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>>>