Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:24am

Cardinal Maradiaga and worshipping at the altar of environmentalism…

 

According to Vatican Insider, Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras isn’t very much happy with climate change skeptics in the U.S.A. who have expressed their reservations concerning Pope Francis’ cozy relationship with those who worship at the altar of environmentalism over at the United Nations.

Cardinal Maradiaga is especially chagrined by those “movements in the United States” he apparently observed during a recent trip to the U.S.

In the Cardinal’s view, members of those movements have had the temerity to express their concern about this cozy relationship and its potential to influence the Pope’s upcoming encyclical letter concerning the environment. Those people are “absurd,” the Cardinal opined:

The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn’t want to stop ruining the environment because they don’t want to give up their profits: these criticisms make no sense! How can they criticise a text they do not even know?

Indeed, if there is climate change, it’s all due to greedy capitalists. Cardinal Maradiaga sounds like Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara, all wrapped up into one, doesn’t he?

The Cardinal also apparently fashions himself to be a meteorologist and/or climate scientist. Last week at the Caritas International confab in Rome, Maradiaga challenged the debate swirling around the scientific basis for man-made climate change:

There is a big discussion about whether global warming is scientific or not, but speak to the taxi driver who drove me here today and he’ll tell you the temperature in Rome is not typical of spring; think of the Philippines where there were 21 typhoons this year and in California water is being rationed. This proves that the issue needs to be taken seriously. (italics added)

Proves?

Perhaps Cardinal Maradiaga should meet the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, to discuss the other point of view.

In 2014, Coleman was a featured speaker at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change. Listen to Coleman’s presentation about how the global warming frenzy began:

Also, check out Coleman’s two documentaries debunking the global warming scare:

Of course, those who worship at the altar of environmentalism dismiss Coleman’s facts because their dogma posits the opposite.

Some good news (perhaps). Sandro Magister is reporting that the Pope’s encyclical has been drafted, but he has rejected that text and sent it back to be rewritten. Why? Pope Francis fears the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ludwig Müller would “demolish” it.

Let’s hope so if the first draft reflects Cardinal Maradiaga’s “proof.”

 

 

 

To read the Vatican Insider article, click on the following link:
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/caritas-gutierrez-41032/

To read Sandro Magister’s article, click on the following link:
http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2015/05/11/e-questo-sarebbe-il-teologo-di-fiducia-del-papa/

To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, Omnibus, click on the following link:
http://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/Omnibus.html

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Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 8:57am

Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga should have his hands full shepherding Hondurans rather than giving so much attention to global warming. As someone who went on a mission to Honduras, I can tell you he has much work to do in the murder capital of the world.
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“Huge” would be an inadequate adjective to describe the problems of Honduras. Couples cohabiting because government made it profitable to not get married; women lose government benefits if they marry. Drug runners are everywhere. People lack education, which greatly impacts their faith development. The list goes on and on.
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Capitalism is not evil cardinal. In fact, Honduras could benefit from more legit and licit capitalism among other things.

Foxfier
Admin
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 9:03am

in California water is being rationed
They’ve got a population that is far larger than the water system was designed for, mostly in the desert, using a system that hasn’t been updated the way it was DESIGNED to be updated and upkept for at least a generation, using water on yards and golf courses, which has actually been damaged and where they are dumping a minimum of half the water into the ocean, which still manages to feed vast numbers of people on exports and he concludes this means there’s a problem with the CLIMATE?!?
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Looks to me like the problem is people who have only the vaguest user-end grasp of where water comes from and how it is used is the big problem.

Jerry
Jerry
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 9:21am

The climate change hysteria is not about science. It is about anti-capitalist, socialist ideology.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 9:59am

Jerry,

100%++. In addition, those people dishonestly take $$$ billions of government subsidies while consigning the world’s poor to higher energy costs and lower/slower economic growth and development.
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It seems ironic that a pagan’s familiar quotation can be employed to “shoot down” a cardinal. “Opinion is not truth.” Plato

TLM
TLM
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 12:41pm

100% correct Jerry. This isn’t about climate change at all. It’s all about the CONTROL, and the MONEY. End of story.

Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 6:54pm

Cardinal Maradiaga said, “In the face of the all-too-evident destruction of Nature, the current capitalist system cannot, on account of its very essence, attain sustainable development, as it engenders and feeds on inequity and social injustice, and is based on the unbridled and predatory use of natural resources, the anarchic production of goods and the encouragement of consumption with the goal of obtaining and concentrating profit.”
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Cardinal Maradiaga fails to understand that ours is NOT a capitalist system but a corporate socialist system. If it were capitalist, then wind and solar energy companies wouldn’t be getting a free handout from the government, and fossil energy companies would be held to the same zero emissions standards to which the nuclear energy industry is held. A capitalist system – a truly free market system – would be a level playing field where all industries are held to the same regulatory standards of safety and emissions with zero government financing. Solar and wind would quickly dry up as being too expensive because their capacity factors – 20% ad 30% respectively – are too low for profitability. Coal, oil and gas would find it too unprofitable to operate because of the expense involved in sequestering their waste (recall the 39 million tons of coal ash that 5 Duke Energy power plants dumped to the Dan River in Brunswick County, NC). Only nuclear would be left standing:
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http://www.economicsofnuclear.com/index.php
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But it is in big government’s interest to sensationalize the hysteria over global warming because that produces a public incentive for more solar and wind energy facilities which because of their low capacity factors always require spinning fossil fuel reserve – invariably natural gas – and that enriches the pockets of fossil fuel executives as well as providing tax revenue for the politicians promoting this nonsense. Nuclear is opposed specifically because it replaces fossil fuel, and displaces solar and wind. It cuts into the profits of big business men and the revenue stream of big politicians. Ours is NOT capitalism and hasn’t been for more than a half century. It is corporate socialism where Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric – a manufacturer of large power plant gas turbines – said nuclear is too hard to do as he was appointed President Obama’s jobs czar and his company got hundreds of millions in tax breaks.
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Think about it. We are all being duped and hoodwinked. And Cardinal Maradiaga, instead of attending to the souls entrusted to his care, pontificates about subjects – both economic and scientific – in which he has ZERO expertise and ZERO authority.
.
Time for me to stop lest my blood pressure rises to levels forbidden by my cardiac physician. I am now going to read my Bible and say my nightly prayers. Doing those things is much better for my cardiac health. I shall pray for the Holy Spirit to give me serenity and Cardinal Maradiaga wisdom.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 9:32pm

Looks to me like the problem is people who have only the vaguest user-end grasp of where water comes from and how it is used is the big problem.

Ha ha ha! You so funny. Everybody knows water comes from the faucet, like food comes from the back of the grocery store and electricty comes from the outlet! Now excuuuuse me, while I go do something really important, like find out who won on Dancing with the Stars

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, May 19, AD 2015 9:38pm

On a more serious note, I have about as much interest in reading an encyclical on climate change as I have in reading the final report of a joint committee investigation into the double procession of the Holy Spirit.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 3:09am

Absurdity upon absurdity! It must be that climate change is so much easier to lecture on that sin and salvation. The climate change that these clerics should be concerned about is the coming climate change that will happen upon their death.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 3:41am

From today’s Mass Readings:

“Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock
of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers,
in which you tend the Church of God
that he acquired with his own Blood.
I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you,
and they will not spare the flock.
And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth
to draw the disciples away after them.”

TLM
TLM
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 4:46am

LOL! Yeah Michael, talk about ‘Global Warming’!

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 6:23am
TomD
TomD
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 5:14pm

For those who are interested, there are two excellent websites that provide a sound, scientific approach to challenging the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) meme. Neither site “denies” climate change (it always has “changed” and always will) or that human-generated CO2 emissions have some, most likely minimal and not catastrophic, effect on climate.
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https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/
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http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Jerry
Jerry
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 5:25pm

Also TomD, http://www.climatedepot.com and http://www.judithcurry.com a PHD climate scientist at Georgia Tech who used to be a warmist.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 7:15pm

This prelate is a disaster. He has done an abysmal job as Cardinal of Honduras – losing half of his flock – and he consistently runs his mouth about things of which he is totally ignorant.

Just as I told my son that I have lost my patience with his behavior about his homework – hiding it, leaving it at school and fighting with his parents over doing it – I have lost my patience with such fools as Oscar Cardinal Rodriguez. He is another prelate who would do well to remember the words of St. John Chrysostom.

I’m no saint myself and don’t purport to be. I expect more of myself and I sure as hell expect more of the Bishops than what we have been getting. +Rodriguez can take his anti-free market screeds and keep them.

trackback
Wednesday, May 20, AD 2015 11:02pm

[…] – Emily Stimpson, OSV Newsweekly Waiting for Pentecost – Erin Cain, Ignitum Today Cardinal Maradiaga and Worshipping at the Altar of Environmentalism – The Motley Monk Archdiocese Explains Removal of Seton Hall Campus Minister, Seeks […]

David
David
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 9:58am

Didn’t we (the Church) learn from the last time It weighed in on scientific questions?
Wasn’t geocentrism (earth at the center of the universe) all the rage in popular opinion in 1633?
Wasn’t Galileo a geocentric denier???

There are two scientific questions that only science can answer, and it’s a reach at that:
1. Is the earth warming?
2. Are we the cause of it?

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 10:48am

“Wasn’t Galileo a geocentric denier???”
From my understanding, Galileo was a student of Michael Kopernic, a Polish astronomer, known in Latin as Copernicus who taught that the world revolved around the sun. It is also my understanding that the Church put Galileo under house arrest for trying to teach science as Scripture, much like some Christians who teach that the world is only 4,000 or 6,000 years old.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 10:54am

Galileo’s issues were that he was an ass, an oath-breaker didn’t have the evidence to support what he was teaching as fact.
He was an oath breaker because he promised to not teach it as fact unless there was evidence, and he was an ass because when his friend, the Pope, paid him to write a book explaining the strengths and weaknesses of all of the proposed theories, he made a strawman of the theory he didn’t like, ignored more popular ones, and overstated the evidence for the theory he liked. Oh, and put arguments that his friend had made in the mouth of a character called, roughly, ‘the idiot.’

If you’d like to get really exhaustive detail on it, there’s this:
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html

***********
I’d be quite happy if this document ended up being something along the lines of “no, you can’t claim something is a fact when you don’t have the evidence for it.” Well, not exactly happy, because it would just be a needless hammer for use against the Church,but of the options where it happens at all….

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 12:07pm

Thank you Foxfier. I had not expected that Galileo had malice. Perhaps Galileo was unequal to the task he had taken an oath to defend. Perhaps the proof was not out there at that time. Science has made much progress. I find it hard to believe that Galileo would use ” a needless hammer” against the Church. Being so gifted, Galileo did not have time to engage in “needlessly hammering” the Church.
In the matter of climate change, Climate Change is the other name for “people as pollution”. From Malthus to Paul Erlich’s book “Population Bomb” and his other book against people. Climate Change and may be used by progressives as an issue to shield some of their lesser than honest issues, being hatched behind closed doors. I have noticed that when the administration is found out, the administration finds an alternative issue to feed the public.

David
David
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 2:13pm

Whoa… My point was simply that the Church should stay out of scientific debate, as Galileo should have certainly stayed out of scripture, Faith and morals.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 2:36pm

And the point I was making is that the Church couldn’t “stay out of scientific debate” when they were the primary source of funding, not when the idea of “getting involved” is expanded to include standing silent when scientists insist on claiming their theory is supported when they do not actually have the evidence.

It’s like how the Church can’t “stay out of politics” when the subject of abortion is discussed– human life being sacred is a Church interest.

*************

Mary, I don’t think he was malicious, I think he was just prideful and not very tolerant for people who didn’t agree with him…especially not when he really didn’t have good support for what he was saying.
The political impulse, sorta.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 4:15pm

Thanks Paul Primavera for: “Cardinal Maradiaga fails to understand that ours is NOT a capitalist system but a corporate socialist system.” If Benito Mussolini had lived to see our day, he would be delighted.

David
David
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 5:14pm

Mary / Foxfire,
I think you’re still missing the irony in “Wasn’t Galileo a geocentric denier?”
– for whatever Galileos’s sins were, he was correct in pointing to the truth of a heliocentric system, and he did go against the scientific and popular grain of his age.
Global warming is all the rage today in popular thought and science, do you see the similarity, do you see the trap. GW is not a question for the Church to answer, science has its own realm in the pursuit of truth.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 6:31pm

He didn’t go “against the scientific and popular grain,” he was violating the scientific method by ignoring the lack of support for his theory and substituting rhetoric for evidence.
If you’d like to know what the state of the science at the time was, I’ll even link to the specific page TOF set up for what evidence they had at what time:
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-from.html
.
Assume that anthropogenic global warming is eventually shown to be slightly more accurate than competing theories; that does not mean that the outright fraud and destruction of the careers of those scientists who actually followed the scientific method is somehow justified.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 6:40pm

{{{replied in the wrong window}}}

David
David
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 8:05pm

i’ll say it one more time, very slowly, so it almost surely can’t be taken out of context:

science has its own realm in the pursuit of truth.

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, May 21, AD 2015 8:19pm

And I will rephrase, a few more times, since you seem to find it inconceivable that someone understands what you are saying and does not agree:
.
Galileo was not practicing science when he got in trouble.
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Science requires that a theory be supported if it’s going to be purported to be more than a possible theory.
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Polemics is not science.
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Galileo was not acting within the realm of science because he did not have evidence.
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I’ll even quote Michael Flynn, since you seem unwilling to go to the exhaustive link:
It’s not enough to concoct a plausible story. Sooner or later, there has to be empirical evidence that the story is true.

Visitor
Visitor
Saturday, May 23, AD 2015 1:43am

Cardinal Maradiaga: “think of the Philippines where there were 21 typhoons this year….”

For the record, 21 is the average number of typhoons to enter the Philippines in a year, and has been so since the beginning of meteorological records. This is common knowledge here in the Philippines, but anyone can easily look up this factoid online on any number of sites that are not even directed towards the question of climate change. Seems like Maradiaga can benefit from paying to that scientific discussion that he so summarilly dismisses.

Don L
Saturday, May 30, AD 2015 2:54am

What is absurd is those shepherds of a half-empty church in free-fall, with souls rushing to condemnation all around, taking the time to join the agenda of the political left–complete with wealth-transfer hoaxes–under the guise of stewardship.
Maybe we need to all join the EPA and ignore sin and moral decay to save the world from evil capitalism?

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