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And let us remember that although Pope Francis is a step up from his predecessors, his Church has done little more than lip service to truly reform Catholicism’s animus towards gays, women and population control. Although I believe that Francis is sincere in his concern for the plight of the poor, by refusing to sanction birth control (a refusal embodied in his encyclical against global warming), he perpetuates the very poverty he abhors.
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Sometimes I get the impression that no one listens when scientists speak, and that everyone listens when the pope speaks. Why is the pope so important?
Scientists and Pope Francis agree that climate change is real and that it is a threat.
Pope Francis’s arrival in Washington on Tuesday has reinforced hopes that one of the last great bastions of climate change denial – the US Congress – may be on the verge of crumbling.
As the pope touched down in the US from Cuba, Democratic leaders in Congress and environmental campaigners were optimistic that Francis would keep the focus on his core themes of the global economic order, poverty and environmental degradation over the next six days, and so widen the emerging fractures in the Republican wall of denial.
Republicans, meanwhile, remained wary, and expressed hope that the pope would steer clear of controversial issues on his first visit to the US.
Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, said he believed the call to action from a popular pope made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to continue to dismiss the science on climate change. “I think this whole edifice of climate denial is crumbling,” Whitehouse told the Guardian.
“Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude,” Francis said.
Francis also said that humanity’s destruction of the planet is a sinful act, likening it to self-idolatry.
“But when we exploit Creation we destroy the sign of God’s love for us, in destroying Creation we are saying to God: ‘I don’t like it! This is not good!’ ‘So what do you like?’ ‘I like myself!’ – Here, this is sin! Do you see?”
The scientific consensus is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and that it is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels.
97% of the scientists surveyed agreed that global temperatures had increased during the past 100 years; 84% said they personally believed human-induced warming was occurring, and 74% agreed that "currently available scientific evidence" substantiated its occurrence.Do people pay more attention to what the pope says about this issue than the scientists? Does the media pay more attention to the pope on this issue? Do the politicians?
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Over the years, however, sexual abuse in the church burst into public view, along with a decades-long cover-up. And it must have occurred to many of those driving by daily — as it did to me — that the loony old man with the sign on Massachusetts Avenue had in fact been onto something true and profound.
Long before reporters at the Boston Globe and elsewhere exposed the church’s secret crime, Wojnowski had alerted thousands, if not millions, of Washington commuters to something seriously amiss; if a man felt wronged and ruined enough to make this his life’s work, you had to imagine that he wasn’t the only one. That was no small feat of public education, no matter how crudely accomplished.
These days, more passersby wave in admiration for Wojnowski than exhibit disdain. But there’s still plenty of the latter, too.
As we talked at one point, a man walked by, wearing a polo shirt with the Air Force Academy logo. He stopped to study the sign.
“Why do you call them cowards?” he demanded. “Why cowards?”
“They are cowards!” Wojnowski replied good-naturedly. He almost enjoys this kind of thing. “Are you Catholic?”
“I am — proudly!” the man said. “It’s nonsense. And the pope is going to be staying here. You should be respectful.”
Wojnowski said many Catholics had been silently abused.
“Do you know any man who doesn’t commit sin?” his interrogator asked. “And priests too? So what does that have to do with Catholicism?”
Another man, driving past a short time later, lowered his window to tell Wojnowski not to show up in the neighborhood when the pope was there. He said this in a way that suggested it was not the first warning, and it sounded vaguely menacing.
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If the Grinches stole Christianity, where are they keeping it?Not everyone is pleased to have the Pope visiting America
Pope Francis is apparently a really nice guy and I’m not just saying that just because I’m Catholic. According to those incessant polls, without which none of us could ever come to any decisions whatsoever, Francis is one of the most respected individuals in the world, and nearly everyone here in New York City seems happy to have him here.
Except for the Grinches Who Stole Christianity, that is, for every party, including a papal party, needs a pooper. And two of the biggest poopers around have reared their ugly heads.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are petulantly, and unsurprisingly, unhappy about everyone making a fuss about the Pope.
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