Laudato Si...must we assent?

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vladib2b

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I think most people on these boards would agree that Laudato Si is not infallibly proposed. But since the pope is speaking in a formal way–Laudato Si is not, after all, an off the cuff interview response on an airplane–that means that it is a teaching of the universal ordinary Magisterium.

And the teachings of the ordinary magisterium are supposed to be met with “religious assent or the intellect and will.” Therefore, as faithful Catholics, we should assent to Laudato Si.

I just find it amusing that when conservatives agree with the pope in an encyclical (such as Humanae Vitae), they cry “obedience!! Infallible!!”, but when they disagree, they scoff: “Aw, it’s just an encyclical. It’s not infallible, therefore…prudential judgment!!!” It is almost like a nuanced form of cafeteria Catholicism.
 
So no, we don’t need to assent to the Holy Father’s scientific beliefs.
 
iggypkrebsbach said:
I will embrace the general principles of Laudato Si but not the Holy Father’s scientific conclusions, which are simply and sadly wrong.
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“the Holy Father’s scientific conclusions”? That doesn’t sound right. I haven’t read Laudato Si, could you point out where you get this line of thinking from.
 
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Hi 1Lord,

His scientific conclusion that dangerous man-made global warming-climate change-climate disruption-climate weirding-etc. is true and ought to inform our moral choices.
 
Cite something. Your response here doesn’t rise to the level of “scientific conclusion”.
 
I agree. Plus I find the excuse not to agree, “prudential judgment,” interesting, because “prudential” comes from the word “prudence,” and prudence requires that we mitigate climate change and other environmental harms even if we are not sure they are happening or will be harmful. This is even what our US bishops said back in 2001 in their statement “Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good.” See http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-act...for-dialogue-prudence-and-the-common-good.cfm

It’s like insurance (one company is even named Prudential Insurance) we buy just in case our house burns down or our car gets in an accident.

Same way, we laypersons – unlike scientists requiring 95% confidence before making a claim so as to protect their reputations and not be the boy who called wolf – need to mitigate global warming and other environmental problems even when we have doubts about the problems…for the sake of the poor and future generations, who are most at risk, and for our own immortal souls.

There is little harm to us if we become more energy/resource efficient/conservative and go on alt energy when feasible, but there could be grave harms to future generations if we fail to do so.
 
“iggypkrebsbach said:
The problem with Laudato Si is not its general principles; rather it is with its factual assumptions about the state of climate science and the credibility of the scientific community which has produced this alleged scientific knowledge. Anyone who has studied climate science knows that the hypothesis of dangerous man-made warming is highly controverted, each and every element thereof. In addition, the climate science establishment led by the UN’s IPCC has been proven to be utterly corrupt and unworthy of belief.
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Careful, you are dead wrong on this and it amounts to slander and perhaps sin. I know many climate scientists and they are very good people, and they are extremely intelligent and hard-working, as is our Holy Father, who also has education in science and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to back him up.
Yet our Holy Father hath jumped on the Global Warming Bandwagon. This is not surprising given his general socialist bent and the horrible creatures he has chosen as his advisors: Hans Schellenhuber, Paul Ehrlich, and Naomi Klein.
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While these people may not agree with certain Catholic teachings, the Holy Father and I (among others) do respect their knowledge on climate change and that is the knowledge the Holy Father and many other Catholics appreciate, not whether they are for or against artificial contraception, abortion, etc.
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lynnvinc said:
Careful, you are dead wrong on this and it amounts to slander and perhaps sin. I know many climate scientists and they are very good people, and they are extremely intelligent and hard-working, as is our Holy Father, who also has education in science and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to back him up.
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Hi lynnvinc,

The climate science establishment led by the IPCC is corrupt and unworthy of belief. Check out the work of Canadian investigative journalist Donna Laframboise and Parts 6 and 7 of this video series:
  1. The IPCC is a political organization whose charter directs it to find that human CO2 emissions are the main cause of dangerous global warming rather than follow the evidence wherever it leads.
  2. Its bureaucracy is heavily populated by environmental activists from organizations such as Green Peace and WWF.
  3. Its leaders are themselves environmental activists.
  4. In aid of its summary of the state of climate science, the IPCC does not choose the best and brightest. Some of its lead authors are mere grad students.
  5. Its review process has been harshly criticized by the Inter-Academy of Science and others. It lacks all the hallmarks of real peer review and is rife with problems such as conflicts of interest, lack of independence on the part of the scientists, political meddling, etc.
  6. Key IPCC figures have conspired to tamper with scientific journals and suppress articles critical of the consensus position.
  7. Entire communities of scientists have conspired to prevent the auditing of their work. See Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion and its sequel.
  8. Bogus studies, such as Mann’s hockey stick studies, sailed through the IPCC’s peer review process and were given prominent display in the 2001 report–small wonder, given that Mann was the lead author and reviewed his own work.
  9. Dissenting opinions are ignored or squashed.
  10. Evidence is tampered with. See the whole sordid history of the maintenance of the major surface temperature sets.
  11. The entire field has been corrupted by money and politics–see comments by Dr. Richard Lindzen and this video by Patrick Michaels:
  12. Leaders of the global warming movement, even heads of the IPCC, admit that it really isn’t about climate, it is about politics.
    I could go on and on.
Our Holy Father is very unwise to place any trust in the climate science establishment led by the IPCC. They are not worthy of belief. He undermines his credibility and that of his office.
 
lynnvinc said:
While these people may not agree with certain Catholic teachings, the Holy Father and I (among others) do respect their knowledge on climate change and that is the knowledge the Holy Father and many other Catholics appreciate, not whether they are for or against artificial contraception, abortion, etc.
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Schellenhuber is the only one that could claim and climate science expertise, but he is Gaia-believing activist. See The Scientific Pantheist Who Advises Pope Francis | The Stream

Ehrlich is an arch-population controller.

Klein is a red-diaper baby communist.

They all share very anti-human views and would like to erase 6 billion or so from the face of the earth. I am sure they would do so very humanely–primarily through contraception, sterilization, abortion, and euthanasia. Climate change is a very convenient vehicle for them to achieve their evil ends. Unfortunately, policies driven by global warming alarmism will also further their goal of population reduction by depriving poor countries, especially in Africa, of cheap coal-fired electricity. Think how many lives could be improved and saved if people just had enough electricity to pump well water, cook food, and run a refrigerator. But no, the eco-imperialists like Schellenhuber et al, feeling the pain of Gaia, want them to burn dung forever. More organic and sustainable, I guess. It is with this same cruel spirit that western nations deprived malaria-ridden Africa of DDT and caused tens of millions of deaths over the decades and caused untold human misery.

Yet these are the folks the Holy Father has advising him. God help us.
 
iggypkrebsbach said:
Here is the encyclical: http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/fr...rancesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si_en.pdf

See in particular paragraphs 23 and 24. The Holy Father quite clearly endorses the alarmist position. He is certainly free to do so, but why take sides in a scientific debate? He hath not the competence.
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I think you have misunderstood Pope Francis. I found nothing like an alarmist position being endorsed in those paragraphs. There is also no scientific conclusion to be found there. Scientific conclusions are not made by popes with phrases like, “it would appear” or “a number of scientific studies indicate” or “may well”, or “can” instead of “will”.
 
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No, it’s not “highly controverted,” because not only has the NAS confirmed IPCC points, even BEST, which was established by deniers, did the same.

The Holy Father is completely right about this, and it has nothing to with some “socialist bent” or even advisers.
 
You can disagree with the pope at any time as long as you use the magic
words “prudential judgment.”
 
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1Lord1Faith said:
I think you have misunderstood Pope Francis. I found nothing like an alarmist position being endorsed in those paragraphs. There is also no scientific conclusion to be found there. Scientific conclusions are not made by popes with phrases like, “it would appear” or “a number of scientific studies indicate” or “may well”, or “can” instead of “will”.
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Hi 1Lord,

Read it again. He quite clearly has endorsed the alarmist view. For example:

A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon.Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption,in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.

He has taken sides in a scientific debate. He claims to have scientific knowledge (justified true belief) which causes him to make his moral exhortation for all of us to reduce our CO2 emissions. Why bother urging climate action if he isn’t convinced that human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming?
 
ralfyman said:
No, it’s not “highly controverted,” because not only has the NAS confirmed IPCC points, even BEST, which was established by deniers, did the same.

The Holy Father is completely right about this, and it has nothing to with some “socialist bent” or even advisers.
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Hi ralfy,

The National Academy of Science, the British Royal Society, the American Meterological Society… have all supported the IPCC. But so what. Did they determine their positions by consulting their members? No. The leadership of these organizations gave their endorsements over and against the opinions of their members. Did they actually read the IPCC assessment reports? How can they give blanket endorsement to a report that is thousands of pages long? And how can we take their endorsements seriously when their leaders (such as Ciccerone from the NAS and Rees from the Royal Society) have publicly stated they will do whatever the politicians want in this area? And what about the collusion of the NAS with the Hockey Stick cover-up. I could go on and on.

No, the endorsements of these other organizations count for very little. After all, everyone agrees that the IPCC is the premiere climate authority. All they can do is chime in and repeat IPCC talking points. For example, I once listened to a press conference given by the US Climate Assessment. Carl Wuensch was speaking. He used talking points right out of the IPCC’s Summary for Policy Makers.

Regarding BEST, Richard Mueller, the main force behind that effort, was never a climate skeptic. He tried to be an honest broker. For example, he called out Michael Mann for his hockey stick shenanigans, and he expressed doubts about the surface temperature record. For that I give him credit. But his attempt to replicate the surface temp record (BEST) is not very credible.
 
It is better to simply obey our pastors, rather than squabble and bicker over everything, constantly asking like a little child, “Do I have to?”
 
vladib2b said:
You can disagree with the pope at any time as long as you use the magic words “prudential judgment.”
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Hi Vlad,

One doesn’t need prudential judgment to disagree with the Holy Father’s scientific beliefs.
 
vladib2b said:
I think most people on these boards would agree that Laudato Si is not infallibly proposed. But since the pope is speaking in a formal way–Laudato Si is not, after all, an off the cuff interview response on an airplane–that means that it is a teaching of the universal ordinary Magisterium.

And the teachings of the ordinary magisterium are supposed to be met with “religious assent or the intellect and will.” Therefore, as faithful Catholics, we should assent to Laudato Si.
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I have been trying to find any support for the claim made above, but the closest I could come is in Lumen gentium from Vatican II which calls for obsequium religiosum (religious assent) for teachings on faith and morals, even when those teachings are not infallible. But the key qualifier is “on faith and morals.” Everything I have read regarding the duty of assent is qualified by this phrase. I could find nothing that required assent to a statement that was not about faith and morals. So if we are to take Laudato Si and separate out the statements that are on faith and morals (and there are plenty of them) from those that are not (there are some of those too) we can say that our assent is required to the first group but not to the second. I think some people, though, think they can throw out all of Laudato Si because some of it is not purely on faith and morals.
 
vladib2b said:
I think most people on these boards would agree that Laudato Si is not infallibly proposed.
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Laudato Si, like HV, VS, EV and other encyclicals of recent times are documents. They - the documents - are not the matter of Church teaching. You need to look within for that. Not every statement in every document amounts to a Church teaching.
 
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