Hmmm… An article about what the Pope says without one reference to a Vatican document, or even a single quote from the Pope. Your quote source is a comment, or speculation from Investor’s Business Daily?”
Forourlady,
The original source is the Office for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
I am very shocked and disappointed. This is a direct reversal of the approach and intent of Saint Pope John Paul !!. The entire climate change movement is a religion not science. If it was science it could be falsified by experimental evidence, In addition this religion is radically and directly anti Christian. The Climate change agenda is a central part of the culture of death movement that John Paul spent his life fighting.
Con Trari the fall of communism? Or are you going to pretend that John Paul and the church were not a huge player in that?
This may be the church’s biggest error since at least the Galileo affair. In that case they had an excuse, Galileo was a jerk, totally wrong and abusive to others about things like comets and to top it off; what most people forget is that the protestant reformation was a conservative back to basics movement and Galileo came along right when the church was trying to prove they weren’t radical.
There really is no excuse for this foolish choice.
Thanks Paul. You’re right; No excuse, just shame.
If anyone wants to start a petition from Catholic scientists to the Vatican I would be happy to sign and support it. To me this is a very big deal.
The Vatican doesn’t want your opinion. Opinions come from the top, down, money from the bottom, up. I don’t expect much money to make it back down. There won’t be any limit to sucking, once the Vatican joins the UN and the EU at the trough. Prepare to be sucked dry.
I don’t think the criticism of the Pope is warranted since Climate science when not playing politics is more religion than science. Who can blame the Pope for supporting free expression of religion?
I think the pope has to oppose apostasy. The church of climate change is just another one (see Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, 1980).
Now that is a great book. Available in English translation from the Italian.
Because the people who listen to him know nothing about science; and, apparently, neither do his advisors.
Cardinal George Pell is a sceptic on AGW. He would stir up the Australian Greens.
example :
It does not look as if his voice is as strong as it should be.
Catholics have to listen to the Pope lest they be ex-communicated
Thanks, Anthony.
Same here, ignore him on this. But I will trust him a lot less.
When I was a young kid in secondary catholic school, I noticed we had a showcase containing a book of Galileo’s. I was told not to even look at it, it was sinful. Then, way too late, came 1992. I was already hooked on science and Galileo.
I actually have a copy of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
I am a Catholic, but the Pope is wrong as sin on this issue. CO2 is not a pollutant.
BTW, didn’t the RCC also institute various inquisitions taking thousands of lives, believe the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the Earth. More? In fact they have not been very good at science when mixing theology into stew.
Two words: Giordano Bruno. In 1600 he was burned at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori.
To answer your questions:
1) BTW, didn’t the RCC also institute various inquisitions taking thousands of lives.
In 300 years, 3000 people (10 per year) were killed for heresy, mostly by civil authorities. Compare that to 262,000,000 killed in the last 100 years by secular governments in our enlightened era.
2) acting believe the earth was flat?
No. It was well known for 100s of years that the earth was a ball shape.
3) the sun revolved around the Earth. ? The sun does revolve around the earth, Ptolomy made very accurate models. See the antikythera mechanism: http://www.antikythera-mechanism.com Heliocentricity wrt the “Cosmos” is quite another matter, known to be published in Samos at least 300BC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos. Furthermore, Heliocentricity (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) was published by Copernicus, a Catholic cleric, in 1543, long before Galileo.
4) more? Fr. Georges Henri LeMaitre, a Belgian priest and physicist invented the big bang theory and predicted Hubble’s red shift discovery.
In fact, anti-religious critics have not been very good at getting their facts straight.
I don’t know where your 3000 in 300 years comes from but the Albigensian crusade accounted for at least 5 times that number at Beziers.
Old Man in the forest…
You are confusing 2 very different words inquisition and crusade. They are completely different.
I stand amazed that such heat and passion has been generated by the Guardians inept environmental editor with an article speculating on the content of an as yet unwritten Papal Encyclical. He has garnered 5400 comments, 2 orders of magnitude more than he had previously ever achieved, and provoked the global blogosphere into bitter debate. yet what did he say except that the Pope intends to intervene in the Paris 2015 speilfest. Forgive me if in am wrong but that is a Conference of the Parties, one of which the Vatican is not – so he can only attend if invited.
If the Catholic Church really is going to make a definitive statement concerning the Global Warming Narrative I must say it is a bit late in the day.
The author of this post seems to base his opinion on a suggestion that the Vatican has been infiltrated by atheists promoting the antithesis of the “basic tenets of Catholicism”. Really, and the Curia never noticed! I do not have a dog in this fight but would advise the faithful to lie down with a stiff drink and think a little bit about global politics before nailing their theses to kirk door.
You might be in the treatment room for the big match.
Who needs a Catholic church which is only a bad copy of GREENPEACE and other similar eco-religious sects ???
Pope Francis, let the church do its core business and don’t intervene in topics in which you have no competence at all !!! Amen!
Amen, amen.
How sad. I have great respect for the political wisdom of the Roman Emperor Constantine to convene the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in AD 325.
Millions, if not even billions still believe in the consensus stories from that Council. I doubt it would have been possible with mere bloodshed only. Something the well-intending Franciscans seemed to have ignored in Latin America. Even bigger mystery to me is why Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Latin America wanted to be named Pope Francis.
Oh well, low expectations are perhaps the best for a skeptic in the matters of organized faith.
I too am tremendously disappointed by the stance on Global Warming taken by this pope. Given his concern for the poor, his support for global warming activism shows how blind most people remain to the negative consequences of CAGW policies for the poor of all nations.
However, it is erroneous to argue that the Catholic Church got a lot of science wrong. The Church did not hold on to an earth-centred universe officially after getting it wrong with Galileo – it just sort of shut up on the topic. However, the apology issued by Pope John Paul II concerning Galileo was not directed at acknowledging the earth goes around the sun, but that Galileo’s arguments were theologically correct – Galileo warned that there would be grave theological consequences if the Church took a stance on a scientific issue that ignored physical evidence. Galileo was right.
This was tacitly acknowledged by the Catholic Church in that no pope issued any document taking an official stance on evolution until 1950, when the Papal Bull Humani Generis stated that Catholics were free to believe in evolution with the exception that they must not believe that the human soul was a product of evolution. Since evolutionary theory does not concern itself with the soul, this hardly tramples on science.
As a historian of science I can think of no negative position taken by the Catholic Church since its huge blunder on Galileo on any scientific issue which merits our condemnation. In the late Medieval era the Church opposed the teaching that lower life forms have continuously spontaneously generated – a commonly held belief since the time of Aristotle – and on this position no scientific evidence has ever contradicted the position taken by the Church. The scientific underpinnings of pasteurization and sterile practices depend on this being true. More positively, the Church opposed the totalitarian eugenics policies enacted in Germany and elsewhere prior to the Second World War, and continues to uphold the teaching that scientific research must not contravene the sanctity of human life – the ultimate human rights argument.
I generally agree with this entire comment. Pope Francis’ biases are not infallible. Therefore, I dismiss his comments as politics.
Sorry, but the hisorical written record completely refutes your appologia. Nice try. No cigar.
Rud Istvan – Examples, please? As a professor in the history of science and technology I would be most interested in finding if there are any other cases of persecution of real scientists. If often turns out that the argument is a bit of a bait and switch, since the later examples pitching religion against science seem to occur in local controversies between Protestant religious or political leaders versus science supporters. Examples of these include the highly suspect confrontation between Church of England Bishop ‘Soapy’ Sam Wilberforce and Thomas Henry Huxley, for which we must rely on Huxley’s own account, or in the US the Scopes Monkey Trial.
In the so-called Giordano Bruno case, it was Bruno’s pantheism and rejection of Christian doctrine that got him into trouble – not that I am defending his treatment. The Galileo affair took place in the context of the Reformation, in which the Catholic Church was being rejected and vilified by Protestants for its failure to support Biblical literalism. Sadly, the Church decided to defend the literal meaning of passages in the Bible that seemed to indicate a geocentric universe, in a political response to the fevered Reformation religious atmosphere.
Please give some examples of official Church teachings that rejected scientific advances since Galileo!
After a bit of a search I found:
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/never_talk_about_religion_or_politics_etiquette_rule
From which I offer this excerpt:
…… “Do not discuss politics or religion in general company” is from 1879.
The saying was further popularized by the Peanuts comic strip in 1961. The character Linus said, “There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people…religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”…..
===========
Seems like pretty good advice.
Especially when talk turns to “the Great Pumpkin”.
The Catholic Church obviously recognises the threat that the religious cult of AGWarmism poses. His Holiness therefore has nailed his colours to catastrophism to avert open warfare and attempt to preserve Catholicism from such a conflict. The difficulty may well arise as and when the CAGW narrative unravels.
The Climate Change movement has always been a religious movement, not scientific. This just reinforces that and makes it more “official”.
Of course we have the opposing views of Ozzie Archbishop Pel who maintains that Carbon Credits are a form of Medieval indulgences.
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/10/26/carbon-credits-like-medieval-indulgences/
Ok, but I still like Catholic girls in their little short skirts.
It’s funny to see so many “Catholics” disagree with so much that the Catholic church teaches yet claim to be Catholic. What is wrong with you people?
Albert, the Church does not “teach” on the matter of climate science. The Pope was not speaking from the Magisterial authority. Therefore climate science is not a matter of dogma. What is wrong with you?
Sorry, just a knee-jerk reaction to ridiculous dogma. AGW aside, know lots of “Catholics” who really don’t agree with most of their dogma yet want to participate in the social/culture or continue to be a part of the group. That goes for many religions. What’s wrong with those people?
And….the Pope is absolutely using his position of authority to sway his sheep. Yeah, he’s “teaching” I don’t like it. No sir, not one bit.
You’re not sorry, you’re glad someone took your bait, so you could express your opinion.
Feel better now ?
Better than compete.. absorb.
The Pope is just trying a corporate take over, soon new “Catholic” holidays will supplant the holy Ghia days.
of course Rome wants to help with redistributing that wealth, they have a very successful track record, 600 years of successfully redistributing wealth.
Very clever of the Pope, as the Cult of Calamitous Climate implodes there will be millions of true believers desperate for something to cling onto.
Think of it as a missionary movement.
The Pope is way out of line here. He has not done his due diligence on his research. What is indeed very strange is that one of his chief advisers, Cardinal George Pell is well aware that cAGW is rubbish and becoming a religion. The Pope is effectively a traitor to Catholicism.
Redistributing money to the poor- at the expense of the rich makes no rational sense. Apart from the old saying “You cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor”, it is logical. If the rich are not able to provide jobs, where is anyone-poor, rich or middle class going to find employment? If nothing is being produced, no amount of money(or gold for that matter) is going to make up for the lack of produce. They will get their reduction of population all right(so much for the sanctity of human life from the Vatican) in a most horrific manner.
He also made some disturbing remarks proclaiming Islam to be a religion of peace. Once again- do your research. I have read the Qur’an cover to cover- it is NOT a religion of peace. “Peace” to them is when all Infidels(non Muslims) are dead and Islam rules the world. The Qur’an also urges Muslims to kill Christians and Jews as they find them (Sura 2, line 191-193) The pope is effectively a traitor to Catholicism.
The Pope proclaimed that Allah and the Christian God are the same. Once again, he has failed. He has not read the Qur’an. The Qur’an says- Satan is the master of deception, then shortly after states Allah is cunning, wise. To me , cunning and deception are the same thing. Other passages in the Qur’an – verily(surely, not metaphorically) the sun is extinguished every day in a tepid lake. It also says hail, comes from mountains. The Qur’an has the positions of the stars and moon incorrect. So much for being an all-knowing and wise God.If the Qur’an is the absolute word of Allah, there is a problem. The Pope needs to do his homework.Proclaiming Allah and God the same God? The Pope is effectively a traitor to Catholicism.
Perhaps Book of Revelation has it right. Perhaps this is the last Pope, the one who destroys the religion and ushers an era of unspeakable horrors.I could see that if the world follows the insane Pagan earth worshipers’ destruction of human technology and destroys the will to work by depriving those who have worked for their wealth by giving it to those who have not put in that effort, the world will descend in to barbarity. The Pope is not only a traitor to Catholicism, he is a traitor to humanity.
Pope Francis is in-artful at best and a real dope at worst. Gosh! I wish he’d close his cake-hole.
Watching this Pope’s business (the way Hollywood scripts tell actors to move their hands, brows and lips) and listening to him, one can’t help sensing that he would feel much better being a member of the board of Greenpeace, Occupy or Attac!. He doesn’t even appear to be a Catholic, let alone a Jesuit.
Yet nobody knows what he’s up to exept paying lip service to what he assumes to be mainstream saliva. Jumping the environmental bandwagon, Francis is playing hooky on his duties which are — does anyone need to be told? — spiritually, land and sea miles apart from the sideshow he thinks will have the world dancing in the aisles.
He’s the first pope in a century reducing himself to an idle takling head.
This is uncomfortable to watch. Sometimes I wish he’d just hush. He was wrong about trickle-down economics too.
“trickle-down economics” You mean he supports giving trillions of dollars to banks in order to save us?
That should tell you all you need to know about the Pope. Criminals, the whole lot.
Trickle down is not an economic system, it’s the greatest scam ever foisted on the American people. In thirty five years it hasn’t done it and it’s not going to. Tax cuts for the elite only hurts you because you end up paying for it. And now they’ve adopted the crazy BAIL IN, watch out for that.
Agree.
New meaning to the concept of “Papal Bull”.
Pope Francis, Pope Francis, Pope Francis. jeepers!!!!
I will not exploit the Pope’s recent remarks on Global Warming as an opportunity to abuse him on many unrelated matters. Many people will however. That is not helping the cause for reason vs the cult of AGW.
The Pope is the head of a religious order. He is not well versed in climate science. Despite him having a BSc in Chemistry, he long ago abandoned explicit scientific inquiry and delved more deeply into the human condition and faith.
The key to understanding his comments on Climate is embedded in his comments on trickle down economics, the poor, and socialism.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/365004/pope-francis-and-poverty-samuel-gregg
I believe the Pope is a socialist. Catholicism is opposed to socialism and liberation theology publicly exemplified when Pope John Paul II assisted in bringing down communism in Poland and the world and by publicly denying communion to a bad priest who embraced liberation theology.
see it here:
Pope Francis on the other hand advocates liberation theology and he met with a liberation theology pioneer. Remember, the Pope alone does not speak infallibly for the Church when making remarks about current affairs. He can be a real dope.
http://ncronline.org/news/theology/pope-meets-liberation-theology-pioneer
You see, the papal position on global warming underscores the religious-like nature of the AGW adherents. AGW is a cult. It is like revolution theology, which is embraced by this socialist Pope and NOT the church as a whole…yet.
Most Catholics know that liberation theology is heresy. Jesus Christ was not a Marxist or a murderer. Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro are both, so-called catholic, murdering Marxists.
So one should cleave this issue and see the good and bad in it for what it is. AGW is defacto a cult, supported by a socialist Pope who sees liberation theology as good and trickle down economics as bad. AGW was ALWAYS about wealth redistribution and the Pope agrees. The AGW now has papal imprimatur.
Most Catholics are appalled by the many stupid remarks made by an in-artful klutz of a Pope who hates capitalism. I am appalled. I am all in favor of good custodianship of the earth, charity to my fellow man etc. I am not in favor of stealing money from the rich based on a lie like AGW and giving it poor countries via UN government edict.
I want my religion and sense of charity SEPARATED from eco-activism and wealth redistribution.
So please be critical of what this Pope says about climate science. Jumping into other ad homina, much of which is untrue, does not serve our interests in the long run. Most Catholics agree with WUWT.
Nothing left to be said, sir. You are right.
“I am not in favor of stealing money from the rich based on a lie like AGW and giving it poor countries via UN government edict …”.
================================
It usually ends up coming from the relatively poor in rich countries and going to the relatively rich in poor countries.
Christopher, I stand corrected. So true. So true.
The Jesuits have a very dark past. They have a long and deep seated grudge against the Catholic church. The Catholic church destroyed the order of Templars. All Jesuits, and that includes Tony Abbott, need to be viewed with caution. Personally, I have to be suspicious with his choice of new cardinals. There is a relatively high number with voting rights for a new pope. If they are political appointees, the Vatican could be destroyed rather soon. If the Vatican gets infiltrated (which I believe it has) it will be destroyed, leaving a “belief” vacuum.This vacuum will be filled by something highly undesirable. Islam or Gaia (pagan) is the likely result. .
As the Pope is in the business of faith and religion, he’s not really out of his territory getting involved in the global warming religion is he?
Revkin attended the Vatican workshop:
31 Dec: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: Tracing the Roots of Pope Francis’s Climate Plans for 2015
One of the highlights of my year, perhaps my career, was being able to participate in ” Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility,” a four-day Vatican workshop aimed at shaping strategies for human advancement that are attuned to the planet’s limits, organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Academy of Social Sciences last May. Now there are signs that the themes and conclusions developed in those sessions are helping to shape Pope Francis’s planned push for serious international commitments in 2015 to curb greenhouse gases and gird communities, particularly the poorest, against climate-related hazards…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/tracing-the-roots-of-pope-franciss-climate-plans-for-2015/?_r=0
***the Doran article linked in the following is a must-read:
29 Dec: Catholic World Report: Carl E. Olson: If Pope Francis is a “radical” environmentalist, what was Pope Benedict XVI?
I ask the question because I made the mistake of reading an article, “Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches,” written by John Vidal for The Guardian(Dec. 27th), and now feel obligated to clear the air a bit from all of the pollutants released by the ill-informed, sensationalistic bit of punditry. The overarching problem is that Vidal, like so many others in the media, wishes to use the pontiff as a political tool with which to bludgeon those he deems ill fit to lead or be taken seriously in the public arena…
Benedict’s warning that “the deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence” should be taken far more seriously; I suspect that Francis will repeat it—and I am confident it will be largely ignored.
***In the meantime, I suggest folks read the newly posted CWR feature, “Catholicism and Environmentalism”, by Thomas M. Doran, (LINK) which provides food for thought that is free of ideological posturing and sensationalist “reporting”. http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3601/if_pope_francis_is_a_radical_environmentalist_what_was_pope_benedict_xvi.aspx
Would Naomi et al lie to the Pope?
Is the Pope Catholic? I bet the penance for their sins at confession would be more than ten Hail Marys!
How very post-ecumenical of Pope Francis.
One of the oldest religions embraces the dogma of one of the newest.
The mass media is notorious for taking papal quotes out of context. As such, if and when any documents on this issue are issued by the Vatican, I would want to want to read the complete document, rather than than a few media snippets. The media frequently covers faith as well as it covers climate.
True. The media recently lied about what Francis said about, of all things, dogs going to heaven. he made no such remarks. The media actually misquoted a Pope that has been dead for 40 years. Seriously… they did.
“The idea is to convene a meeting with leaders of the main religions to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion.”
Huhhh? Psychobabble and bogus science do good bedfellows make, I suppose.
Perhaps Il Papa should take a word of advice from someone whose work should be familiar to him. It goes like this: “Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s; render unto God those things that are God’s”.
What does it mean when a church takes a political stance? It means the church has been reduced to a mere political party.
Catholics should be outraged at yet another debasement of their faith.
We are.
Ditto
The Pope and the Catholic Church are on dangerous ground here. If the climate doesn’t change then they lose credibility. And Anthony for how long will you “chose to ignore…” if the Pope gains traction and there is no warming or associated climate change? Are you just hoping they won’t gain traction? You haven’t avoided others in the past from what I have observed over the years so why ignore the Pope and the Vatican. They have such enormous influence they have to be challenged, fairly, whenever they make assertions at odds with hard reality. That’s just what sceptics do. That is what you have done for ages and that is why more and more people after visiting WUWT are questioning the settled science.
Pope Francis’s pending encyclical to the world’s bishops is neither the first, nor worst example of failure in Papal moral and spiritual leadership. Consider, for example, the papal bull on witchcraft issued by the poorly named Pope Innocent VIII:
The prosecution of witchcraft generally become more prominent throughout the late medieval and Renaissance era, perhaps driven partly by the upheavals of the era – the Black Death, Hundred Years War, and a gradual cooling of the climate which modern scientists call the Little Ice Age (between about the 15th and 19th centuries). Witches were sometimes blamed. Pope Innocent VIII, in his papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (5 December 1484), called for measures against magicians and witches in Germany. The grip of freezing weather, failing crops, rising crime, and mass starvation were blamed on witches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
–sp
Former Catholic & current agnostic, always willing to consider that some gods may be knowable.
Steve P
Thanks for providing the quote. if you read it carefully you will fail to find any support for the claim that ‘Pope Innocent VIII called for measures against witches and magicians in Germany.’
– alba
Cradle Catholic turned agnostic now joyfully returned to the faith.
And the Catholic church condemned Malleus Maleficarum which was written by one of its own priests.
That did not stop it being used by zealots however.
The point, however, is that the Pope was blaming all sorts of misfortune – including bad weather – on witches and magicians, proving himself to be no better than the superstitious ignoramuses for whom he was expected to provide the highest spiritual and moral leadership. The result of the papal bull was predictable: thousands of innocent wretches of all stripes were burned alive at the stake.
It wasn’t just the church’s bad decisions and murderous cruelty that drove me from its ranks however, but rather my lack of faith in the primary documents, i.e. Old and New Testaments.
There is zip, zero, zilch credible evidence for the historicity of Jesus.
I’m agnostic because I’m not afraid to say I don’t know.
Plus, I never cared for that bit about Original Sin. We humans may be flawed, but I can’t buy the idea that we’re born guilty.
To base one’s faith on ancient, wobbly documents of uncertain provenance when mankind is still wallowing in ignorance about a great many things seems to me to be not that logical, captain.
-☺-
Steve P. You can’t be serious.
Where were you in 1480? Didn’t one of your colleagues have a laser beam, or a nuclear powered time machine or a smart phone to show the Pope the “real deal”? To bad you weren’t alive then. Well things would have been so different. You would have devised quantum mechanics at 8:00 am Monday morning.
I alway find amusement at modernists, enjoying the benefits of 1000s of years of accumulated learning, mocking those oh-so-stupid people who live back when. Steve P. What great contribution have you made to the world? I didn’t see your name on the list of Nobel Prize winners but Steve P is just an alias right?
Jeese…. Steve P Sir Issac Newton, a cleric in the Anglican church, came up with calculus by candle light, while he was working with Alchemy to produce a philosopher’s stone. I guess he was a dope too.
I am not in the least surprised at the Popes stance and intentions.
I recommend the reading of Ian Wishart’s book “Totalitaria”, of which I have independently verified much of his many sources.
United Nations Agenda 21, the source of this contrived “crisis” of “Global Warming” cleverly makes it advantageous for every organisation, government or influential individuals – whether it be money, mana or business advantage – to espouse global warming and the somewhat twisted UN doctrine of “sustainability”
For instance “big oil” which is supposed be on the side of “deniers”, will never be because they are being offered greater margins as energy prices go up and there is less need to keep volumes up. (Incidentally the good old free market currently has recently made a mockery of this).
Governments are threatened with economic sanctions if exports are not “sustainable” and local governments are recipients from such organisations as ICLEI http://www.iclei.org/ and “Resilience” http://www.100resilientcities.org/pages/about-us#/-_/ just to name a few. (If you see an organisation that is loudly proclaiming “sustainability”, just check where their finance is coming from).
And now the Catholic Church is stepping onto the bandwagon, Wishart has a lot to say about this and it is both well documented and shocking.
Cheers
Roger
ps No I did not write this book but my independent research supports its conclusions, scary as they may be.
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
I have no doubt Naomi & friends would not only lie to the Pope but would choose to incarcerate the Pope if they thought it was helpful.
If true it may be an attempt to recruit more followers. Or at least get the CAGW faithful to donate cash to the Catholic church. The Vatican Bank has been plagued by scandal in recent years. Money laundering,cover-up payouts and mafia involvement to name a few.
I think a good few of you are going to be in trouble with the Spanish Inquisition if you keep disagreeing with the pope.
As I recall, the Catholic Church had a problem with Galileo Galilei back in the mid 1600’s for his belief that the earth rotates around the sun and not vice versa. Amazing how so little has changed in almost 400 years.
Your history is lost in populism. Better you read Galileo’s letters for yourself. Remember Copernicus, a Church cleric, published his book on heliocentricity in 1543, half a century before Galieo’s non-discovery of the telescope. So, what did Galileo do or say that caused a problem? Facts are stubborn things.
Yes, but Copernicus delayed publication and printing and distribution of his book and his ideas until he was near death.
Further, technically, Copernicus was wrong – now, he was wrong about the orbits themselves (claiming they were circular) and not about the idea of the orbits – but he was wrong about the shape of the orbits. As was Tycho Brahe in the details of the orbits.
The “old” consensus about epicycles was actually more accurate than the new theory of orbits about a fixed star. Worse, NONE of the new theories explained “why” they rotated about the sun nor “how” gravity actually worked holding the planets in place.
RACookPE1978 You aren’t quite correct.
You said that Copernicus held off publishing his manuscript “Yes, but Copernicus delayed publication and printing and distribution of his book and his ideas until he was near death.”
Copernicus’ work was embraced by the Church and was under development for years and he was under fierce attack (during the emergence of protestantism) for being an “astrologer”. He was being criticized, not by the Church, rather by anti-catholic protestants. His work was partially published about 10 years after its completion by one of his pupils, Rheticus, after permission was GRANTED by Pope Paul III. The work contains a dedication to Pope Paul III and is held in the family library of the Counts Nostitz in Prague.
Rheticus was denied his old job back at Wittenberg because of his Copernican views.
You see the opposite of popular belief is true. The Church embraced scientific investigation and supported Copernicus. It was the protestants who tried to silence him.
We survived Alexander VI, will survive this one too.
There are prophecies that point to the Church ending about now, St. Malachy’s Prophecy (end coming soon) and the legend/tradition that when all the spaces for the popes’ portraits in of St. Paul Outside the Walls are filled, there will be no more popes. Check it out for yourself:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/vr_tour/Media/VR/St_Paul_Tomb/index.html
Pope Benedict’s image is behind the column, lit by a spotlight. Francis’s space is to its left. Zoom to the ornately carved white pillar, then look to the left, up inside the colonnade. There are two spaces straight ahead of you, three to the left of that, behind the square Corinthian column.
The Catholic bishops in Seattle will be pleased, they of neo-Marxist persuasion.
Anglican church offshoot of Catholic is similar these days.
But the Amway dealers in Spokane were opposite.
You can find whatever you want in Christianity, devil versus good, free will vs determinism.
ignore the HUNDREDS of it’s-a-done-deal headlines such as:
“Pope Francis Takes on Climate Change” – Bloomberg
“Is 2015 the year Pope Francis defeats climate change? – Grist
it’s more fun,and probably more accurate, to read Booker:
3 Jan: UK Telegraph: Holy smoke (and mirrors) over the Pope and that climate treaty
The Guardian deserves a special prize for its claim about Pope Francis and his supposedly warmist encyclical, writes Christopher Booker
But a special prize must go to the Guardian for its claim that Pope Francis will soon issue an encyclical calling on the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to pressurise their politicians into supporting this treaty.
The Pope has been persuaded to take this dramatic step, it is alleged, by a series of papers from something called the “Pontifical Academy of Sciences”, which might sound vaguely impressive until we see who wrote them. They are like an A-list of the world’s most strident climate alarmists. Cambridge professor Peter Wadhams has been crying wolf over the melting of polar ice since time immemorial. Martin Rees is the astronomer who turned the Royal Society into little more than a hotbed of warmist propaganda. The “social scientist” Nancy Oreskes sprang to fame in 2004 for her analysis of 928 scientific papers, 75 per cent of which she claimed endorsed the case for man-made climate change. Only subsequently was it shown that the true figure was 2 per cent, while the vast majority of the papers did not mention it at all.
Did the Guardian fall for the lobbyists’ wishful thinking?…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11323131/Holy-smoke-and-mirrors-over-the-Pope-and-that-climate-treaty.html
A Pope well chosen by the chosen ones, just doin God’s work folks.
http://biblehub.com/matthew/10-35.htm
“For example, it only took the Catholic church 359 years to decide that Galileo was right after all, and that the Earth DOES in fact revolve around the Sun.”
Well it doesn’t and that was one of the problems with what Copernicus proposed (not circular orbits and they are around the centre of mass that’s not always in the Sun). The people of those times had a very limited amount of evidence to figure out what the universe was doing. The change in position of the planets and the stars with time was pretty much it.
Its interesting reading what the actual physical objections were. Some of Galileo’s reasoning were shown to be wrong but the biggest problem was that the stars appeared as disks in telescopes. They couldn’t be massive distances away from Earth or they would have to be very much bigger than the Sun. Not bad logic (the actual calculations) and nothing to do with the Bible.
To top it off, it took the RC 359 years to acknowledge that persecuting Galileo was wrong. I suspect that RC schools were teaching the heliocentric model for a long time before 1992.
Robert,
I think JPII’s apology was just good politics. It doesn’t mean anything to the persistent haters or those of us who read the Galileo trials. It is true that Galileo was also wrong. But we mustn’t mention that.
All of the Catholic Church, all of its murderous history, all of its fires burning people alive, all of is torture chambers, all of its lying books spreading ignorance, all of its pathetic attempts of re-writing history and justify its criminal actions, and all of its ill-gotten possessions and power over simple minds of those who cannot face the common human condition — aren’t worth a single hair on the head of Giordano Bruno.
Oh nooes!! – the Pope and the entire Vatican is in on the whole AGW scam!
“Today we have changed our natural environment to such an extent that scientists are redefining the current period as the Age of the Anthropocene, that is to say an age when human action, through the use of fossil fuels, is having a decisive impact on the planet. If current trends continue, this century will witness unprecedented climate changes and ecosystem destruction that will severely impact us all.”
“The massive fossil fuel use at the heart of the global energy system deeply disrupts the Earth’s climate and acidifies the world’s oceans. The warming and associated extreme weather will reach unprecedented levels in our children’s life times and 40% of the world’s poor, who have a minimal role in generating global pollution, are likely to suffer the most. Industrial-scale agricultural practices are transforming landscapes around the world, disrupting ecosystems and threatening the diversity and survival of species on a planetary scale.”
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/2014/sustainable/statement.html
The problem is deeper than the Vatican science panel. The Jesuit and other academic orders have been captured by the University culture in which they reside.
Soon people will be pointing out that the Catholic Church left them- they did not leave the Church.
Take time to read and ponder Catechism sections 1939 through 1948 – the Solidarity sections.
Now do the math to by adding up the number of Catholics in nations which are third world or whose government leaders either fully or partially support human caused climate change. It comes out to close to 100%, Canada and Australia notwithstanding.
Thus, for political, demographic, Doctrine, and simply sheer survival of the Church, no one should be at all surprised the Pope and the Church are embarking on the climate change bandwagon. And make no mistake, the majority of Cardinals fully support these moves. Only a relatively small group of “conservative” bishops have voiced concerns and look what the Chruch did to them. The Church is simply announcing that it, too, is as socialistic as the governments of the world.
So sad that the Pope has succumbed to the pop-sci view of the world- a man’s decisions are only as good as the advice he is given.
Still, he’s not the first major world leader to make an error this egregious. George W. Bush allowed his EPA to classify CO2 as a pollutant- and Bush, for the most part, is an OK guy. Yeah, he made some mistakes, but who here hasn’t?
Yeah, I used to lie, and I thought to myself: that’s one terrible liar.
I am dismayed by this issue expanding from a political one into a religious one. With the Pope on the left and evangelicals on the right, what hope is there of reason? It was bad enough when it was Bush vs Gore, Abbott vs Gillard and Rudd. This was never about science!
I am dismayed by this issue expanding from a political one into a religious one. With the Pope on the left and evangelicals on the right, what hope is there of reason? It was bad enough when it was Bush vs Gore, Abbott vs Gillard and Rudd. This was never about science!
Yes, but the Pope himself did it. Deal with that irrefutable fact.
Isn’t there something called “Papal Bull”?.
By the way, from work experience in 3rd world countries, very often the local religious authorities side with anti-development NGOs, largely because they don’t want their populace to get more educated and to learn to think for themselves.
Long ago when I was a kid in catechism class, the Church was all about avoiding excessive warming in the next life. Now I see it has switched to worrying about heat in this one.
IMHO, once again Mark Steyn has nailed it:
Yes. Steyn frames the issue well. Pope Francis is making historical and foolish errors.
I stopped taking orders from Popes a long time ago. When I was about four years old, actually. But my parents are still practising Catholics and they too have spotted the very obvious holes and contradictions that this pope has not spotted.
I think the Investor’s Business Daily is probably right, and this particular Argentinian should leave the entertainment to Lionel Messi.
Reblogged this on .
“Pope’s moral compass”
As a laybody ,the church is only going with the scientific evidence as it has with geology, astronomy, biology ,etc . Even with its dogma hindering other issues the Catholic church endorses evolution ,tempting as it would be to support the denialist evidence against it. However, uniquely with climate science , the terminal sceptics claim the evidence is corrupted , there’s not 2 kinds of science.
Just publish your evidence for peer review, even Monckton tries to do that.
Frank,
You are working so hard to compress so many fallacies into one post. Keep up the good work. It clearly beats thinking on your part
hunter,
Explain the fallacy contained in:
“Just publish your evidence for peer review, even Monckton tries to do that.”
All this slam dunk evidence is wasted here in blogworld, just get out of the sheltered workshop and submit it.
Frank
Gee, who are the anonymous all-knowing so-called “peers” who control all scientific data and papers? What are THEIR credentials and THEIR biases and who controls THEIR salaries and papers and THEIR research? You claim anonymous “peer-review” as the absolute first step, and final and absolute last step, and every-edited-step-in-between between a new idea and “the truth” … Yet I can read absolute evidence that both editors and peer-preview and the “consensus science” of delays and editing interferences and peer-review selection IS corrupt and itself designed to prevent unpopular ideas and calculations from coming forth.
Do you believe a Washington that claims “global warming” the most serious threat the world faces would support and actually fund ANYONE or ANY TYPE of contrary evidence in its religion and its halls of hypocrisy?
RAC,
So a global conspiracy is your strongest explanation for the constant rejection of your evidence.
Using Ockham’s Razor ,I think by far the most likely explanation is that the climate scientists are doing their job.
“So a global conspiracy is your strongest explanation . . . .”
They aren’t plotting together, as the word implies, but they are “breathing together.”
Frank, Try IPCC AR5. Box 9.2.
It show that the models were wrong – systematically wrong. As the climate models are the AGW hypothesis then the hypothesis is wrong.
Published by the IPCC.
For the religious, either God will allow us to destroy ourselves via global warming as punishment for our live style or God won’t. Either way there is nothing we can do about it if it is God’s will.
These “guys” were fighting God’s will, a few of them decided it was best to fight another day:
They were all demonstration flights weren’t they ?
Oh well, poetry in motion still.
Terrible theology, great video 🙂
Was that at BHX?
Just watched it again…it is BHX…thought it looked familiar.
The rise of the climate obsessed movement is clearly analogous to cult like behavior and popular delusions. That this Pope has fallen prey to the movement to this extent speaks badly about his judgement and the health of the Vatican that advises him. As a Catholic I sincerely hope Pope Francis does not further aggravate his error by abusing this and declaring it a doctrinal issue.
hunter,
As a theist you are hardly in a position to claim that others are not following the scientific method. A little self analysis might highlight the duality of your thinking. If you are able to believe in a God then it won’t take much to follow some other form of wishful thinking.
Wow, I guess Newton should not be considered a scientist either!
I wish people would get it into their heads that belief in God does not negate ability to reason or think, or to separate fact and fantasy. Unlike belief in global warming, which in the general population – and especially among the left-leaning intelligentsia – is largely a result of propaganda telling us that scientists have discovered it to be real, a belief in the Christian God involves a difficult act of will.
It also recognizes that to act on this belief will involve sacrifice and self-denial, since we must put the needs of others first, strive to do the right thing, and to forgive those who hurt us, which is one of the hardest things of all to do in life. It also means, in our modern era, being subject to vicious intellectual mockery by those who are ignorant of Christianity and its real history (i.e. not the hatred purveyed in the form of half-truths, innuendo and lies by the mainstream media). Living a truly Christian life is hardly an exercise in wishful thinking.
VFish,
If you require “a difficult act of will ” to overide reasoning then you certainly at home here.
Good morals are not held in a monopoly by the religious
Such as atheism for which there is equal evidence, presumably?
However, we do have evidence that religious faith is compatible with practicing good science; Newton, Faraday, Buckland, Mendel etc…
On the other hand, there is very little reason to think that atheism is compatible with practicing good science. Atheism’s lack of reason for there being any real patterns in nature – our sense are deceivers , after all – means that nothing passes muster for investigation. It is too sceptical.
Frank,
I am open in my duality. There is a balance of faith and reason and like all balaancing acts, a challenge. Since we see aggressively non-theist people falling for the climate obsession in clearly religious ways, I think you could think about this a little bit deeper and perhaps discover something better than a soundbite response.
Even before the time of Galileo Galilei, the “Western Church” has a very noted track record of making bad decisions.
An example from our recent times:
Pope Pius XII smuggled 26,000 people out of Europe, most of whom were jewish. All while Hitler was killing priests and catholics and jews, and anyone else who stood in his way.Pope Pius’ efforts to protect the Church, its people and many jews in the middle of the worst human conflict in history was a miracle
And…What about the fall of communism in Poland…?.
The irony is that a very large and growing contingent of the Left that supports CAGW are also very anti-theistic in general, and very anti-Catholic in particular.
Accordingly, the Pope’s advocacy of CAGW is inadvertently supporting the Left’s attack on Christianity.
Being Machiavellian, the Left has absolutely no qualms in propagandizing the Pope’s CAGW support as it’s simply fits their tenet of, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”…
Another bit of irony is that the Catholic church has a long (and often justified) reputation of being anti-science. As the CAGW hypothesis is on the cusp of official disconfirmation, the Pope’s advocacy of CAGW simply reinforces this reputation as being an anti-science institution….
“…The idea is to convene a meeting with leaders of the main religions to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion…”
———————
Kyrie Elaison
Lord, have mercy.
CAGW / Green zelots …&… Catholics (& most other god based theologies)
So we have 2 faith based religions that ignore facts, make false prophecy’s, give indulgences, work from a consensus document, attempt to change fact to suit the belief, both engage in cover-ups to hide criminal activity, both stifle opposing views, both say they want to release people from poverty BUT both like to sit in the middle & take a hefty rake off, both have elites who aren’t subject to the restraints or poverty of the people thy lead, both use fear to control, both have falling congregations….. so a merger makes good business sense.
Al Gore et al. & the pope et al. sing from the same hymn sheet, control & cash.
Both are (rich) hypocrites & history shows that both of their beliefs are flawed.
The pope, as noted in the post, is likely following the advice of the Vatican Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The Vatican Pontifical Academy of Sciences has come to the same conclusion that the National Academy of Sciences and the analogous bodies in all the G8+5 countries have come to in regards to climate change.
Given this, I wonder who the author of this post thinks the pope should consult with in regards to the science of climate change (and, similar, who policymakers should consult with). Hopefully, you will come up with a consistent answer that could be applied to any number of scientific issues, rather than just an answer akin to, “He should consult with the few scientists who happen to agree with me.” [Judging from the two sources cited in the article, the author seems to think that he should follow the advice of far-right-wing editor pages (such as those of CNS News or Investor’s Business Daily.]
Ideally, the Pope, and policy makers, would rely on Science based on the Scientific Method, which Climate Science ignores, but we both know that is incredibly unlikely.
It’s not that complicated, and It has nothing to with politics. If you can show me the Science, one that is robust, open, accurate, verifiable and has predictive value, I would gladly agree with you. Can you?
It’s really that simple. That’s the consistent answer that you seek, that can be applied to any number of scientific issues.
All major scientific bodies agree that they are relying on science based on the scientific method. I think they may be a better judge of that than you..
joeldshore
Cute comment, but it ignores about 2000 years of the church’s demonstrated inability to handle science. It has other fish to fry, so to speak.
joelshore says:
All major scientific bodies agree…
That is just another scientifically worthless appeal to authority fallacy. It is no different from the Pope’s authority [which does not go beyond faith and morals]. Oh, wait. Faith applies to global warming, no?
Shore continues with his usual bloviating on politics:
…the author seems to think that he should follow the advice of far-right-wing editor pages…
joelshore seems to think that everyone not of the far Left must be a part of his far right conspiracy. I don’t know much about CNSNews, but IBD must see reality as it is. Otherwise they will give bad advice, subscribers will lose money, and IBD will go out of business.
So rather than being “far right”, IBD is ipso facto right in the middle. They are neither left nor right, but rather, they are reality based. Therefore, it follows that joelshore is way out in left field, and as usual he is trying to make science conform to his nutty far-Left politics.
I plan on ignoring the Pope too. Oh, wait, I always do anyway. Hm. Carry on.
The parallels between Christian Creationists and Climate Alarmists are quite apparent and numerous. Both begin with a preordained conclusion. Both are only interested in evidence that supports their position and will vehemently attack anyone or anything that does not agree with their viewpoint. Both are also motivated to mold young, impressionable minds.
The pope, while making some progress, has yet to comprehensively respond to his organization’s long-standing facilitation of child sex abuse, but he has enough time to get involved (yet again) in science.
The church’s history of sending tens of thousands of people to the inquisitions not withstanding, the thought of priests sitting around “divining” the answer to science questions is funny.
I’m comfortable with my belief in God, but this is yet another example of why I’m uncomfortable with organized religion (they spend too much time building pretty buildings and collecting art).
I wonder what Galileo would think…
1) The Child sex abuse scandal is a canard and has in fact been addressed. 9 credible accusations in 2013 for 60,000 priests while 1 in 8 kids are still be abused by secular teachers in public schools, while the liberal left and Hollywood promote it as an alternative sexual orientation.
2) 3000 people were executed in 310 years of Inquisitions by secular authority mostly (10 per year) while 262,000,000 people were killed by secular “enlightened” government since 1900 while you have been alive. 2.6 Million killed per year. That is MUCH more offensive, if not by scale alone.
3) The big bang was invented by Fr. Georges Henri Lemaitre, a Belgian priest and physicist, who sat around reading Einstein’s relativity and divined that since everything was moving, it must have come from a “Primeval egg”. I think the fact that you claim some scientific high ground and didn’t know that simple fact is, as you put it, funny.
4) I doubt you know anything about Galileo, actually. Only the modern cartoon scripts notes.
Paul
We can quibble all night about you numbers (in 2014, your church claims 38,000 USA priests and about 400,000 world wide); the sex abuse problem is world wide, not just a “canard” in the USA (at least the Irish and Brazilians think so). We can also argue about how much a Ga Tech physicist knows about Galileo, but that’s just silly. I said nothing about the big bang (or Fr Lemaitre), so those gratuitous comments mystify me, and I suspect “mystic” stuff is your preferred form of argument.
I’m not changing my point, which is: despite a few points of light, the church has a demonstrated history of incompetence with science (it gets wrapped up in its dogma); no where in the Bible does God say he’s looking to Peter to get the atmospheric physics correct, or invent the slide rule.
Chip, While ignoring the thrust of this article, you dredge up fake stats and troll out BS that is out of context.
So what are your high and mighty motives?
You said, “has yet to comprehensively respond”. In the USA, only 6 credible accusation in 40,000 priests last year. (the ratio is the same despite my errant number) But that doesn’t change the fact that 1 in 8 kids in public schools are sexually assaulted. (that is where the “enlightened” work, you know, secular schools…what about the response to that?) By comparison the Church is doing quite well on the issue. But you’d never admit that anyway hey Chip.
I doubt you’d know a single actual fact about what the Church vs Galileo controversy was actually about. Where would a hostile GA Tech Physicists actually learn that? If you did you would have modified your fact-less crack. A cartoon notion of history is all a modern GA Tech physicist needs to be popular at physicist parties.
Thinking and “divining” is what the father of the big bang did. He was a priest. Father LeMaitre is smarter than you. You see, your knowledge of science is so thin and selective, based on anti-religion, you miss the obvious. The scientific method in western world is attributed to Roger Bacon, yet another catholic monk~1200 AD. I guess you missed that physics class too. Here is something by the catholic monk, inventor of science that you can pretend to be your idea:
From Bacon in his Opus Majus:
Four obstacles to real wisdom and truth, viz. errors and their sources (the four general causes of human ignorance):
1)the example of weak and unreliable authority;
2)continuance of custom,
3)regard to the opinion of the unlearned, and
4)concealing one’s own ignorance, together with the exhibition of apparent wisdom.
You are in the 1,2,4 set.
You don’t do this well ole chip. You simply don’t know enough, and haven’t taken an interest in the development of science because you have a closed, hostile mind. Western Science is the product of the Roman Catholic mind. It would never have happened otherwise. In fact, it didn’t.
When I lived in Waterford, Ireland, I used to go to a Christian Brothers (CB) school called St. Lawrence. Many years later, one of the CB’s was convicted and jailed for sexual abuse on young boys. Fortunately he never managed to “get” to my brother and I, even though we were very vulnerable at that time (1970’s)Should have happend years earlier however, the church going community, even my grandmother, simply turned a blind eye to his behaviour. I am convinced that there were/are more like him who have slipped under the radar of Police investigations. Victims feel very pressured to remain silent for fear of being scorned by the community. We have the same issue here in Australia.
But I agree with statements that the Pope should focus on cleaning up the sexual predators that infest the Church (A real problem) and leave global warming (A non-problem) well alone.
The Lollards of 14th century England was an early reformist movement concerning the Church.
One of their complaints ” a celibate priesthood which engendered unnatural vices” (such were the morals of the times).
They were effectively stamped out but not before the movement had taken root. It lingered as a secret movement for decades after the leaders were burned/executed/ imprisoned.
So it is a very old problem.
Geeze, Paul, you are a wheeze
You froth at the mouth castigating me about incorrect numbers (I only stated tens of thousands as victims for the inquisition; the accepted number is over 150,000); meanwhile:
o you got the number of USA priests wrong by 100% (32k vs 60k);
o you got the inquisition victims wrong by a whopping 5,000% (3,000 vs 150,000);
o you stared the inquisition “only” lasted 310 years – you’re wrong by about 75% (started about 1250; ended roughly 1800) – you do the math, if you can)
o You imply the inquisition wasn’t really so bad because it only killed 3,000.
o You seem to think child abuse by priests is ok because (you say) public school abuse is worse (note to Paul: public teachers are not priests).
Your ad hominem attacks (I particularly enjoyed “hostile Ga Tech physicist”; however, I prefer “rambling wreck”) don’t really address my initial (and still unrelated statement) “The church’s history of sending tens of thousands of people to the inquisitions not withstanding, the thought of priests sitting around “divining” the answer to science questions is funny.” (note I never claimed 100% of priests are scientifically literate).
The irony here is you are the almost perfect embodiment of church-science logic; you’re so tied up in dogma that you can’t see straight.
I think the problem was not child sex abuse per se, but the active cover-up of it that was perpetrated by Church. There are might be only relatively few pedophile priests, but there were lot more higher-up priests who actively covered for them and (by moving them to different unsuspecting parishes) enabled them to continue.
Chip,
You have no basis to promote the popular lie that more than about 3000 people were killed during the 300 years of the inquisition. Your number is simply made up. What can I say. You just repeated something that you don’t have any direct knowledge.
Let’s face it. You are not a scientist. You are a populist.
By comparison the inquisition (which was morally wrong) was mild compared to modern secular democide that has killed 262,000,000 people. To carp about 3000 in the literal ocean of blood spilled in the last 100 years is absurd and laughable. Any reasonable person would see 262,000,000 murders worse than 3000.
Chip I did not say that that the abuse scandal was ok. That is another lie by you. I said the Church cleaned up its act to the extent that only 6 priests in 40,000 in 2012 were accused of anything while in public schools 1 in 8 kids are abused by a teacher. If child sex abuse is so bad then the public schools ought to implement policies like the RC Church did to irradiate it. See “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, by Carol Shakeshaft, professor of educational administration at Hofstra University. It is 100 X worse in public schools. Where the “enlightened” reside.
What about Galileo? Have you no insight as to the actual proceedings of his 2 trials? No you don’t because you are an ignoramus. You’d actually have to read his letters, the record of the trials, the letters of Johannes Kepler, translated since they are all in latin, You don’t know that the Church adopted Copernican explanation long before Galileo. You do not know the substance of what the trials were about. You didn’t know there was 2 trials. I know. You don’t. You are an ignorant bomb thrower who fakes knowledge to appear clever. You aren’t clever. You fake knowing things. Open a book.
I am certain that closed minds such as yours will yield no insight for science or the humanities. So keep ignorant of the history of science.
The Big Bang was invented by a priest. Clowns like you suppressed that key revelation for 40 years. And now we know it was suppressed by narrow minded agenda driven posers who had an ax to grind. Like you.
Every single utterance by you is false. So much for your “degree”.
Chip says:
…despite a few points of light, the church has a demonstrated history of incompetence with science…
Can I help with some perspective? Thank you:
…despite a few points of light,
the churchgovernments, and in fact everyone in general, has a demonstrated history of incompetence with science…That’s how I see it. It isn’t just the church, it is society.
The church was a product of its times, just like every other institution. The Catholic church was one of the biggest around, so they are singled out. But they reflected contemporary thinking and beliefs.
I’m not an organized religion type of guy [although that’s how I was raised], so I hope I can view this with a little objectivity.
The priest sex scandals were a major blunder, which were not addressed nearly fast enough. But the other side of the coin is that when you take some folks who, for whatever reason, either hate the church, or who get dollar signs in their eyes, and mix them in with the basic problem [not allowing priests to marry], this is probably the expected outcome.
There isn’t much evidence aside from people making accusations, so we cannot judge who is telling the truth, who is lying, and who is embelleshing. Or, for that matter, who was doing the seducing, if anyone was. When thoughts of big money are involved, I look at their claims with a jaundiced eye — just like the claims of the climate alarmist set.
They all seem to be very self-serving. Their comments, accusations, and everything else is directed toward scoring a lucrative financial payoff. Truth is lost in the process. In this particular instance, we just do not know what the truth is, and what is fabricated. All we know is that one side has money, and the other side wants it. May the best lawyer win.
On net balance, Western religions are a good thing. They teach morals [the Ten Commandments, etc]. I would much prefer living next to a Catholic, Mormon, or Amish family than next to a non-religious one — looking at the kind of people who are always trying to demonize or shake down organized religions, I see a clear distinction. Give me neighbors with good morals any time.
I’ve said it before, the churches are raising up these alarmists and their super-computers like the children of Israel raised up the prophets of Baal.
Please don’t disparage Pagan as some kind of lesser soul. I know it was just quoting IBD, but it is offensive to those of us who have a Pagan bent (and it’s not what most folks think it is…)
For any Catholics about to worry for my immortal soul: My spouse, mother, and father are all Catholics and I attend mass from time to time. I was baptized Baptist, and have a better religious education than most including researching discrepancies between Bible versions, the Gnostic texts, the Koran, and more. And no, I’m not rebelling against anything.
It is just that having looked into Pagan history and religion, it’s not that far removed… Besides, the term covers several different religions and is vague. Lumping the Roman style dozen or so gods in with the Celtic Druid system ( my preferred – that was more a system of natural knowledge than belief in a guy in the sky with a spear of lightning…) BTW, the Christmas Tree and the Easter Bunny are directly lifted from Pagan traditions… you will not find them in the Bible.
Now, per the Pope:
Hey, cut him some slack. It’s not like he is expected to actually know anything about science…
OTOH…
I guess it’s good they let go of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility…
The words of Christ were spread the furthest by converted pagans, Constantine for example.
“I guess it’s good they let go of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility”
Infallibilty is only claimed on issues of dogma. There are very few of these. A good example would be the Trinity, which is Church dogma and there Infallibility is still claimed.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory…..
Pope’s are no exception, regardless of how ‘pious’ they appear.
Pope’s what? Oh, popes.
Shame on the Pope. So far he has managed to lead his flock very poorly and this is just another example of him stepping out of bounds. Me thinks he’s more interested in press coverage than spiritual matters. This reeks of days long ago when the church believed they controlled science.
Hell will freeze over before the Vatican realises that AGW is history’s greatest scam
I am very confused. Didn’t Obama announce that with his election the earth had begun to heal and the seas had begun to recede? What’s left for the Pope to do?
Pope’s and morality don’t go together anyway.
I read a Carl Sagan Quote recently, found it again;
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
True Scientists do not speak from authority, they speak from discovery.
You might want to check out Roger Bacon’s (he invented western science) 4 obstacles to the truth. oh… he was a catholic monk circa ~1200 AD BTW. Don’t have a heart attack.
In my lifetime in the Catholic Church there was at one time a place called Limbo for unbaptised babies who died. Limbo is now closed and all babies are considered spiritually perfect. It was once a “mortal” sin to eat meat on Fridays, not so today with a few exceptions in Lent. Change in any large human run organization comes slowly and the Church is no exception. I will say this, though, the Catholic Church is one of the few churches which does not say that only their members can be saved.
Jim G: I went to catholic schools and we were definitely taught that no one outside would be saved. I don’t believe that is true but that is what we were taught.
The Pope should clean the Church of rapist and pedophile priests instead of dabbling with climatology.
“A U.N. human rights committee denounced the Vatican on Wednesday for adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on the pedophiles and the churchmen who concealed their crimes.”
On sex abuse, “the committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators,” the report said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/05/un-vatican-sex-abuse-report/5220191/
The UN are hardly in a position to chastise anyone for rape. Nor are they in a position to complain about someone ELSE failing to acknowledge the extent of crimes committed. The UN are not friends of the civilized world, in fact quite the opposite.
“A U.N. human rights committee “, that is a joke in itself. What could they possibly know about human rights?
To Dr Strangelove,
Ah, a true believer in the impartiality of UN Committees. Like the IPCC, perhaps? All UN Committees only ever speak the truth, eh?
Also, this sounds like an argument from authority: Because a UN Committee has said it, it must be true. Not the kind of comment you expect on WUWT.
The anonymous faithfuls should file their complaints to the UN committee and ask the Pope to deny under oath at the international court that the UN report is completely false and priests had never raped and committed child abuses. I’m eagerly awaiting the Pope’s official denial of this malicious report.
Dr Strangelove, You don’t really care about pedophilia. You are not sincere.
Paul Westhaver, you must be talking about yourself because you want to sweep your dirty little pedophilia secret under the faithful rug. Tom, Dick and Harry are evil child molesters but the holy Catholic priests just want children’s love. Shameful hypocrisy
Dr Strangelove (Think about your alias “strange love” … ick )
I think you had better retract your libelous comment. I have no pedophilia secret. Is that how you work? Accuse people you don’t know of terrible crimes? I have made a screen capture of this one.
Furthermore if you did care about the suffering of children, you’d do something about it. In the public schools, in your very neighborhood, funded by you, child sex abuse is happening 100X more frequently per capita than the RC church. See “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, by Carol Shakeshaft, professor of educational administration at Hofstra University. I doubt you ever contacted the school board in your own town. Because YOU DON’T CARE. No, rather you hide behind a creepy alias, falsely accuse me of crimes, and make unfounded accusations off topic for sport.
No you don’t really care about kids. You are just an abusive troll.
As the son of a Lutheran minister I feel compelled to offer Matthew chapter 6: vs. 25-34…
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[n]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
So how should this guide the church’s fight against climate change?
Matthew 28:18…
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
I don’t see anywhere where that authority was subsequently delegated to human technology, or any religious hierarchy for that matter.
They probably have a model for that too…
Well, for starters, you could try:
“And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it “ (Matthew 16:18).
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 18:18)
“If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (Jn 20:23)
SAMURAI says –
“The irony is that a very large and growing contingent of the Left that supports CAGW are also very anti-theistic in general, and very anti-Catholic in particular”
you can find 180 degree turns all over the CAGW-promoting alt media, e.g:
2013: Democracy Now: The New Pope (Francis)
News reports indicate that in 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio (Francis) that accused him of conspiring with the military government in 1976 to kidnap two Jesuit priests. Bergoglio was a superior at the Society of Jesus of Argentina in 1976. Bergoglio’s spokesman denied the allegations. Bergoglio has also staunchly opposed abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he said gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children…
http://www.democracynow.org/special/vatican_selects_new_pope
30 Dec: Democracy Now: Pope Francis Calls for Action on Climate Change & Capitalism on a Planet “Exploited by Human Greed”
Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change, which will urge 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide to take action…
AUSTEN IVEREIGH (author, “The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope”): Well, first of all, it’s an encyclical, which is the highest form of papal teaching…
The fact that it’s also on ecology, on climate change, is also deeply significant, because there has never been a major document on this subject from the church…
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/31/pope_francis_calls_for_action_on
funny how they ignored the “green pope” Benedict, who they loathed for being a rightwing conservative:
March 2013: NRDC Blog: Pope Francis and Climate Change; Si Se Puede!
While it’s unclear exactly how the new pontiff will guide the world’s Catholics in terms of environmental policy, Pope Francis follows in the footsteps of Pope Benedict, known as the “green pope,” who warned about the risks of climate change and pushed for environmental reforms, as my NRDC colleague Adrianna Quintero blogged…
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rkistner/pope_francis_and_climate_chang.html
I agree with Pope Francis initiative, although, as you hae said, there were not major disasters in the past year. Although I’m not catholic, he has all my respect! Still, I must mention that everybody is preoccupied by the climate change, but it is useless to discuss only the future whithout understanding the main cause of the climate transformation. My opinion is that the ocean and human activity on the ocean (mostly naval wars) has a big contribution in the matter. Aren’t we ignoring that? Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the ocean?
What “naval wars” are you referring to? And how does human activity on the ocean make a “big contribution” to climate change? Are you suggesting that the 3000 ARGO floats in the ocean are actually helping to cause the warming they are trying to measure? I have a feeling the oceans may be much more massive than you think it is. Human activity on the ocean is literally just a drop in the bucket.
Dave,
Thanks for showing what being a climate kook is all about.
” Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the ocean?”
Is the recording of sea level not enough to convince you that you are being lied to? http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70056/IDO70056SLI.pdf
God bless him for he knows not what he is saying
Is there any evidence that CO2 won’t make it easier for the poor to grow food? Is there any evidence that a little warming won’t be net beneficial to the Earth’s poor? Is there any evidence that the warming so far has increased hurricanes, tornadoes, or other forms of extreme weather around the globe? If not, then it is utter foolishness to assume that reducing CO2 will be good for anyone. In fact, requiring industrialized nations to make significant reductions in the use of fossil fuels at the same time they are required to make large payments to non-industrialized nations is unsustainable. It is the equivalent of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. But rich environmentalists will feel so good about themselves while they offer up millions of starving and freezing humans as sacrifices to Gaia.
>>…the Vatican has indicated he[the pope] will issue an encyclical letter to the world’s bishops…<<
If Pope Francis does this "ex cathedra" he claims being infallible, and that might be the beginning of the end of the catholic church. Too many people, amongst them loyal catholics, know that CAGW isn't taking place. I suppose they find it inacceptable that a noteworthy spiritual leader is not just mislead by propaganda at its worst, but propagating the climate church and its dubious dogma. Francis ought to be conciliatory and promote unbiased communication and science.
Presumably the Pope has understood the power of global warming to control populations and grasp yet more of their cash.
The current crop of Christian martyrs and soon to be martyred are in more need of the Pope’s attention than global warming is.
I see at least a few possibilities:
1. He is trying to discredit Catholicism
2. He plans to profit from selling carbon indulgences
3. Both
What a silly Pope. When the truth comes out, everyone will know that the Pope is fallible after all. He should stick to doctrine.
Perhaps George Pell has been passing in his ear?
I guess he got to be Pope through the “Peter Principal “?
OT – a friend saw this at the Science Museum.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/climatechanging/climatescienceinfozone/exploringwhatmighthappen/2point1/2point1point1.aspx#acc-fifth
It seems to contradict itself – any comments from those better versed in these matters than I?
It is now 2015.
The Pope has history in matters of climate change. At the onset of the little Ice Age, witches were the alleged cause of the rotten weather and poor summers and crop failures. The Pope said it, so it must have been true.
The fundamental question. Why in some regions “quilt” CO2 operates, in others not at all?
Guilt is the modus operandi of the Catholic faith. You are automatically guilty of sin when born and must spend the rest of your life in atonement. AGW and Catholicism have a lot in common already.
Francis has never had the sharpest miter in the cathedral, but you’d think he’d recognize that the climate doomsters are a faith-based cult whose high energy policies harm the poor and elderly the most.
Once you start mixing religion with politics its bad medicine.
As the victims of Bloody Mary would certainly attest.
The pope will burn in Hell for going against God’s wishes and trying to play God amongst mankind!
Global Warming/Cooling IS God’ will!!!
The Pope has just
teleported himself and his followers back to the Medieval Period
This is just the Catholic religion attempting to incorporate and absorb the Carbon Dioxide religion of the Church of Global Warming.
I think this Pope is a communist and should be de-throned (or whatever it’s called). His ideas endanger the third world and sentence the poor to a life of dependency on hand-outs from rich countries.
Mr. Pope: We rich countries would not be rich, would have no surplus to help anyone right now, if we had not first exploited our GOD GIVEN natural resources within a capitalist economic framework. Why are you denying them the same opportunity? Why do you want them to stay poor?
Ignoring the pope will not be enough. I’ve been seeing signs in Episcopal churched about planet stewardship for years. Pointing out that CAGW is about religion, not science, seems to be a feature rather than a bug.
Don’t know if this has already been provided above but here is a link to an excellent article on the subject from the Catholic World Report. http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3600/Catholicism_and_Environmentalism.aspx
It is sad if he does not realize that the green movement folks are among those trying to destroy the religous freedom of the Church.
Excellent article Jim G. Thanks.The Greens are offspring of the “Club of Rome”. As we now know, the club of rome is a bunch of church-hating socialists who are out to undermine the RC Church. Environmentalism is just another wedge issue…. that Francis fell for.
Perhaps the Pope forgets simple Photosynthesis is how GOD balanced O2 and CO2, of humans inspirations; involving inhaling 02 and expiring CO2; and how God worked it out that plant life lived off CO2 that was expired by us humans. How the Sun factors into this as well.
Seems to me, this Pope has caved into the Globalists’ Cabal’s hogwash. It’s a Carbon Tax geared to cripple and subjugate the World’s Economies. Odd that this Pope would cave into Obama’s demands. I bet Obama is black mailing the Pope on info he’s gleaned, from his past. I am just speculating but why else would this Pope be so rash?
Note: The following post may offend some people because it includes the subjects of religion and politics.
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The old religious scare was ‘do as we say or you will go to hell’
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The new scare is ‘do as we say or the whole Earth will become (a climate) hell’
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Old scares, new scares, they don’t affect me at all.
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When people start predicting the future I plug my ears with my fingers and hum loudly!
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Claiming a catastrophe is coming is a centuries-old strategy used by religious and political leaders to gain power, control the masses, and get them to follow’ orders’ without question.
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Many leftists look at conventional religions and can see that strategy.
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But they fail to see the same strategy underpinning their own secular religion: Environmentalism,
with its bible (IPCC reports), and Pope (Al Gore), and scary predictions of the future,
unless everyone does as the leaders (environmentalists) say without question.
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Well, it looks like I just ‘promoted’ Al Gore to a ‘climate pope’, and now I’m feeling queasy — he only took two elementary science courses in college, and couldn’t manage to get an A or B in either of them … and now he’s the ‘climate pope’ .. and a really rich climate pope too. Life just isn’t fair.
The Pope is said to be the “Vicar of Christ” who speaks without error on matters of “Faith and Morals” when proclaiming truths in union with the Bible, historical Catholic Tradition and the ‘mind of the Church,’ that is with the Bishops, the religious leaders of the faithful. Speaking thus, “ex cathedra,” the Pope can instruct the people of God on spiritual belief and righteous behavior.
A general exhortation toward environmental responsibility is a right and proper subject for religious teaching. After all the deific magnificence of creation is to be respected, in particular our earthly habitat of man and beast. But environmental preachments relating to climate science in general and global warming in particular lay outside of the Church’s competence, in particular where complex technical issues are still in active discussion and development.
It remains to be seem whether Pope Francis pursues global warming preachment in reality, or whether this subject will ‘fade away’ as did the issue of his alleged maligning of capitalism. One of the principles of Tom Peters, writing “In Search of Excellence,” was to ‘stick to your knitting.’ Blessed if you do, not so if you don’t.
On Anthony’s ending comment, I add “HHP > DITTO !”
Gotta fix the garbled surname. HHP
Since the climate change dogma is based purely on belief, it is understandably close to Papa’s heart.
At least the Pope can be wrong with the tradition of century-long retraction. I don’t think the current crop of political bishops in the WH and State Dept. will make it through an AMO cooling phase.
Remember, this is the same bunch of monkeys who said the sun revolves around the earth. Nicholas Copernicus was run out the church because he theorized the opposite.
David,
Where on earth do you get your history from? Nicholas Copernicus run out of the Church? Maybe you meant Galileo but he wasn’t ‘run out of the Church’ either. He remained a member of the Church to the day he died. If by ‘run out of the church’ you mean ‘excommunicated’ then neither of the these two men were excommunicated.
‘Bunch of monkeys’. Do you really think that that kind of language is appropriate. If you shouted something similar at a black football player in the UK you would be arrested. as somebody once said, politeness costs nothing.
David. Nicolas Copernicus was not run out of the Church. In fact, he was one of the “monkeys” as you put it. He was a cleric in the Church. So, an RC cleric, named Copernicus, wrote a book about the earth going around the sun, and the Church embraced it. That is the complete opposite of what you wrote. See, we can read what you wrote, and it is all wacky wrong nonsense.
Well given the history of The Church I think they were due for another mistake.
It fits well with the earlier communique about redistributing wealth. They are the same message in fact with different headlines.
Being another Catholic myself, I highly disapporove of any Pope jumping the purported mainstream bandwagon. We had a couple of those during the 2nd half of the 20th century but Benedict XVI tried his best to repair the damage they have done; it was his fading health that kept him from finishing the job inside the Vatican, where all kinds of (to say the least) worldly impostors had taken over, quite unblushingly preaching “laissez-faire” and “anything goes”.
Picking up Benedict’s threads would be what Pope Francis should turn his mind to, coming home to the Bible as the pivot of Christianity. The Greens are insidious allies, sure to take advantage of him — and treat him as something the cat brought in, should he dare to start thinking twice.
Gruber Consulting Inc. is available if those services become necessary.
Mr Gruber had other revolting things to say as well as what he had to say about Obamcare:
http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/12/to-defend-the-disposable
Let’s see; Islam is the religion of peace, and now Catholicism is the religion of CAGW. Cool.
I was raised a Unitarian – not even sure that is Christian – but believe in one God.
Lived in Saudi Arabia for awhile and met the chief Imam of the Ballad – the old city of Jeddah where some believe that Eve is buried and I visited the grave. The Imam asked me about my belief and I told him, along with that faith’s belief that Christ was a prophet, but not the son of God. He said, “My goodness. You could be a Muslim”. Fascinating fellow – he’d done a Masters of Divinity at Oxford.
To the topic: my absolute favorite TV show in KSA was the Friday night “Ask the Imam”. People would call in and ask daily life dilemma queries that weren’t clear from the Koran and other writings and four or five Imams would debate what they thought Mohammed must have believed or would believe now (in itself interesting to contemplate the updated word of God). Could get pretty heated.
Were I there now, I’d call in and ask about Muslim belief in Global Warming. Not sure they’d take my call.
Yes they would take your call. And, I’d give you two to one odds that they would believe in CAGW, and they’d believe it was the fault of the infidel West. bin Laden had greater support among members of the Saudi royal family (and the Pakistan IS) then it’s comfortable in polite circles to admit. And, bin Laden did indeed believe in CAGW and blamed the U.S. for it (of course). Religions and the CAGW crowd pay each other under the table with their philosophical remunerations.
Religion it is. Left catholic church decades ago and never looked back.
As a Catholic, I’m also disappointed and embarrassed by this story. There are plenty of other non-imaginary problems that could be addressed.
Andrew
Given their past history of talking the sciences, I don’t think the pope should be taken seriously. Next thing he will be dressed as a bloody Koala & hassling hapless denizens of Melbourne for greenie donations.
Please remove the word “Calculus” from the title. Combining it with the word “moral” is demeaning to all branches of science and mathematics.
This is indeed embarrassing for the Roman Catholic church. However, the comparison with Galileo is much more interesting and nuanced than the stereotype repeated by Anthony. See, for example http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/09/the-myth-of-galileo-a-story-with-a-mostly-valuable-lesson-for-today
It turns out that the true story of Galileo was the way he attacked the church, not so much the other way around. For example
“In his efforts to cram Copernicanism down the throats of his fellow scientists, Galileo managed only to squander the goodwill he had established within the Church. He was attempting to force them to accept a theory that, at the time, was still unproven. The Church graciously offered to consider Copernicanism a reasonable hypothesis, albeit a superior one to the Ptolemaic system, until further proof could be gathered. Galileo, however, never came up with more evidence to support the theory. Instead, he continued to pick fights with his fellow scientists even though many of his conclusions were being proven wrong (i.e., that the planets orbit the sun in perfect circles).
Galileo’s primary mistake was to move the fight out of the realm of science and into the field of biblical interpretation. In a fit of hubris, he wrote the Letter to Castelli in order to explain how his theory was not incompatible with proper biblical exegesis. With the Protestant Reformation still fresh on their minds, the Church authorities were in no mood to put up with another troublemaker trying to interpret Scripture on his own.
But, to their credit, they didn’t overreact. The Letter to Castelli was twice presented to the Inquisition as an example of the astronomer’s heresy and twice the charges were dismissed. Galileo, however, wasn’t satisfied and continued his efforts to force the Church to concede that the Copernican system was an issue of irrefutable truth.”
Cardinal George Pell from Australia is now a senior figure in the Vatican as well as being a prominent CAGW sceptic. It’s time for Cardinal Pell to take the Pope aside and inform him on this issue, unless of course he fears persecution.
Letter of Galileo to Grand Duchess of Tuscany
“Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before in our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held among academic philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors — as if I had placed these things in the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the sciences. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.
http://milestotravel.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/galileo.jpg
Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them. To this end they hurled various charges and published numerous writings filled with vain arguments, and they made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properly, and which were ill-suited to their purposes.
These men would perhaps not have fallen into such error had they but paid attention to a most useful doctrine of St Augustine’s, relative to our making positive statements about things which are obscure and hard to understand by means of reason alone. Speaking of a certain physical conclusions about heavenly bodies, he wrote: “Now keeping always our respect for moderation in grave piety, we ought not to believe anything inadvisedly on a dubious point, lest in favor to our error we conceive a prejudice against something that truth hereafter may reveal to be not contrary in any way to the sacred books of either the Old or the New Testaments.”…
Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the pars of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth rotates on its axis and revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis. Possibly because they are disturbed by the known truth of other propositions of mine which differ from those commonly held, and therefore mistrusting their defense so long as they confine themselves to the field of philosophy, these men have resolved themselves to fabricate a shield for their fallacies out of the mantle of pretended religion and the authority of the Bible. These they apply, with little judgment, to the refutation of arguments that they do not understand and have not even listened to.”
The Roman Church upheld Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as other Greek philosophers, as the standard of all scholastic work and knowledge for centuries. Francis Bacon discussed it, Galileo described it, and so did Leonardo Da Vinci in his Notebooks.
But what we suffer is the misrepresentation of history, for now it is the Greeks who are given credit for the foundations of the sciences. In fact, as even B. Russell admits, anyone who has ever discovered anything, has had to overturn some Aristotlean doctrine. Not to mention Ptolemy and Galen.
And not to mention Porphyry, whose work in Latin translation was the standard textbook on logic throughout the Middle Ages. By the way, he also wrote Philosophy from Oracles and Against the Christians. From that work we know that the Greeks knew that the three religions that believed in one God were Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism.
Zeke,
The Church did not conclusively take any position on the science. Before Galileo they were financing inquiry into Copernican mechanics. At that time it was not regarded as fact amongst scientists, let alone the church. It was a new idea and had many advocates and detractors. The Church took a very decisive position on its teaching authority. The Church encouraged scientific inquiry. It always has and continues to this day. The problem was that Galileo was advancing an idea (half wrong) without a proof and then said that it had implications to scripture. Galileo had no business mucking around with the Churches teaching authority Incidentally Galileo proposed a Copernican model with a fixed sun. At the trial, the Church asked Galileo if he could prove his model, no different than a modern thesis defense. He relented and admitted he could not prove it. He NEVER said “yet it moves”. That is a fabrication. Galileo was not admonished for his science. He was admonished for jumping out of his area of expertise, mechanics, and delving into the implications his unproven idea had on scripture. He was admittedly wrong for doing that. For a time the Church was leaning towards Kepler’s ideas, and Copernicus’ and the theory was in high flux. What happened was that when Galileo “went public” with his half-wrong unproven theory and its implication on scripture, a public fight broke out. Not unlike that of the Solvay Conference in 1927, where Einstein was proven wrong. He eventually admitted that he could not, nor could anyone else prove that the earth moved around a fixed sun. His so-called imprisonment was a luxurious apartment in the Holy Office, with the Pope for 22 days. Galileo died a believer and a Catholic and his daughter was even a nun.
For the record, Galileo did not invent the telescope. He copied, then slightly improved the one invented by Hans Lippershay, who also used it to look at the moon, whereupon Lippershay sketched the craters for the first time. Galileo invented a thermometer that failed to work. His model of the planetary system is now known to be wrong, He was correct about the pendulum and falling bodies.
Very few people who like to blurt out “Galileo” don’t know what was at issue. You see it is popular to make Galileo a scapegoat, but the facts simply don’t support the common notion of the issue.
So Galileo was not imprisoned for speaking the truth. He was held in luxury for saying that his 1/2 wrong idea had religious implications.
Worth noting is that Copernicus who published a book saying much of what Galileo repeated never ran afoul of the Church because he never attempted to usurp the teaching authority of the Church. Copernicus stuck with the science.
Put your hands on the sluice gates…”
I wonder if 350 years from now there will be stories of how the Catholic Church took a side in the coming great debate between CAGWers and the skeptical perspective ?
Remark: “Well it doesn’t and that was one of the problems with what Copernicus proposed (not circular orbits and they are around the centre of mass that’s not always in the Sun).”
Galileo on Copernicus’ work with the Roman Church in correcting the calendar:
“In order to facilitate their designs, they seek so far as possible (at least with the common people) to make this opinion seem new and to belong to me alone. They pretend not to know that its author, or rather its restorer and confirmer, was Nicholas Copernicus; and that he was not only a Catholic, but a priest and a canon. He was in fact so esteemed by the church that when the Lateran Council under Leo X took up the correction of the church calendar, Copernicus was called to Rome from the most remote parts of Germany to undertake its reform. At that time the calendar was defective because the true measures of the year and of the lunar month were not exactly known. The Bishop of Fossombrone, then in charge of this matter, assigned Copernicus to seek more light and greater certainty concerning the celestial motions by means of constant study and labor. With Herculean toil he set his admirable mind to this task, and he made such great progress in this science and brought our knowledge of the heavenly motions to such precision that he became celebrated as an astronomer. Since that time not only has the calendar been regulated by his teachings, but tables of all the motions of the plantets have been calculated as well.“
I believe that ST Augustine to paraphrase ” The bible tells you how to get to heaven , not how the heavens are made ”.
Gees, don’t tell he is on the gravy train too.
This is exactly what the Catholic Church needs. That is, tie itself to a sinking pagan religion. Oy Vey.
Note from Anthony:
As a Catholic myself, I’m disappointed in this stance, especially since it seems out of place with doctrines of the past where there Church denounced many issues of science through its history, only to later admit they erred, jumped to conclusions, and admitted such errors in judgment decades or centuries later.
For example, it only took the Catholic church 359 years to decide that Galileo was right after all, and that the Earth DOES in fact revolve around the Sun.
I plan to ignore the Pope and its science panel, as many are likely to do given their track record on getting science wrong in almost every case where science and religion have collided through history,
Anthony…please read the actual history of the Catholic Church and Galileo….not the myth. The Catholic priest Nicholas Copernicus actually came up with the hypothesis that the earth and planets revolved around the sun. He died 20 years before Galileo was born. The Church had no objection to his hypothesis. It was also an Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel who was the founder of genetics and Fr. George Lemaitre who first proposed the Big Bang Theory. The Catholic Church anti-science?…I don’t think so.
http://www.catholicleague.org/galileo-and-the-catholic-church/
Secondly….let’s us all actually wait for the Pope’s comments and not what people think he is going to say. The media has misquoted this pope more than any other pontiff. They have even put words in his mouth such as dogs going to heaven. He has ticked off both Rush Limbaugh and the New York Times. He must be doing something right.
You’ve left out the fact that it did NOT take the Church 359 years to decide that “the Earth DOES in fact revolve around the Sun.” [Anthony]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model#Historical_positions_of_the_Roman_Catholic_hierarchy
Ordinary common sense should suffice to create a huge problem for the “359 years” claim. If the Church had espoused geocentrism or objected to heliocentrism at any time during the 20th century or much of the 19th century, this would be very well known.
mptc 58
You know, you have to pick your hill to die on. Anthony has a difficult position. He may well know the actual proceedings of the trials and know that the Church embraces science and always has. But Imagine him taking a position that reflects the truth? He’d be destroyed because the cartoon of the Galileo story is indelible amongst the ignorant. Anthony’s reputation would be carried off as anti-science should he parse the Galileo story precisely.
Leave the telling of the actual story of the trials of Galileo to us. Though the ignorant masses will say we are wrong, we have little to lose. After-all, Anthony is allowing us to inform the public by way of commenting.
Good work on the Mendel connection. I forgot that genetics was invented by a Roman Catholic monk. You’d better not tell Chip. He may suffer a psychotic episode at the collapse of his fantasy world.
Religion is for people who don’t have God in their heart. Why listen to a Pope when you can get it direct from the Head Office. HE has a plan for each of us. The messages will be different. The Pope has one message for all. Fn communist.
Pope Francis also said…”without the Church, Jesus is at the mercy of our imagination”. The prophet Mohammed made the same claim you are making.
I can see God in your heart M Simon. We all can.
Seconding the comments to Anthony from mptc58, can i also ask Anthony what evidence he can produce to support this statement:
“..there Church denounced many issues of science through its history, only to later admit they erred…”
Well, everybody knows about Galileo (although not everybody knows the real story) but what other ‘issues of science’ are you referring to? By the ‘Church’ I take it you are referring to the Catholic Church. It is easy to point to examples of individual Protestants (such as Archbishop Usher) getting it wrong but I think you will find difficulty in naming any other scientific issue than heliocentrism where the Catholic Church erred.
As for those who have referred to the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, yes it is a sort of Vatican organisation but it is not the same kind of Vatican organisation as, say, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The PAS does not speak on behalf of the Vatican. Its members don’t even have to be Catholic. eg. Stephen Hawking.
The pope (intentionally lower case) is a Jesuit, and as Socialist as the rest of that swill. May God give him the justice he and his enablers deserve for what they have done.
As an aside re Catholicism v Communism can I point you at the Don Camillo books.
Thank you for reminding me of them.
This Pope is no different from Pope Urban VIII, who had Galileo arrested. Like Urban he is falling in line with what is thought to be conventional wisdom on the subject. Galileo not only had trouble getting the Church to accept his ideas about the solar system, his observations were not good enough at that point to convince some other secular scientists of the day, who, like Galileo, were closely tied to the Church themselves. It’s not like Galileo was never wrong, either. In some other matters of science he was spectacularly wrong. Until their falling out over this controversy, which had more to do with Galileo insulting the Pope and everyone with his blunt and sarcastic style, Urban was Galileo’s patron and supporter.
If a skeptical positionon climate science is accepted by the mainstream you can be sure that the Pope will fall in line with that, too.
Well said Roderic.
Ecclesia taceat in scientia!
Klaus Olischläger
According to whom? Sounds like you are trying to silence debate.
The note makes no sense. If the Church was “wrong” to oppose the “scientific consensus” before, it has evidently learned its lesson now by embracing the “scientific consensus”. Aside – the Galileo thing is just nonsense.
mark matis (lower case intentional) is a bigot.
For those who wish to examine the matter of papal encyclicals (or any other papal proclamations) impartially, this will be of help:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/01/four-things-to-remember-about-the-popes-environment-letter
If you just wish to engage in Pope-bashing, Catholic-bashing or religion-bashing then I don’t suppose you’ll bother.
I was born and raised Roman Catholic. Nuns in grade school. Jesuits in high school.
I’m not one now. I’d like to say that was because I went the way of Martin Luther (a priest who studied the scriptures themselves) but I didn’t. Going to God and the Scriptures themselves came a few years later. There is no position or ministry of “Pope” or “vicar of Christ” in the Bible or the Body of Christ.
I don’t say that to raise anyone’s hackles but just to be honest about where I’m coming from.
I haven’t read all the comments but I’m sure that’s it’s been clarified that, according to RC doctrine, for a Catholic the Pope’s opinions or even personal beliefs about a particular subject are NOT RC church doctrine unless he is said to be speaking “ex cathedra”.
A Roman Catholic is free to ignore this opinion/belief.
Again, I strive to make my rule of faith and practice the Book itself. It says Christ is the Head and ” For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time (1Ti 2:5-6 KJV)
(2Peter 3:10,12 talks of a day when “the elements shall melt with fervent heat” but that heat ain’t going to be man-made.)
To sum up, the Pope is wrong is wrong about this and he has no spiritual authority to tell the RC church they must endorse the “Climate Change” hype or suffer any spiritual or actual consequences.
(To be respectful of others beliefs or opinions doesn’t mean that you always need to think, “Maybe they’re right?”)
Paul 767, Jerry Brown, diktator of my home state is also a Jesuit. A fanatical supporter of fluoridating our water without permission of the public while fluoride is known to be a dangerous neurotoxin. He is also an extreme Greenie and probably a Hegelian destabilizing termite like John Kerry.:)
Just send the Pope a letter with a link to this article:
His address:
His Holiness, Pope Francis PP.
00120 Via del Pellegrino
Citta del Vaticano
I would dearly love to be a fly on the wall in any discussion of this subject between the Pope and his Cardinal-Prefect of the Secretary of the Economy, namely the well known climate skeptic, Cardinal George Pell. Cardinal Pell made his skeptical views well known in his presentation to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and is arguably the Number 3 man at the Vatican.
http://www.thegwpf.org/cardinal-george-pell-one-christian-perspective-on-climate-change-2/
Cardinal Pell is positively loathed by pretty much all Australian leftists.
Unfortunately, the Pope seems unable to spot a new pagan religion in the way that Cardinal Pell has little difficulty in discerning.
Regards.
This started off silly and has gotten sillier.
I don’t know how it turned it Bible school, but I’ll play along:
‘There is no position or ministry of “Pope” or “vicar of Christ” in the Bible’
Matthew 16:18 is as plain and direct as it gets.
Don’t forget verse 23.
Contrast verse 17 with verse 23, and you can see that his confession in 17 is the only reason for the blessing.
And no human has any power to grant heaven or deny it. v27
The NYT story Anthony somewhat painfully cites about his church and Galileo is wrong on almost every particular. In fact, until Hitler and Stalin, I believe the only scientist executed in the West – – maybe in the world? – – for being a scientist (although that word had not yet been coined) was Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, beheaded in the French Revolution on May 8, 1794.
Here’s a few fuller blogs about what really happened to Galileo, and why . . . .
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-misunderstood-historical-event?share=1
That blogger cites this Numbers book as his first suggested reading, which other articles have also cited:
Ronald L. Numbers (ed.) [http://www.amazon.com/Galileo-Other-Myths-Science-Religion/dp/0674057414] Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Harvard University Press: 2010)
See also http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0600-lessl
POP SCIENCE & FALSE HISTORY
The Galileo Legend (a professor of rhetoric at the University of Georgia)
by Thomas Lessl
The New Oxford Review, June 2000
Lessel also cites Numbers
Then there’s http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205503/starry-enviro/jonah-goldberg%5D
January 13, 2003 at 8:45 AM
Starry Enviro? The cases of Björn Lomborg and Galileo.
by Jonah Goldberg
“Kneecapping a denier” ought to ring a few bells on this site ;).
It was the adherence to the Greek and Roman writers in the Roman Church that was the source of ossified thinking during the Middle Ages. Learning and science could only begin to advance by “stripping off” scholastic reliance on Greek and Roman writing:
“[I]t becomes a thing not only useful, but
absolutely necessary, that the excess of honor and admiration with which
our existing stock of inventions is regarded be in the very entrance and
threshold of the work, and that frankly and without circumlocution stripped
off, and men be duly warned not to exaggerate or make too much of them.”
~Francis Bacon
It remains a most stunning sleight of hand that Christians are faulted for having impeded knowledge for centuries, when it was really the scholastics and monks, writing in Latin and studying the Greek and Roman writers, who were the source of this stagnation of understanding. In logic they taught Porphyry, in all things Aristotle and Plato, in geography and astronomy, Ptolemy, and of the human body they taught Galen. The maps of Ptolemy and his astronomy were the dogma of the Roman Church. All scientists and inventors who discovered anything were overturning some matter of dogma from the Classical scholars which Rome enforced.
And yet this does not stop modern scholars from claiming that science and learning has been renewed from the Dark and Middle Ages, by returning to the works of the pagan philosophers and logicians, that is, the Greeks! It was adherence to and dogged memorization of Greek works that cemented all learning for centuries. The Roman Church, moreover, even forbade the translation of Scriptures into any vernacular language – for example, Pope Innocent III forbade Bible reading in the common language in 1200.
The geography by Ptolemy was incorrect. This kept most Europeans from attempting to round the southern tip of Africa to go to India for centuries. Exceptions to the rule, such as Vikings and Basques, would have had a high degree of independence from the Roman Church – for Basques refused to have their priests appointed for them from outside. Wisely.
The map from the 1400’s that is claimed to be Ptolemy’s map was different from all descriptions and maps based on Ptolemy’s writings before that. A monk somewhere drew a passage which would allow circumnavigation of earth. This may have inspired travel, or helped the bolder Italian explorers convince fearful sailors to strike West, but it is not a Ptolemaic map (except it still has the southern hemisphere totally wrong as Ptolemy did.
In nearly all areas of discovery, invention, exploration and new observations, the lonely protagonists were in conflict with the ancient writers doggedly upheld by the Roman Church. Galileo is not an isolated case to be dismissed away.
Not only that, Peter was a married man! 🙂
Paul Westhaver January 6, 2015 at 11:01 pm
Well Paul, I wasn’t around in the 1480s, but I’m reasonably certain that, even way back then, one of the Ten Commandments forbade bearing false witness.
And please don’t think I’m throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I got a good education from the Dominicans and Jesuits, and most of my values are Christian, above all, The Golden Rule.
As I appreciate the story, the major objections to the helio-centric theory were first that no parallax could be detected (which meant the theory was disproved by experiment) or else to be below detectable limits meant the stars would have to be impossibly far away. If I’m been correctly informed, there were entirely rational reasons for “Which is it?” to still be in play in his day. “Dogma” had nothing to do with the dispute.
The other knock on the Popes is usually Columbus. Again if I’m on track, the objection was that he could not carry enough water to sail that far, since the world was actually 24K around, not 16K. Falling off the edge of a flat plate had nothing to do with the argument back then. Of, course, but for N & S America being in the way, Ol’ Chris and his crews would likely have died.
Again, I think the best read is the one cited by Jonah Goldberg, that some rivals tried to use the Pope to kneecap a rival, in the same way that Bjorn fellow got drummed out of polite society.
It is disturbing to hear the Pope take up the cause of the green religion. As a Catholic Christian I am deeply saddened to hear this. The global warming alarmists ignore the Creator and deify the Creation. They elevate the stature of man to the same level as God by their belief that lowly humans can actually destroy the planet. We are called to be good stewards of everything God has entrusted us with, not to worship such things. It is called a world without end for a reason.