The official version of Pope Francis’ eco-encyclical Laudato Si was released this morning. While much of the media focus will be on the sections devoted to climate change and global warming, here are eleven things from the encyclical you probably won’t see in the headlines.
(75) A spirituality which forgets God as all-powerful and Creator is not acceptable. That is how we end up worshipping earthly powers, or ourselves usurping the place of God, even to the point of claiming an unlimited right to trample his creation underfoot. The best way to restore men and women to their rightful place, putting an end to their claim to absolute dominion over the earth, is to speak once more of the figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the world. Otherwise, human beings will always try to impose their own laws and interests on reality.
For further analysis of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si encyclical and a link to the full text, visit the Acton Institute’s resource page called Pope Francis and the Environment. Also, keep returning to The Stream for additional original coverage and comment on the encyclical’s release.
Big whoop. He still just gave fuel to the environmental wackos. Not wise, nor helpful.
However, the wackos will realize that this is not about their rights but about their responsibilities. It also demands respect for human nature, including the important gender feature.
No, no one listens today to what they don’t like. They will ignore the other, traditionally Catholic dogma (neutral use of term), and just parade the environmental wacko side and gain strength. This is not an intellectually serious culture anymore. Just winning counts to the Left. And they have done quite well in selling their snake oil.
Pseudo-environmentalists using the environment as a disguise for an anti-human political agenda that doesn’t involve the concept of free will and is based entirely on fraud, rather than science, while censoring all scientific truth and libeling honest scientists. Bergoglio is deceptive; his primary characteristic; regarding his personal history and political/economic agenda.
GREAT points………I think Francis just used the issue of the environment to proclaim the Gospel to the world…..well done.
Thank you for this. I was getting quite depressed about the prospects for this document until now.
Thanks…going to print it up and study it.
It is simple. We are given a world to live in and have the responsibility to protect it for our own future. Simple and yet profound for Francis to speak to it.
No offense, but paragraphs 23, 161 and 169 in LAUDATO SI’ are example of equivocations of the editors point number 10, and the Vatican’s claim of not being arbiters of science.
Thing you won’t hear #12. If this collection of random banalities and pompous cliches about the environment was submitted by anyone but the pope it would be completely ignored.
This is such propaganda. One can find good things in most of congress’s bills. Even the progressives believe in God, which makes their writings all the more dangerous. It’s easy to dismiss rhetoric of the atheists, but not the rhetoric of progressives who say they believe in God, because their aim is to take the everyday Christian along for the slow, long drive into the new age–the new world order.
Then why did you only invite pro-global warming scientists to discuss the issue?
You excluded Gaeleo for being skeptical about the sun orbiting the Earth and now you excluding scientists who are skeptical about the 1% of CO2 humans contribute towards the 0.04% of CO2 in the atmosphere is creating global warming that’s not been happening for nearly two decades.
The science of climate change seems to have “evolved” into the theoretical philosophy of climate change.