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The vocal pivot from such traditional social issues marks the first time U.S. Catholic bishops have publicly asked those seeking the White House to heed the admonitions of Francis' June encyclical, said Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines. In Francis' major teaching document, the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics called for a "sweeping revolution" to correct a "structurally perverse" economic system that allows the rich to exploit the poor and has turned the Earth into an "immense pile of filth."

Social activist ‘surprised but delighted’ to join top cardinal in high-level environment conference at the Vatican She is one of the world’s most high-profile social activists and a ferocious critic of 21st-century capitalism. He is one of the pope’s most senior aides and a professor of climate change economics. But this week the secular radical will join forces with the Catholic cardinal in the latest move by Pope Francis to shift the debate on global warming. Naomi Klein and Cardinal Peter Turkson are to lead a high-level conference on the environment, bringing together churchmen, scientists and activists to debate climate...

Unlike Pope Francis, I believe that air-conditioning and the capitalists responsible for the technology are blessings to the world. Perhaps the head of the Catholic Church, who condemned "the increasing use and power of air-conditioning" last week in a market-bashing encyclical, is unaware of the pioneering private company that has donated its time, energy and innovative heating, ventilating and air-conditioning equipment to the Vatican's most famous edifice for more than a decade. That's right. While the pontiff sanctimoniously attacks "those who are obsessed with maximizing profits," Carrier Corporation — a $13 billion for-profit company with 43,000 employees worldwide (now a...

Only if we get our acts together will the climate crisis problem be able to be overcome. This is the conviction of Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who has been a right-hand expert for Pope Francis' just-released encyclical on ecology. In an interview with ZENIT yesterday following the release of Pope Francis' 184-page encyclical on ecology 'Laudato Si': on the Care for Our Common Home,' Dr. Schellnhuber, who has recently been appointed to the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, spoke on the importance of the encyclical and how...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was about to take a major step backing the science behind ­human-driven global warming, and Philippe de Larminat was determined to change his mind. A French doubter who authored a book arguing that solar activity — not greenhouse gases — was driving global warming, de Larminat sought a spot at a climate summit in April sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Nobel laureates would be there. So would U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs and others calling for dramatic steps to curb carbon emissions. fter securing a high-level meeting at...

What has a Papal Encyclical calling on the world to end its use of fossil fuels and to pray to God for the success of the global “climate summit” in December got in common with the Greek euro crisis, the ominous rift between the West and Russia, and the shambles Europe is making over the desperation of African and Syrian refugees to find safety this side of the Mediterranean? They are all different aspects of the two greatest acts of political make-believe of our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they...

Politicians touting cap-and-trade and carbon taxes as the solution to climate change should read what the pontiff saidTORONTO - Many politicians lining up to praise Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment and climate change released last week clearly have either not read it or don’t understand what it says.The most significant thing in the Pope’s encyclical is that it alternately attacks and ignores the two most popular methods governments around the world are telling their citizens will be effective in reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.The first is carbon taxes, the second, cap-and-trade.The Pope never mentions carbon taxes (such...

A quasi-religious movement now has a genuinely religious leader. The pope’s encyclical on the environment is being hailed for its embrace of science, although it is about as scientific as the Catholic hymnal. Pope Francis writes that Sister Earth “now cries out because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.” Really? Is that what the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says? I’m not Catholic, but I respect the pope’s humility and am moved by his love for the handicapped and his concern...

n a sweeping, sometimes apocalyptic encyclical, Pope Francis on Thursday blasted the Obama administration and other world governments for not doing nearly enough to confront climate change, and said mankind is squandering the planet given to it by God and must abandon fossil fuels as soon as possible. “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” the pontiff said in his 184-page climate-change encyclical, a long-awaited document released publicly Thursday by the Vatican.”These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that...

Leaders of the Catholic Church in America took their “marching orders” from the Pope’s encyclical on Thursday, fanning out to Congress and the White House to push for action on climate change. The high-level meetings offered a first glimpse of a vast and highly organised effort by the leadership of America’s nearly 80 million Catholics to turn the Pope’s moral call for action into reality. “It is our marching orders for advocacy,” Joseph Kurtz, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of Louisville, said. “It really brings about a new urgency for us.”

It takes a big ego to run for president. How else could you keep a straight face while telling everybody: “I’m the best person in the entire country to be the next president of the United States?” But if it takes a big ego to fun for president, it takes an even bigger ego to run against — the Pope! Meet Rick Santorum. Desperate to find one issue that separates him from the rest of the Republican pack of clowns, Roman Catholic Santorum has decided to attack Pope Francis for daring to speak out on climate change. In a radio...

I am reading the Pope’s new encyclical, Laudato si’, leaked in Italian. HEREYou might want to look at Andrea Gagliarduci’ Monday Vatican on this.  He makes the point that everyone will find what he wants in this encyclical… except maybe those who are pro-transgender.I direct the readership to par. 155 when you are able to get the text, about “human ecology” and the meaning of differences of sexes.Also, 120 is good on abortion.  It is pretty much in your face for those who are worked up about protecting Gaia from global-warming but are not very interested in protecting human life in the womb.  However,...

The 192-page document is Pope Francis' first major teaching letter on climate change and its effects on the planet's poor Italian Magazine L’Espresso leaked Pope Francis’ hotly anticipated encyclical on climate change on its website on Monday, breaking an embargo on the document set for Thursday.