{"id":3235,"date":"2015-06-16T14:24:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T18:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=3235"},"modified":"2015-06-16T14:26:25","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T18:26:25","slug":"if-the-left-should-understand-laudato-sii-is-propaganda-then-so-should-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=3235","title":{"rendered":"If the Left Should Understand \u2018Laudato Sii\u2019 is Propaganda, Then So Should the Right"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A certain type of shepherd<\/p><\/div>\n

At Catholic Vote Carson Holloway speculates<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I was about to say that people are eagerly anticipating Pope Francis\u2019s encyclical on the environment, but maybe they are no longer needing to anticipate: According to this news report<\/a> the encyclical has been leaked to an Italian newspaper.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to think about who would leak it and why. \u00a0The Vatican condemned the leak and noted that the leaked version is not the final version. \u00a0Maybe there are things in the leaked draft that are not going to be in the final version, but that the leaker wants to put \u201cout there,\u201d so to speak, as having the apparent \u00a0(although not the genuine, official) support of the pope. \u00a0But this is the kind of thing about which somebody on the outside (like most of us) can only speculate.<\/p>\n

It is also interesting to see how the news coverage leading up to the encyclical betrays\u2013as usual\u2013considerable misunderstanding of Catholicism by the news media. \u00a0There is an article<\/a> on the Breitbart website that says that the \u201cpolitical left is hoping for a document that ties belief in global warming to a religious obligation.\u201d \u00a0To be fair to the political left, the Breitbart article does not name any leftist who has openly expressed this hope. \u00a0But even if this is a total misapprehension on Breitbart\u2019s part, it is interesting that the Breitbart writer could make a claim like this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It isn’t necessary to cite an example of leftist writers hoping for the Pope to tie global warming to a religious obligation.\u00a0 That is exactly what Laudato Sii is all about, and there isn’t one voice in the mainstream press who doesn’t see it.<\/p>\n

Such a claim seems to show a very limited understanding of Catholicism and the nature of the pope\u2019s teaching authority. \u00a0The standard formulation holds that the Church has a teaching authority in relation to faith and morals. \u00a0But global warming does not pertain to faith or morals. \u00a0I don\u2019t mean to say that there are no moral obligations in relation to global warming. \u00a0If it is happening, and if it is caused by human beings, and if something can be done to stop it, then there might be a moral obligation to takes steps to stop it. \u00a0But only \u201cmight,\u201d because such an obligation would depend on the consequences of those steps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not unfair to expect non-Catholics to assume that the Pope’s words on Global Warming have some moral and religious weight.\u00a0 That’s because historically his words did.\u00a0 To most of the post-Christian world the Catholic religion is just years of papolatry, so they are expecting ‘the faithful’ to simply fall in step.<\/p>\n

In fact you will be hard-pressed to find even knowledgeable Catholics who would agree that the Pope has zero authority to preach worldwide emergency response to apocalyptic global warming propaganda.\u00a0\u00a0 Instead, most writers will fall over themselves to find some justifiable interpretation for the Pope’s outrageous ideas.<\/p>\n

The one who really should understand his own moral jurisdiction, and yet does not, is Pope Francis.\u00a0 Western society is entirely unprepared for such a ruthless, materialistic, and un-Catholic sounding Pope.<\/p>\n

Whether global warming is happening or not is an empirical, scientific question, which is not the sort of question over which the pope has the authority to settle. \u00a0You would think that the left would appreciate this, since they have complained in other contexts of the Church trying to insert itself into science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This writer seems to forget that the Leftist machine doesn’t operate on consistent intellectual truths.\u00a0 It is about power and winning.<\/p>\n

I am not, by the way, saying that the pope has no business speaking about global warming (as some Republican politicians have said recently). \u00a0If the pope really thinks global warming is happening and is being caused by human beings, and if he really thinks it can be stopped, then he might have an obligation to issue a warning and a call to action. \u00a0But this call would not be an act of teaching authority, it seems to me, but a kind of grave pastoral and political advice. \u00a0Every Catholic would be bound to listen respectfully to this, but would not, I think, be bound to agree with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are so many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ in this article!<\/p>\n

I’ve heard this ‘listen respectfully’ phrase quite a bit these days.\u00a0 Aren’t we bound to listen to anyone<\/em> respectfully…unless of course they have left us with little to respect about themselves or their words?<\/p>\n

It is hard to see how belief in global warming could be linked to a \u201creligious obligation\u201d in the way the Breitbart article suggests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, that’s the whole point: to make Catholics, of whom the vast majority have been convinced by the media to abandon the teachings of the Faith and line up their souls for Hell, believe yet another lie.\u00a0 Why should it be so hard this time?\u00a0 Pope Francis has the entire West behind him.<\/p>\n

Heresy drives the Francis pontificate. By their fruits you shall know them.\u00a0 The question is, how long will we continue to act like these schemes belong to our Faith and our Church?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Catholic Vote Carson Holloway speculates: I was about to say that people are eagerly anticipating Pope Francis\u2019s encyclical on the environment, but maybe they are no longer needing to anticipate: According to this news report the encyclical has been leaked to an Italian newspaper. It is interesting to think about who would leak it …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[32,276,129,47,251,468,469],"class_list":["post-3235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholic-vote","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-encyclical","tag-global-warming","tag-laudato-sii","tag-propaganda"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3235"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3253,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3235\/revisions\/3253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}