US Catholics ready to follow Pope's 'marching orders' on climate change

[Mark121359]

Personally, I believe Pope Francis should excommunicate from the Church any Catholic who disobeys or tries to undermine this encyclical. Pope Francis reference to killing Mother Earth and the people who live on it.-

Uh-huh…Do you feel the same way about those who “disobey” Evangelium Vitae? How about Humanae Vitae? And that’s just to name two. I mean, you can’t excommunicate one without the others…right? When 80% of Catholics believe the Church should sanction the use of birth control, and majorities support abortion and divorce and so-called SSM, he’ll have to excommunicate three-quarters of his flock! :bigyikes: And I would argue that support for things like contraception, abortion, divorce, and so-called SSM is more of a serious issue…wouldn’t you?

Peace, Mark

 

[ReConverted]

Not this U.S. Catholic. I will look to the Holy Father for the correct teaching on spiritual matters, not secular political ones.

Laudato Si is part of the Magisterium of the Church. —> "There are already some good initial appraisals of the letter. I simply want to draw attention to one thing the Holy Father writes early on (section 15): “It is my hope that this encyclical letter, which is now added to the body of the Church’s social teaching, can help us to acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face.” The letter is therefore in the tradition of papal encyclicals, beginning with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891, right up to Benedict XVI’s last encyclical from 2009, Caritas in Veritate (a very important text which Pope Francis liberally quotes).

catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/06/19/no-catholic-is-free-to-dissent-from-the-teaching-of-laudato-si/

 

[captainrick]

theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/pope-encyclical-climate-change-catholics-us-response
-The Heck with the Kock Brothers, we know where they’re headed in the next life. The Pope is the moral leader of the Catholic Church and must be obeyed by every Catholic!​

You don’t know where anyone is headed, and it is presumptuous to claim so. People who merely disagree with your personal political views do not necessarily go to hell.

By the way it’s the Koch brothers, not Kock brothers. Was that poor spelling or a Freudian slip indicative of some personal issue?

 

[Corki]

Where were all these Catholics, so willing and eager to obey ‘this’ encyclical, when Pope St. John Paul II issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis?

Or when Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae?

If people are so all fired up to acknowledge the Pope’s authority as a ‘mandate’ or marching order on this encyclical (and mind you, I find some compelling arguments and already do, or plan to do, quite a few things mentioned here). . .

then they need to start obeying to the SAME DEGREE for every OTHER Papal encyclical.

We don’t play favorites. A Pope is a Pope is a Pope, and if an encyclical is considered authoritative for **one **Pope, then encyclicals by others are also authoritative as well.

If Pope Francis’ words on the environment are something that loyal Catholics in the world (especially the U.S.) are ‘to consider marching orders’. . .

Then those same Catholics need to do the very same ‘marching’ for those encyclicals above as well as any others.

This is where my unrest lies. Where is the sense of urgency when it comes to other serious issues that have political implications - life, marriage, subsidiarity, the dignity of women?

For many decades, the Church in the US fell comfortably in line with Democratic politics. Then came the abortion issue and the hierarchy was no longer able to align with them. My feeling is that there are some (not all) of the bishops who are thrilled that they can use this issue to get back in the good graces of the Democratic party leaders. They will ignore those other pesky social morality issues and jump on the climate change bandwagon.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

This is where my unrest lies. Where is the sense of urgency when it comes to other serious issues that have political implications - life, marriage, subsidiarity, the dignity of women?

For many decades, the Church in the US fell comfortably in line with Democratic politics. Then came the abortion issue and the hierarchy was no longer able to align with them. My feeling is that there are some (not all) of the bishops who are thrilled that they can use this issue to get back in the good graces of the Democratic party leaders. They will ignore those other pesky social morality issues and jump on the climate change bandwagon.

It is uncharitable toward the US Bishops to imply they are more interested in pleasing the Democratic party than in pleasing God. Also the accusation just doesn’t make sense. Why would the bishops care about pleasing the Democratic party?

 

[Wildgraywolf]

Not this U.S. Catholic. I will look to the Holy Father for the correct teaching on spiritual matters, not secular political ones.

Ditto.

 

[Vouthon]

This is where my unrest lies. Where is the sense of urgency when it comes to other serious issues that have political implications - life, marriage, subsidiarity, the dignity of women?

For many decades, the Church in the US fell comfortably in line with Democratic politics. Then came the abortion issue and the hierarchy was no longer able to align with them. My feeling is that there are some (not all) of the bishops who are thrilled that they can use this issue to get back in the good graces of the Democratic party leaders. They will ignore those other pesky social morality issues and jump on the climate change bandwagon.

I think our pastors wherever they are in the world are more concerned with preaching the totality of the Gospel in its full splendour than aligning themselves with visceral political infighting ‘cliques’ among the nation’s populist elites. Their duty is to God, not to the whims of men. I think you do the American episcopate a great disservice with what you say.

The “sins that cry out to God for vengeance” are clear, as they always have been in Catholic theology, and the American Bishops decry them all:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_that_cry_to_heaven

The four sins that cry to Heaven for Vengeance (or sins that cry to Heaven) are a list of sins in Catholic tradition that Catholics believe demand justice from God:[1]

The “blood of Abel”: homicide, infanticide, fratricide, parricide, and matricide[2]
The “sin of the Sodomites”: pride, gluttony, negligence of the poor, abuse of children, and homosexual acts[3][4]
The “cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan”: slavery and marginalization[5]
The “injustice to the wage earner”: taking advantage of and defrauding workers[6]

 

[sps49]

theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/pope-encyclical-climate-change-catholics-us-response
Religious leaders say pontiff’s call for action brings urgency to existing support for environmental measures in Obama administrations’s climate plan
Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent

…

Personally, I believe Pope Francis should excommunicate from the Church any Catholic who disobeys or tries to undermine this encyclical. Pope Francis reference to killing Mother Earth and the people who live on it.

-The Heck with the Kock Brothers, we know where they’re headed in the next life. The Pope is the moral leader of the Catholic Church and must be obeyed by every Catholic!-

Your narrative is incomplete, you should have included the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” whilst the excommunications are underway.

It has always fascinated me how another person could have intimate knowledge of the state of another person’s soul. How do you do it? Diet? Exercise?

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/pope-encyclical-climate-change-catholics-us-response
Religious leaders say pontiff’s call for action brings urgency to existing support for environmental measures in Obama administrations’s climate plan
Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent

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.” Representatives of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said they would hold two briefings for members of Congress on Thursday and visit the White House on Friday to promote and explain the pope’s environmental message.

Personally, I believe Pope Francis should excommunicate from the Church any Catholic who disobeys or tries to undermine this encyclical. Pope Francis reference to killing Mother Earth and the people who live on it.

-The Heck with the Kock Brothers, we know where they’re headed in the next life. The Pope is the moral leader of the Catholic Church and must be obeyed by every Catholic!

I’m not.

This is a matter of prudential judgment, not doctrine, and the pope is wrong both in his assessment of the threat and in his choice of remedies.

 

[on_the_hill]

What are the marching orders?

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Laudato Si is part of the Magisterium of the Church. —> "There are already some good initial appraisals of the letter. I simply want to draw attention to one thing the Holy Father writes early on (section 15): “It is my hope that this encyclical letter, which is now added to the body of the Church’s social teaching, can help us to acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face.” The letter is therefore in the tradition of papal encyclicals, beginning with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891, right up to Benedict XVI’s last encyclical from 2009, Caritas in Veritate (a very important text which Pope Francis liberally quotes).

catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/06/19/no-catholic-is-free-to-dissent-from-the-teaching-of-laudato-si/

He clearly states in the letter that there will be disagreements on the science and politics of his letter, and that’s OK.

 

[Seamus_L]

As predicted, Laudato Si would quickly be elevated to an infallible document.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

As predicted, Laudato Si would quickly be elevated to an infallible document.

That’s not going to happen.

 

[Vouthon]

As predicted, Laudato Si would quickly be elevated to an infallible document.

It may not be infallible but those strongly critical of it will have to come to accept that it in’t going anywhere. Just as Rerum Novarum and Humanae Vitae are still cited by contemporary popes, are available on the Vatican website and have had a defining influence on Catholic teaching, Laudato Si is always going to be there. What is done cannot be unwritten. And just as Pope Francis heavily cites his predecessors in the encyclical, later pontiffs will cite Laudato Si and so its message will endure down the ages.

 

[Corki]

It is uncharitable toward the US Bishops to imply they are more interested in pleasing the Democratic party than in pleasing God. Also the accusation just doesn’t make sense. Why would the bishops care about pleasing the Democratic party?

I never said any such thing. There was no accusation involved (other than you accusing me of being uncharitable). I just pointed out some historical facts and some current trends.

 

[Seamus_L]

I’m sorry, I posted too hastily. What I meant to say is that for many people now, disagreement with even parts of Laudato Si, will be interpreted as outright rejection of Church teaching.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It may not be infallible but those strongly critical of it will have to come to accept that it in’t going anywhere. Just as Rerum Novarum and Humanae Vitae are still cited by contemporary popes, are available on the Vatican website and have had a defining influence on Catholic teaching, Laudato Si is always going to be there. What is done cannot be unwritten. And just as Pope Francis heavily cites his predecessors in the encyclical, later pontiffs will cite Laudato Si and so its message will endure down the ages.

If another 12 years go by without global warming, making the “non-warming” period a full 30 years, MMGW theory will be as dead as a hammer. And, if so, the encyclical will be rearded as a historical curiosity and nothing more. That’s a shame because there is more in it than a seeming endorsement of MMGW theory.

But it will be big until November 2016 because the Clinton campaign will use it to tell Catholics the encyclical is practically a papal endorsement of her candidacy.

 

[tomarin]

If another 12 years go by without global warming, making the “non-warming” period a full 30 years, MMGW theory will be as dead as a hammer. And, if so, the encyclical will be rearded as a historical curiosity and nothing more. That’s a shame because there is more in it than a seeming endorsement of MMGW theory.

But it will be big until November 2016 because the Clinton campaign will use it to tell Catholics the encyclical is practically a papal endorsement of her candidacy.

I don’t even understand how the ‘pause’ can last 12 years (or is it 17?) and the theory still maintain its credibility.

 

[Vouthon]

If another 12 years go by without global warming, making the “non-warming” period a full 30 years, MMGW theory will be as dead as a hammer. And, if so, the encyclical will be rearded as a historical curiosity and nothing more. That’s a shame because there is more in it than a seeming endorsement of MMGW theory.

But it will be big until November 2016 because the Clinton campaign will use it to tell Catholics the encyclical is practically a papal endorsement of her candidacy.

I think it is a mistake to reduce the encyclical to MMGW. That is only a scientific foundation for a very powerful and beautiful moral exposition of man’s interconnectedness with and proper relationship to nature. It is the concept of “ecological debt” - our duty to future generations vis-a-vis our common home - that I think will prove the most enduring element of the encyclical.

Even if MMGW were (somehow) proven one day to be an exaggeration or a mistake it doesn’t invalidate the encyclical one iota. Ecology is far more than MMGW and the unique “human ecology” that Francis has elucidated will, I feel, transform the environmental movement.

If that logic were taken, then any church documents prior to heliocentricism would be meaningless because they operate on a different scientific basis of the universe. That is obviously not the case.

 

[sps49]

I don’t even understand how the ‘pause’ can last 12 years (or is it 17?) and the theory still maintain its credibility.

Expectations are a wonderful thing. If you could get a peek of the sausage making of both the social marketing campaign, and the IPCC, you would see that the theory is so loose and subjective, that almost anything may be said with a reasonable likeness of authority. But don’t take my word on it, do a little digging yourself. I managed quite well with out invoking the usual suspects in the blogosphere. For myself, my skepticism was ignited in 2003 while reading a rather innocent paper on 14C calibrations. Then another paper, and another…