Free Republic

Carrying banners and signs with quotes from Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si'," hundreds of Catholics joined the People's Climate March to call for moral and prayerful action to protect creation. On a sweltering day that reinforced the message about the need to respond to climate change — the 91-degree temperature at 3 p.m. April 29 tied a 43-year-old Washington record for the date — many in the Catholic contingent said they felt they had a moral obligation to witness in the streets. "We march for our grandchildren. Stop global warming," read one sign propped up in the back of St....

A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you, says His Holiness Pope Francis in this searing TED Talk delivered directly from Vatican City. In a hopeful message to people of all faiths, to those who have power as well as those who don't, the spiritual leader provides illuminating commentary on the world as we currently find it and calls for equality, solidarity and tenderness to prevail. "Let us help each other, all together, to remember that the 'other' is not a statistic, or a number," he says. "We all need each other."

Catholics participating in the Peoples Climate Movement march in the nation’s capital will be able to pray at a Mass and visit their representatives on Capitol Hill as part of two days of activities. March organizers are expecting hundreds of thousands of people to travel to Washington April 29 in a broad showing of grass-roots support for federal government action in addressing climate change and to oppose the rollback of environmental standards by the administration of President Donald Trump. Catholic organizations are planning to greet hundreds of Catholics as well. The Franciscan Action Network and Interfaith Power & Light of...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I thank the Lord that I can celebrate this Holy Mass for the Inauguration of my Petrine ministry on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary and the patron of the universal Church. It is a significant coincidence, and it is also the name-day of my venerable predecessor: we are close to him with our prayers, full of affection and gratitude. I offer a warm greeting to my brother cardinals and bishops, the priests, deacons, men and women religious, and all the lay faithful. I thank the representatives of the other Churches...

Jocelyn Bamford, a white hard hat perched over red hair that curls down around her shoulders, has her hands on her hips. Behind safety glasses, her eyes flash. On the shop floor in the bustling Automatic Coating Inc. plant owned by her family, she has to shout to be heard above the squirt of compressed air nozzles, honks from forklifts, the clang of steel as it’s dipped in baths, and the hum of exhaust fans. Bamford might be shouting regardless of the noise since the hydro bill for her Toronto-based company has her mad as hell. Once boasting one of...

Following is the text from a revealing March 2nd podcast by Chris Manion of the Population Research Institute. March 13, 2017 (Population Research Institute) – Shortly after Rex Tillerson was confirmed as Secretary of State, senior officials of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services wrote him an impassioned plea. It was their way of introducing themselves to the foreign policy community of the new administration, so the Secretary undoubtedly considered their letter to be a statement describing the highest foreign-policy priorities of Catholics in America. Is that what it was? Well, we report – you...

I hear from various sources that Bishop Sánchez Sorondo tries not to get himself crosswise with people who can help his mission. And that’s to the good. So I’d like to offer some advice, and to point to some concrete reasons why many people don’t entirely believe that. To begin: He’s told the New York Times that criticisms of Vatican positions on the environment are “a ridiculous thing,” and that many of the critics are underwritten by oil companies. As someone who has been involved in environmental debates for decades (and as many others know in the trenches), I’m sorry...

A Southeast Asian Cardinal says he is following Pope Francis’ lead in denouncing “'ecological sin' made individually and collectively by humans who destroy Mother Earth.” “Today we find ourselves faced with an ecological holocaust,” said Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, during a pre-Lenten speech at a conference for religious held in Yangon. “It is a very serious moment. Pope Francis has raised a great shout against this impending disaster when talking about modern sins, the 'ecological sin' made individually and collectively by humans who destroy Mother Earth,” he added. As a remedy to this so-called man-made ecological disaster, the...

I’m in Rome this morning as planned, but – not as planned – will not be in the room for the workshop on “Bioextinction: How to Save the Natural Environment on Which We Depend.” The sponsor, the Pontifical Academy for the Social Sciences (PASS), decided late last week that the event would not be open to the public or the press, leaving several of us who have come from far distant places in the lurch. PASS President Bishop Sánchez Sorondo was kind enough to write me back Friday immediately (just before I boarded my flight), that the workshop was only...

The day after the presidential elections, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, glumly called the Donald Trump victory "devastating for our climate and our future." Well, yes, if you're a climate-change alarmist who hates fossil fuels, you're in for a bad four and maybe eight years. Greenpeace Executive Director Annie Leonard was even more apocalyptic, saying: "I never thought I'd have to write this. The election of Donald Trump as president has been devastating. ... There's no question, Donald Trump's climate denial is staggering. He wants to shut down the EPA, 'cancel' the Paris Climate Agreement, stop funding...

Environmental groups are ready for a fight with President-elect Donald Trump. Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election was a shock to the green movement, which is now consolidating opposition to a GOP-controlled government bent on undoing President Obama’s environmental agenda. If the initial reaction was depression and despair, environmental activists now sound energized to take on Trump. "Our goal is to channel that sense of outrage into political pressure," said Jamie Henn, the co-founder of climate group 350.org.

Reuters reports, “Pope Francis urged national leaders on Monday to implement global environmental agreements without delay, a message that looked to be squarely aimed at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. “Addressing a group of scientists that included theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, the pope gave his strongest speech on the environment since the election of Trump, who has threatened to pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

Opposition to abortion and the death penalty have long been cardinal beliefs for the Roman Catholic church, whose faithful make up about a quarter of all Americans. What if fighting climate change becomes an equally passionate issue in parishes nationwide? The foremost group of Catholic leaders in the U.S. is ramping up a campaign to do just that, urging priests and congregations from San Diego to Atlanta to think about global warming as a sanctity-of-life issue. Some Catholic experts have even likened the growing campaign to deal with human-caused climate change to the revered pro-life movement — calling on the...

The Pope wrote a message a United Nations convention on climate change The vulnerability of the poor and of future generations to the impact of climate change creates a “serious ethical and moral responsibility to act without delay and as free as possible from political and economic pressure” to slow climate change and protect the environment, Pope Francis said. In a written message to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Marrakech, Morocco, Pope Francis praised the 100 countries that formally joined the Paris climate agreement adopted last year, but emphasised that implementing the agreement must involve...

Members of the Pontifical Academy for Life will no longer be required to sign a declaration that they uphold the Church’s pro-life teachings. In new statutes for the Vatican body promulgated on November 4, Pope Francis has also expanded its mandate to include a focus on the environment. Pope Francis approved the statutes last month, the Vatican website announced. Previous statutes were issued in 2004 and enumerate the “specific tasks” (§2) of the Academy in three points: to “study questions and issues connected with the promotion and defense of human life from an interdisciplinary perspective,” to “educate in a culture...

Pope Francis proposed a new set of contemporary Beatitudes here, adding environmentalism and ecumenism to the core set of Christian ideals such as meekness and mercy enunciated by Jesus in the Bible.

Costa Rica has announced that it will be the first country in the world to shut down its zoos and free the captive animals they hold. Costa Rica is an especially biodiverse country, holding about 4% of the world's known species. Sadly, the country is contractually obligated to keep two of its zoos open for another decade. Still, after that, they plan to shut it down in favor of a cage-free habitat for the animals to live in. Treehugger reports that the nation, which also recently banned hunting for sport, will close the last two zoos in the next 10...

The Message of Pope Francis for the World Day of Prayer for Creation was presented on Thursday at a Press Conference in the Holy See Press Office. Presentations were given by the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson; the Secretary for the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Bishop Brian Farrell; and the author of the book The Guardian of Mercy, Terence Ward. The full text of the prepared remarks are below Press Conference / Conferenza Stampa, 1.09.2016 Presentation of the Message of Pope Francis, “Show Mercy to our Common Home” for the celebration...

Pope Francis reaffirmed the Vatican’s support for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at a June pontifical conference on human trafficking that featured an address by abortion and population control advocate Jeffrey Sachs. “We can also count an important and decisive collaboration with the United Nations,” the Holy Father told the Judges Summit Against Human Trafficking and Organized Crime, organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Added the pope: “I am grateful for the fact that the representatives of the 193 UN member states unanimously approved the new Sustainable Development Goals.” In his turn, Sachs, a Harvard-educated economist, bestselling...

A young Israeli rabbi, Yonatan Neril, especially committed to developing the relation between faith and ecology, has taken to heart Pope Francis’ repeated call to take action to protect the environment against climate change. Rabbi Neril is founder and director of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development in Jerusalem, which just completed a groundbreaking new survey of 48 Catholic seminaries in North America, Rome and the Holy Land aimed at discovering the extent to which these institutions are taking seriously Francis’ warning and plea. ICSD is a nonprofit organization that works to catalyze a transition to a sustainable human society...