Cardinal George Pell Takes a Swing at Pope Francis’ Environmental Encyclical

The Vatican's financial chief, Cardinal George Pell, has taken the unusual step of criticizing Pope Francis' groundbreaking environmental encyclical. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

From Religion News Service

By Rosie Scammell 

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s financial chief, Cardinal George Pell, has taken the unusual step of criticizing Pope Francis’ groundbreaking environmental encyclical, arguing the Catholic Church has “no particular expertise in science.”

Nearly 18 months after Pell was brought to the Vatican by Pope Francis and given a mandate to reform the city-state’s banking affairs, the Australian cardinal gave an interview to the Financial Times, whacking his boss’ landmark document.

“It’s got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful,” he said. “But the Church has no particular expertise in science …. the Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science,” Pell told the Financial Times on Thursday.

In the papal letter, released last month, Francis called for global action on climate change and criticized world leaders for not addressing the issue urgently enough. While the pope won praise from environmental activists, others have argued the pope should not be wading into the political and scientific debate.

Until now, Pell had remained quiet on the contents of the encyclical, despite gaining a reputation in Australia as a climate change denier. In 2011, he clashed with the then-head of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, Greg Ayers, who said Pell was “misled” in his climate change views.

Despite the cardinal’s criticism of the pope’s environmental stance, Pell noted the encyclical had been “very well received” and said Francis had “beautifully set out our obligations to future generations and our obligations to the environment.”

Since the document’s release, the Vatican has hosted a high-level meeting on the environment, while Francis has taken his message on the road throughout Latin America.

The Pope Joins the EU in a Sad World of Make-Believe

There are two great acts of political make-believe in our time, so all-pervasive that it is hard for us to grasp just how much effect they are having on our lives 

Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives for a general audience at St Peter's square at the Vatican Photo: FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images

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 are having on all our lives.

When future historians come to look back on our age, few things will puzzle them more than the extent to which our politics became so dominated and bedevilled by two belief-systems, each based on an obsessive attempt to force into being an immensely complicated political construct which defied economic, psychological and scientific reality.

One of these was the peculiar way in which Europe’s politicians, with full support from the US, had set out to unite their continent under a form of supra-national government unlike anything the world had seen before. The other was the way those same politicians fell for the idea not just that human activities were disastrously changing Earth’s climate, but that by taking the most drastic measures they could somehow change it back again.  

Read more at TheTelegraph >>

Why I’m Disregarding Laudato Si and You Should Too

Had the alarmist musings of Laudato Si been written by an authentic, orthodox Pope, we would be alarmed by such rambling, new-age trash.  In the circumstances, however, it is just what one would expect.  This summary from The Remnant will spare you the ordeal of trying to make sense of it, and more importantly, might help preserve your orthodox faith.

Lord in your mercy, send us a conclave.

Al Gore: Ghost Writer of Laudato Si?

Having wasted over an hour of my life, I now can say that I have read Laudato Si. It is the Pope’s latest verbose tome of an encyclical, which: espouses global warming alarmism, calls for international organizations to police climate change, and waxes poetic about people leading animals to God. In short it is as if Al Gore, Karl Marx, and Teilhard de Chardin wrote an encyclical. What’s worse is that because it came from a Pope, otherwise sane and rational people are actually taking it seriously. For instance, many Neo-Catholics, who would normally laugh Laudato Si to scorn it if were penned by Al Gore or Joe Biden, are now praising the encyclical. They are busy touting its hidden genius and quoting banal lines from the encyclical as if they were precious gifts from God. At times, one really is forced to wonder if these people are sane or whether they truly have any core convictions at all. For it is no exaggeration to say that this encyclical is an embarrassment, and I am ashamed as a Catholic that my pope issued it.

With homosexual “marriage” being touted by almost all Western governments, true marriage being attacked by Cardinals who want to give public adulterers Holy Communion, abortion raging on unabated, and transexualism now making inroads in popular Western culture, our pontiff chose to use the majesty of his office and over 100 pages of mostly ambiguous and meaningless verbiage to lecture the world on the dangers of a pseudo environmental “crisis” manufactured by the Church’s enemies. The worst part is that those behind combating “climate change” are not in the least concerned about the environment, “sister earth”, “brother moon”, the poor, or the rest. They are concerned with using this manufactured issue, and those who care about it, as dupes to support their own agenda. An agenda that involves large international governing bodies enforcing climate policies, which will affect almost every aspect of our lives. Our pope, by issuing this encyclical is now complicit in lending credence to the upcoming Climate Conference in Paris where the pro-abortion UN will attempt to get nations to sign on to a “climate agreement.”

For those of you who have not read the encyclical, first, be glad you didn’t waste your time. I wasted mine so you wouldn’t have to. Second, as a lay Traditional Catholic with common sense, I will now lay out the reasons I found the encyclical an embarrassment, many of which you will probably never hear from the Neo-Catholic pundits. I will first quote a selected portion of the encyclical in red, then give my reaction. The number in parentheses is the paragraph in Laudato Si where the quote can be found. Predictably I did not get past the first ten paragraphs without spitting my coffee out.

Read more at The Remnant >>