As modern tools like the internet have proliferated, the world’s leading influencer uses ancient methods like the Internet, as well as news media, to reach his followers. Pope Francis probably holds more powers of persuasion with people than any other person on Earth.
On Oct. 4, Pope Francis released an update of his 2015 proclamation that was entitled “Laudato Si” (Latin for “Praised Be”). In his new Apostolic Exhortation to the world, called “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”), he renews his plea to protect the planet. Released fittingly on the Feast of St. Francis, the patron saint of animals, Pope Francis criticizes deniers and asks for action to reduce the damage of climate chaos.
Couldn’t the Holy Father have come up with better titles than “Praised Be” and “Praise God?” How about “Danger In God’s Garden” or “Creation In Crisis”? I’m available if the Vatican press office needs help.
Quibbles aside, it’s an important message from a position defined as Christ’s representative on Earth to 1.3 billion believers. After 10 years on the job, it can safely be stated that Francis is one of the all-time best popes. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, tried to wake up the world about environmental issues but it hardly matters because Benedict was such a prick about protecting pedophile priests.
Pope Francis has salvaged some of the Papacy’s credibility with congregants by condemning the pedophilia and making efforts to expel the offenders. He has been enlightened about issues like homosexuality and social justice for the poor. Despite the Pope’s wisdom on the world’s woes, the Vatican has inexplicably stuck to its medieval mindset on prohibiting birth control, not allowing priests to marry and excluding women from the priesthood, but some progress is much better than none, because none has been the norm for most of the Catholic Church’s history.
So now Francis again recognizes the existential crisis we’re in, as the result of humans’ own acts of abusing our world. Further, he places the blame squarely on the United States and other affluent nations, castigating them for shirking the obligations they accepted in treaties like the Paris Agreement almost a decade ago. Those richer countries have not made adequate relief payments to poor countries (which suffer the most severe effects of the climate crisis) and they have not reduced carbon pollution as they promised they would. Francis also railed against corporate powers for profiting on plunging the planet into peril.
Hopefully, the Pope’s exhortations will land on open minds of Catholics, other deities’ devotees, and atheists alike. Independent thinking is a positive virtue, but in a world where a cult leader like Donald Trump commands many millions of followers (including some Catholics) to do his evil bidding, a counter-acting force for faith like Francis is a welcome antidote.
“Despite all efforts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident,” Pope Francis wrote. “What is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind, once we pass from this world.”
Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2023
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