Pope Francis and the Green Encyclical

by Conrad Black (July 2015)

Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si? (“Praise Be to You”), continues this pope’s tactical tour de force of disarming the Roman Catholic Church’s traditional leftist enemies and takes it a step farther, by laying the foundation of alliance with them on one of the most vexed and universally disputed issues — climate and the environment. At this level, the encyclical is a skillful and subtle step forward for his church, though substantive environmental issues are somewhat glibly stated in the process and policy suggestions are sketchy. Francis is not resting on the laurels he has won by shutting down the din of decades of endless calumny directed at the Roman Catholic Church by the international atheist and agnostic Left that it was preeminently a medieval purveyor of cant and hypocrisy directed by a cabal of septuagenarian celibates and perverts hypocritically scolding the world about sex. Having knocked that sword from the hands of the church’s foes with the epochal question (about the conduct of gays), “Who am I to judge?” and emphasized that the role of his institution is the redemption of human souls regardless of their sexual orientation, he has now moved to make common cause with the relatively rational part of the Left on an issue where they are hard-pressed and the apparent alliance of the Roman Catholic leadership cannot fail to be influential and gratefully received. As on the previous initiative about sex and sexual behavior, Francis has executed his turn without seriously offending the ranks of the testy traditionalists that are at the core of the ancient support of his church as the premier Christian institution and principal ark of the Christian message in the world.  more>>>

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4 Responses

  1. Francis has in effect embraced the ethos and morals of the Western Leftwing. Indeed he has turned his back on the traditionalists who have kept the Church afloat in these modern anti
    Christian times. One of his accolades Cardinal Dolan effused when he was first elected that he will bring thousands back to or to the Church. Ironically the churches in the NYC diocese are still bared ruined choirs of the bards remembrance. No there is no mad rush of the people to become Catholics but there is a mad rush of Moslems into Italy and the rest of Europe. In the USA the Liberal Catholic Church still preaches to empty pews but sits on its billion dollar endowments in its universities. Under Francis the Church will become a department of the godless United Nations and the traditionalist will either look to the Eastern Orthodox Churches or the closer SSPX churches. Arridiverci Roma.

  2. A most elevated beard-stroking piece of thought weakened even more by its purported authority in declaring global warming nonexistent. Ho-hum, Conrad. Dream on. Bask in the warmth of your neo-con deniers. Sorry we environmentalists
    disturbed your nap. But be prepared for more
    loud and rude interruptions and not by us.

  3. From 1700 to the end of WWII, most countries in Europe had 1,000’s of their people leave their native land because it could not support them. The family farm had room only for one family, it could not be divided anymore, the eldest stayed, the others left.

    And then there came birth control. At one or two or three, depending on circumstances they said this is it. And there was enough food for the family, the most desperate poverty was gone. Whoever wanted to stay in their native land to live and work did so, there were jobs and opportunity for all.

    This chapter has not made it to Rome yet. Anyone in the neighbourhood please pass on.

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