Posted on 06/15/2015 5:18:35 AM PDT by EBH
Vatican City, Jun 15, 2015 / 01:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- One of the most challenging scientific questions Pope Francis faces in his new encyclical on creation is that of climate change, which a source close to the document says the Pope addresses in a balanced perspective without taking sides.
“The great novelty which emerges from the encyclical is that it comes from a shepherd who’s thinking of all those who are his,” a source familiar the encyclical has said.
"(It) has a big overview, the capacity of helping us walk towards a more integral ecology that is all inclusive and comprehensive.”
No one ought to feel “left out” in the encyclical, he said, “No one should be able to say 'oh, the pope talked to this side or that side' and say 'I have a clean conscious because it’s not addressed to me.”
The encyclical will be published June 18. Its title, “Laudato Si,” means “Praised be You.” It is taken from St. Francis of Assisi’s medieval Italian prayer “Canticle of the Sun,” which praises God through elements of creation like Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and “our sister Mother Earth.”
One of the challenges Francis has faced with the encyclical is appreciating the scientific consensus on topics such as climate change.
The source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that the encyclical itself acknowledges that “the scientific community is giving clear, consensual but complex answers” on climate change, and that “the causes are several.”
While these causes can be put in both ‘natural’ and ‘human’ categories, they mainly fall within the “human” sphere, he noted.
“Great natural forces are not under our control; human causes are. There is strong scientific evidence that the human factors are already having much impact and causing great damage not only to nature itself but also to the lives of people across the globe, especially the poor,” the source observed.
Because of this “it is morally imperative that we human beings take responsibility for what we are doing” and work to stop damaging trends while finding new ways to produce, distribute and consume products.
However for this to happen, there must be a change of heart so that humanity is more open developing these new trends, which aim to better care for our common home and those who live in it.
With this perspective, the source said, everyone will feel more impelled to act, whether they are passionate about saving trees or having drinkable water, or whether they are everyday people living in ordinary neighborhoods, someone who works on ecology policies in New York.
The source said that if the encyclical could be summed up in a tweet, it would be “Gated communities are over,” not because someone has pushed the gate down, but because “people are saying we cannot go on living like this.”
In his Sunday Angelus address Pope Francis himself spoke about the document, saying that “this encyclical is addressed to all.”
He invited the world to participate in its June 18 publication “with a renewed attention to environmental degradation, but also to recovery” of one's own territory.
He prayed that everyone “may receive its message and grow in responsibility toward the common home God has entrusted to us.”
In a recent editorial, the Rome-based, Jesuit-published magazine La Civilta Cattolica reflected on the encyclical’s importance and on the challenges facing the Pope in the area of scientific consensus, including climate change.
Debates about environmental responsibilities have consequences for the well-being of humanity, La Civilta Cattolica said. They are not simply campaigns to save a rare animal or plant, though these can be important. Rather, the debate is about how to ensure that “hundreds of millions of people have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe.”
“This is a serious moral responsibility which we can no longer remove ourselves from. Failure to respond would be a sin of omission,” the editorial said.
On the topic of climate change, La Civilta Cattolica said it is “not contested” that the planet is warming. It cited the “very stark” November 2014 Synthesis Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“Just like most of us, Pope Francis faces the challenge, in preparing his encyclical, of properly appreciating the scientific consensus about climate change, its causes and consequences, and the needed remedies,” the magazine continued.
At the same time, it said that even when those in environmental debates do not agree on some research findings, there are problems that are “obvious and need the attention of the faithful.” These include water pollution, “monocultures” that harm the ground and people’s livelihoods, and the extinction of plant and animal species.
The editorial countered the vision of “a moment of doom” in which human greed, stupidity, carelessness and pride have caused irreversible damage leading to self-destruction.
Rather, it suggested that this moment is an opportunity.
“For the first time, in a mature way, we have to exercise a common responsibility for the earth, our common home,” La Civilta Cattolica said.
With all global eyes turned toward Francis to set a moral tone on the topic of the environment, “the world’s leading religious leader will draw upon his faith, upon the teaching of the Church, and upon the best information and advice available, demonstrating how each of us can manage, gather and sift the information, to judge, to decide and, finally, to act,” the editorial said.
“His goal is not to speculate nor to support this or that theory, but to invite people of goodwill to consider thoroughly their responsibility for future generations, and to act accordingly.”
It gets harder everyday. First Obama and the left's big new agenda to 'diversify' upscale communities and now the Pope's agenda?
Since it’s been changing since the beginning of time, without all the “supposed causes introduced by man” not even in existence, I’d say without any doubt, that it’s as natural as the tide of the seas.
Francis may have more important house cleaning to do in the Twin Cities...
So the Vatican is now open for housing??
Will their finances be made available now??
Will the priesthood be cleaned up??
Being catholic, I am NOT happy with this pope....he needs to take care of his ‘flock’ and get his nose out of things that don’t concern him....this includes things on MANY levels...
...unless of course, he is Peter the Roman....and then we are all in a bad way....
First it was the mainline Protestant churches...now it is the Catholic Church that is slip-sliding away from biblical truths to “cultural relevance”. Sad to see.
Obamaoid double-speak. What a horse's ass.
Natural 99.99999%
Man Made 0.00001%
What does it matter if the left can use it for its own purposes?
“people are saying we cannot go on living like this.”
we = Pope Francis and the mouse in his vestments.
The true church has always been in rebellion against human institutions. JMHO.
He’s pushing me further and further away.
Add onto this the article from Breitbart posted this weekend that one of the advisors/speakers claims the world is overpopulated by 6 billion.... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3299914/posts
It gets harder everyday ...
Climate change is nature produced. Hysteria and panic is the product of liberals, democrats, socialists and communists.
Climate change is natural and cyclical. Is there some component of current weather patterns that might be affected by man’s pollution of the atmosphere? I think I heard on Stoessel last night that the next hundred years of human garbage for the entire world could be put in a landfill of a few square miles. I don’t recall the exact quote, but it was something like that.
I’ve also seen calculations that say if one took all the manufacturing CO2 produced in the US annually and liquefied it, that you could store that liquid in a 10 foot swimming pool a quarter mile square. That’s not very big....if my memory is correct.
I’ve also read that the world’s entire population could live on their own quarter acre lot with house, roads, sewers, sidewalks, etc., in the USA from the Mississippi west. That is, the remainder of the world would be entirely vacant of people. If you think about it, that’s a pretty limited footprint.
For a Believer, the fact that fear is central to pushing their agenda should immediately identify the enemy as the ultimate source - for there is no fear in Love. I especially find it disconcerting that men and denominations, who claim to believe in God, think Him incapable of creating a sustainable earth, and/or anticipating any foolish things we might do to it before Jesus returns.
Only a spiritually dead man would think mankind capable of altering the GLOBAL climate. And even worse, is someone who thinks higher taxes, more government, less freedom, and more wealth distribution would solve it.
If Obama, Gore, the Pope, and the rest of the globalist flakes and nuts at the un can come up with a dimmer switch for the Sun, maybe then we can talk. Anything short of that is a fool’s errand.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
— Winston Churchill
I dunno, dog sled teams farting, herds of reindeer farting, it adds up.
Maybe a population explosion in and near the Great White North caused a spike in the use of Snow Utility Vehicles which in turn caused that warming thingie in the Middle Ages.
I bet there's at least one Piled Higher and Deeper degree to be had for in making that case anyway. Who knows, maybe even an endowed Department of Phartological Studies for someone.
There are dozens of bible verses that clearly show that God is in control of the weather and the climate.
Does this pope believe that?
My concern with this Pope at this point, and I have defended him a number of times, is he seems way more concerned with things of this earth than the state of men’s souls.
In fact, depending on how one reads the Bible and endtimes, there’s gonna be huge climate change! By God’s own Holy hand.
The Pope needs to be calling the flock home to repentance.
How would this anti-Pope deush bag know?
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