Pope Francis made his strongest statements yet about climate change Wednesday, rebuking fossil fuel companies and urging countries to make an immediate transition to renewable energy.
In a new document titled “Laudate Deum,” or “Praise God,” the pope criticizes oil and gas companies for greenwashing new fossil fuel projects and calls for more ambitious efforts in the West to tackle the climate crisis. In the landmark apostolic exhortation, a form of papal writing, Francis says that “avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people.”
“Laudate Deum” is a follow-up to the pope’s 2015 encyclical on climate change, known as “Laudato Si’,” which lamented the exploitation of the planet and cast the protection of the environment as a moral imperative. When it was released, “Laudato Si’” was viewed as an extraordinary move by the head of the Catholic Church to address global warming and its consequences.
Nearly a decade later, the pope’s message has taken on new urgency.
Imagine being called too slow to accept new ideas by the fucking pope
For papal standards, Francis is quite progressive.
I mean he picked Francis as his name for a reason, and compared to all the last ones who declared themselves strong leaders of God’s might I will take someone that cares about plants and animals
Even if you’re Christian and believe God created animals and plants for humanity, he didn’t create them to be treated like shit, especially for the prospect of getting rich (remember Jesus saying it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven).
If the Earth is our dominion we should be ashamed of how we treat it.
Yes, he was even recognizing sexual abuse within church. Didn’t do jack shit to prevent it, just recognized it. Give them another 600 years and thousands of ruined lives. They’ll self-correct by then.
Lol reminds me of the Louis ck classic
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Good bot!
based pope
When the Catholic Church stops covering up the rampant sexual abuse and money grubbing cash grab scam operations then maybe I’ll give two flying shits about what the Pope has to say.
People tend to overlook the fact that the words of someone with this level of influence are vitally important and can have enormous effects on the world.
Whether you in particular care about a famous/rich person’s comments or not, there are millions that do–and that is important. Important enough that even without respecting that person, we should always take what they say and do very seriously.
You bring up a valid point so I won’t debate. I still despise the institution that he represents and hope it all burns to the ground though.
Samesies
I really enjoyed this comment chain. Fuck organised religions, and this one in particular.
Thanks for that, cheered me up at half 5 in the morning when I felt like garbage.
I don’t know why, but my mind went to this before watching your video.
It’s from the Netflix show Sex Education, in case anyone wants to watch all of it. They just dropped the final season.
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And for a musical coup de grace
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We can hate the institution and still accept their help preventing the world from dying.
Enemy of my enemy, and climate crisis is everyones enemy. I would accept mafia support too, at this point.
It’s fine you don’t care, but there’s something like 1.4 billion Catholics that probably do.
Most Catholics don’t listen to the Pope. The Pope says Catholics must accept gay people, but go to the third world or central america and see if Catholics follow that one.
The Pope says Catholics must accept Gay people, but won’t give them the same right to marriage as straight people. Hypocrisy, although I guess he’s probably worried all his clergy will try and marry the kids they’re abusing.
Its the church. They make molasses look like water.
News about what the head of the Catholic church does is as important as news about what the head of USA, China or Russia does. It’s hugely influencial even when it comes to lives of non-catholics, non-americans, non-chinese… because of the massive number of people that belong to the religion or state and the power that religion or state has. It’s a good thing the pope talks against fossil fuel companies, because his influence is big.
Can you name a few things that a pope has influenced politically in the last, say, three decades?
Because I call complete bullshit on this. Catholicism is big in its own domain (oversized Jesus-based pyramid schemes) but is irrelevant to the vast majority of the world, especially those countries which don’t recognise it as the official state religion which is pretty much all of them.
The Popes of recent history have done nothing of note except hide pedophilia, hoard the earnings of the poor, and resign.
It may not be THE vast majority of the world. 🌍🌏
But having Catholicism as the main religion in ALL of Latin America is pretty relevant. (And i know because i’m chilean 🇨🇱).
Ok, but the question is what has the pope(s) influenced positively over the last 3 decades? Main religion in Latin America is a respectable feat but it is not necessarily a positive influence nor has that been established in the last 3 decades.
I’ve had a lot of downvotes and zero answers. Take that as you will.
Yeah, SA is certainly an exception in that regard, but one that makes the rule
angry
The pope influences opinions of millions of catholic voters.
Distributed across many countries, limiting the impact of their vote outside of countries that are state- or majority -catholic.
There are lots of countries with significant catholic population or even majority.
There are significantly more that don’t.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. If you were to ask me, "are there a lot of Catholics in the world?” my answer would be: yes. Because there are. About 15% of the population of the planet is technically* Catholic. That’s a lot of the population of the earth comparative to almost anything that isn’t a birth-given attribute.
However, in the biggest countries in the world, and for the majority of countries in the world, they are not a majority. Even less so for countries that play a significant part on the world stage in a political way.
I’m happy to ask the same question again as I’m awaiting an answer and, as a scientist, I will change my view in line with the evidence that is presented: in the last 30 years, outside of Vatican City, and in states where Catholicism is not the state or most widely recognized religion or denomination, what meaningful and significant political decisions or stances has the pope influenced?
* The methodology of this is questionable but I’m happy to take it on face value for the purposes of this discussion.
E: it’s easier to accuse someone of trying to impersonate you than it is to actually win an argument, see below for a demo.
Is Latin America not important enough? How about Poland or Italy? There are even 20% of catholics in the USA. According to Wiki, there is 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide - that’s important enough to me. Do you really think major religions play no role on the political stage?
Politicians fight dirty over smaller voting demographics, Im pretty sure its a big enough percent to make a difference
E: the user I responded to attempted to impersonate me after losing this argument.
Many times the victims of priest sexual abuse have approached the Vatican for a meeting and blessing from the pope. Every time the pope has turned them away and refused to even acknowledge their existence, or their plight. His lawyers tell him it’s not a good idea. And of course the representative of god, flanked by lawyers and bankers, listens to his lawyers over god.
Every time the pope has turned them away and refused to even acknowledge their existence
Where did you hear that? These articles seem to say the opposite.
Monday’s meeting between Francis and the six victims of church sexual abuse was not the first such meeting between a pontiff and survivors, but it was the first of Francis’ papacy.
2014 - https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/07/world/pope-clerical-sex-abuse/
“God weeps” for the sexual abuse of children, Pope Francis said Sunday in Philadelphia, after meeting with victims of sexual abuse.
2015 - https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/us/pope-francis-sex-abuse-victims/index.html
Pope Francis said he regularly meets with victims of sexual abuse on Fridays, and that while the percentage of priests who abuse is relatively low, even one is too many.
In the evening of the same day, Pope Francis held an audience with Portugese victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church.
Yet he ascended the ranks of the church while all that happened. Swell guy. I’m sure he knew nothing about it until he became pope…
Sexual abuse happens in virtually every organization. The main issue is how it is dealt with. The catholic church has a long issue of dealing with issues internally, but this was definitely one that was not being handled correctly. Francis has made it clear that he is willing to face the issue head-on now that he has the power.
We do not have to turn a blind eye to their past mistakes, but we should also acknowledge what they are actually doing to work on those mistakes instead of spreading misinformation about them still hiding from it.
Francis has made it clear that he is willing to face the issue head-on now that he has the power.
I especially liked it when he faced it head-on in Chile by saying all the allegations were “calumny”.
Definitely some odd choices here. Condemns the main abuser to a life-time of penance and prayer and then totally dismisses any claims that the abuser’s protege may have seen the abuse.
It does seem he eventually changed his tune, but not before seriously harming his credibility on the issue.
In April, the pope publicly acknowledged that he had erred in handling the situation, saying he had made “serious mistakes” — and summoning Chile’s bishops to an emergency meeting in Rome. Francis said he had misjudged Barros and the events in Chile because he hadn’t been given “truthful and balanced information.”
In May, all of Chile’s 31 active bishops offered to resign their posts, issuing a statement in which they asked forgiveness and apologized for “the grave errors and omissions that we committed.”
Sexual abuse happens in virtually every organization.
Nice, justifying sex abuse.
They don’t get a round of applause for no longer empowering rapist priests.
No, that is called having an adult conversation where we acknowledge reality and then discuss how to fix it, or in this case how it is already being worked on.
… thats not what justifying means.
He also likes to threaten them with legal action.
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Can’t upset the oil companies, where do you think that lube they use for altar boys comes from? A cloud in the sky?
I love how you have good 25% down-votes as if there are people who cheer for more abuse. There’s no way they think it’s just a made up story for the 60000th time.
I love how you have good 25% down-votes as if there are people who cheer for more abuse.
That’s not why they’re down-voting.
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If only the church had billions of dollars to fight the evils of the world like hunger, homelessness, and pedos just to name a few.
Or you had the power to publicly shame Catholic leaders and say “you can’t get into heaven until you stop sucking so bad”
it’s a case that even a broken clock ticks the right time now and then
Oil companies will default to doing anything that makes them money. Governments need to make climate forcing cost them more than their revenue.
Exactly. US oil companies won’t voluntarily “go green” unless it is more profitable to do so.
I was a production engineer at a US oil company for 5 years and each week I was instructed to calculate what the maximum amount of natural gas each well was allowed to flare while staying exactly below the legal limit. This is natural gas which cannot be sold so it is burned on-site which produces less greenhouse gases than just releasing it to the atmosphere.
Essentially, I was helping them pollute the maximum legal amount in order to maximize profit from the oil production. The gas pipelines hadn’t been built yet but the oil company didn’t want to wait for that since the oil is more valuable. This was A LOT of gas being burned. The fire balls were enormous and roared, sounding like a helicopter or jet engine at times.
Everything in the company worked this way. Old wells didn’t get plugged and cleaned up until the local state government threatened fines. Leaks and spills were only monitored as closely as they were because the state had inspectors going around issuing hefty fines.
Yeah, this is the truth that people are too emotional to accept. I do air permitting and also spend every day calculating the “maximum allowable pollution” a site can produce while keeping it within applicable regulatory limits. Even if the CEO was like “alright, time to go green!” and devotes 100% of the profits to operating “green”, they’ll just get sued by the shareholders and be bankrupt or go to jail. Even if there are no shareholders, their operating costs will skyrocket and they’ll be put out of business by the company next door, or even just Saud Arabia.
Passing government regulation is the only way. But we are also operating in a global economy, so you might just end up destroying your entire oil business in the process, sending all of that marketshare to places with even -worse- environmental regulation. Which just comes back to us anyways in the grand scheme of things.
Good points, it is certainly a fine line between controlling pollution and hampering a domestic industry which would otherwise be replaced by equally bad overseas industry. As bad as the pollution seemed, the wells were very clean compared to how things used to be done in the US not that long ago, and how I assume things are still done in many parts of the world.
I have a hard time blaming the oil company in isolation, they are just doing what they must do for shareholders, as you said. As long as there is demand for oil, there will be someone there to supply it. I mostly blame the government for not doing more to expedite the development of more economical green solutions.
BUT! Although the company I worked for was not one of the majors who hid climate change, they do have a substantial superPAC to influence politics and elections. The billionaire owner regularly flew to Washington to meet with people, even the president.
And when the state government wanted to increase taxes on oil to help the state pay for public services, the oil company printed lots of protest signs and bussed employees who volunteered to go to the state capital and protest. These types of interference in the government hinder progress and keep the oil companies in control. The gov needs to stop this behavior but I think it’s a feedback loop of corruption.
Fucking hell. All the simple minded people in these comments who have no sense of nuance or incremental benefits… nothing will ever be perfect enough for them and they will be just as helpful for fixing the messes of our society as the ones who deny it at this rate.
Yeah it’s a little and yeah it’s late but it’s something and he can be right about this and problematic elsewhere. Not everything can be solved with the mindset of an 8 year old who thinks people are either good or evil
I think all the hate is justified. Pope has been quick to point fingers in various directions for a while now but he never moved a step to fix issues in his own yard making whole church extremely hypocritical.
Is he the same guy who refused to condemn Russia for invasion?
Nah, I’m pretty sure he was feuding with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church over it, even called him and alter boy.
even called him and alter boy.
That is a real pain in the ass insult.
Real pain! And he knows what kind of… Well, orthodox priests are allowed to have wives so he might not be as horny as this guy.
That’ll tell those oil companies to stop making record profits!
Said the head of organization which requires personal donations and pays no taxes.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was running for reelection.
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Way too little, way too late.
“POPE CALLS FOR NATIONS TO IMPOSE 1000% TAX ON CARBON, ACCELERATE TRANSITION TO RENEWABLES”, said no pope ever, to anyone.
So much for God giving the Pope a heads up on this one…
Why do the press even care what the pope says.
Because millions and millions of people care?
A lot of people live by what the pope says lol. Media obv just wants clicks and would give platform to anyone that does not hurt their interests.
Good for Pope Francis.
Same could be said about his religions action on molestation.
Oh, ok then, the pope had called it guys - time to pack it up and switch to renewables.
How is that dude’s opinion relevant to anything outside his weird cult? Stop kid raping in your cult first, then you can try having opinions on things outside of it.
Cause there’s billions of people who claim to be his followers, and climate change is the biggest issue humanity has ever faced.
Having the leader of one of the largest religions pushing for ecological improvements is a good thing.
Who claim to be his followers as long as it suits them.
Not every Catholic is a liar, lol
To be fair, I was implying they are hypocrites.
You’re thinking of American catholics.
“His weird cult”
Dude, it’s the main religion here in Latin America. 🌎
Doesn’t make it any less weird or any less of a cult.
Genuinely curious why you think it’s a cult. Not even Catholic or Christian I just wanna get your reasoning
Not that guy, but the difference between the Catholic Church and Heavens Gate or Charles Manson is that its socially accepted with enough of a population to reach critical mass of speakers and followers to where it’s assumed normal.
The different between a cult and a religion is how many followers it has.
That’s a bit reductionist, not all religious organizations are high control groups, though many are (like JW’s.)
