Continuing on with the translation by PopeWatch of the Green Encyclical. Go here to read the first part.
51.Greedy gringo rich countries are responsible for economic disparities North and South and cause ecological damage in the South. (The Pope really is clueless when it comes to economics, isn’t he?)
52.The greedy gringos of the North are responsible for people being poor in the South. (Classic Peronism.)
53.Mama Earth has to be protected but we lack the political will and structures to do so. New techno-economic power structures if not stopped will kill the environment and freedom and justice. (One can imagine evil tycoons twirling their moustaches and chortling evilly. The Pope’s view of the world is not much more sophisticated than that.)
54.Economic and technological special interests block ecological reform; i.e. people who do not agree with the Pope have been successful in opposing the type of draconian ecological measures he favors.
55.Some countries are making ecological progress but those darn markets keep leading to more consumption which damages the environment. (Back in Real World, the best environment tends to be in the most capitalistic countries. The nations with the worst ecological records have all been Communist.)
56.More market bashing from the Pope. Man, does he hate free enterprise.
57.Pope foresees wars over scarce resources caused by financial interests. (Once again, the economic ignorance of the Pope is staggering.)
58.A break in the bleak for a brief acknowledgment that there has been ecological improvement in some countries.
59.Back to the bleak: such minor improvements in the environment blind us to the overall gloom and doom of the environment and the measures that must be taken to solve this problem.
60.The Pope points to extreme views on how to meet ecological issues, positioning himself to be the sweet, moderate voice of reason.
61.The Pope says that the Church has no reason to venture an opinion on many substantive issues, but that the environment is in such bad shape he is going to force himself to do otherwise in this area.
62.Religion is now added to the environmental politics of this Encylical.
63.There is value to what the Catholic Church has to say on the environment.
64.Because we are Christians we must also be good stewards of the environment.
65.God created everything and called it good. God created each human being as unique and precious.
66.We have three relationships: With God, with our neighbor and nature. These three relationships have been ruptured by sin. (Original sin presumably.)
67.Rejects the idea that Man has dominion over the Earth and presents Man as a transient lease holder, with a duty to future generations to preserve and protect the property leased.
68.Man must respect the laws of nature and preserve nature’s equilibrium.
69.Pope calls for respect for all other living creatures.
70.Cain and Abel, and Noah and the Ark, are reinterpreted as calling for care of the environment and how sin leads to a rupture of our relationship with the environment.
71.Giving the land a year of rest periodically in the Old Testament is reinterpreted as environmental care for the land.
72.Psalms enlisted in the cause of persuading Catholics that God calls upon us to protect the environment.
73.The prophets teach us to call upon God the Creator of the Universe.
74.Babylonian captivity and the Roman empire tossed in for some obscure reason.
75.God is the creator and owner of the world. Remember that!!!
76.Each creature has its own value and significance to God.
77.God chose to create and loves all of His creatures.
78.Nature not divine. (In case you suspected that the Pope was calling for the worship of Gaia.)
79.Church must protect mankind from self-destruction.
80.God can create good out of the evil Man has done.
81.Human beings are unique and can never be reduced to the status of object.
82.Pope bashes free enterprise again.
83.Human beings called to lead all creatures back to their Creator.
84.Each creature has its own purpose.
85.Creation reflects the glory of God.
86.More on that theme.
87.Pope repeats part of the Canticle of the Sun of Saint Francis.
88.Pope creeps up to pantheism and then runs back.
89.God owns all of nature, including us.
90.Human beings are above all other creatures, but equal to each other, and because of this equality we should be alarmed by inequalities between humans.
91.Ties environmentalism in with caring for other humans.
92.Those who are cruel to other creatures usually are cruel to other humans.
93.Common ownership of the Earth, tied in with universal destination of goods.
94.Quotes the bishops of Paraguay: “Every campesino has a natural right to possess a reasonable allotment of land where he can establish his home, work for subsistence of his family and a secure life. This right must be guaranteed so that its exercise is not illusory but real. That means that apart from the ownership of property, rural people must have access to means of technical education, credit, insurance, and markets”. (One can imagine the government power needed to bring to pass such enforced equality.)
95.Private property requires that the property be used for the good of all. (Once again, the Pope knows as much about economics as a pig knows about calculus.)
96.Jesus dragged in to score some strained ecological interpretations of passages in the New Testament.
97.Jesus loved nature. (Except for a certain fig tree.)
98.The Pope states that Jesus lived in harmony with nature and then quotes a passage, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”, that emphasized the dominance of nature by Christ.
99.Christ, the Word, entered Creation by His birth.
100.Christ will deliver all of nature to God the Father at the end of time.
More on Tuesday.
I have seldom seen such a hybrid of Catholic and secular concepts so stirred together as to make them a buffet for any who chose to call reality whatever they wish.
How many words does it take to call all men to be good stewards of our world and each other?
It seems so like Obamacare in its overreach and semi-organized confusion.
Clarity, dear Francis, clarity, please.
who is the Father of confusion?
Pope obama.
The Catholic poet Alexander Pope expressed the same idea very succinctly and in imperishable verse.
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart:
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.”
Pope was a better poet than thinker.
Who is the human being? The enviornment can only be addressed after the human being is addressed. The human being is the steward and the lawful heir to all of the environment. Climate Changegate does not own or possess a single unit of creation, except by their assuming possession, unnatural possession of the human being and through the human being his inheritance.
“The Spirit of life dwells in every living creature and calls us [as in every living creature?] to enter into relationship with [H]im. Discovering this presence leads us to cultivate the ‘ecological virtues [such as no a/c, recycling, less breathing etc].’ This is not to forget that there is an infinite distance between God and the things of this world, which do not possess [H]is fullness [is this the run back?] . Otherwise, we would not be doing the creatures themselves any good either [???], for we would be failing to acknowledge their right and proper place [is this something beyond abstaining from meat on Fridays—what does this right and proper place mean for a blade of grass, or insect, or disease gerns or malaria carrying mosquitos, or for a vicious pit bull…]. We would end up unduly demanding of them something which they, in their smallness, cannot give us [ a great white would eat me like a seal, and I conversely do enjoy a good steak grilled for full CO2 effect—but I do not know what he means except it sounds very weird]. ” Par 88
I don’t see much of a run back (let alone a walk) from pantheism especially in full context. At best perhaps, he makes pantheistic utterances to, as he might say ‘shake things up,’ but his qualifier is strange and unpersuasive as to the pantheistic message. See also par 83 and several others.
The later section “Religions in Dialogue with Science” is unfortunately not meant as parody. The exhortations for dialogue with science and political bodies found later seem insincere given the very refusal to “dialogue” with anyone critical of the “science” prior to publication and his proposal for an uber state governing body which would lead to the abrogation of democratic polity and local institutions of self governance. Also pay attention to how scripture is misused…..it’s much like a poorly written brief quoting precedential cases out of context to appear as if there is authority for your proposition—and there really isn’t.
I could not do what you’re attempting to do….for I would become physically ill so forgive my brief intrusion into your effort. Given how I’m feeling after just this one small effort, I can assure you it won’t happen again.
No comments on why Francis chose to use the encyclical as a avenue to address the whole world? Correct me if I’m wrong, but encyclicals have been used to address the Catholic faithful in times past and as a means to correct errors and heresies, anti-God philosophies, and the sin and evil that permeates fallen man who refuses to recognize sin and to repent and make reparations for it.
In any event, Francis could have used his world-wide adoration as a vehicle to proclaim, without ambiguity or apology, the Truth of Jesus Christ, found only in the one Church he instituted, the Catholic Church and demonstrated to the “materialistic, anti-God, anti-human” world, living in unrepentant sin and worship of Satan, that the answer to the environmental crisis, as with every other “crisis” of man, is either the total rejection of the Truth, who is Jesus Christ, or the corruption of the Truth. That he did not, is a testament that he is not truly a believer nor defender of the Truth, rather he is promoting another blasphemy and sacrilege against Jesus Christ, the religion of scientism, which adds to the list since the Second Vatican Council of the blasphemy and sacrilege of Jesus Christ which adopted the idolatry of false religions and false gods.
After my third reading, I think I’m getting this and, if I’m reading it right, it is pretty important: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3935/german_idealism_and_cardinal_kaspers_theological_project.aspx
Oh, three smiley faces! 🙂 🙂 🙂
94….That means that apart from the ownership of property, rural people must have access to means of technical education…(One can imagine the government power needed to bring to pass such enforced equality.)
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Actually, it doesn’t take a lot of power at all. The U.S. Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 show just how it should be done. One wonders if any other country on earth did anything as successful as this.
Lanie, I think the answer to your question lies in the fact that there really is a great deal of environmental degradation in this world, most of it in the developing world. Pope Francis is well aware of this, to an extent that many of us in the developed world are not. Don McClarey is correct that Western countries have been the best at protecting their environments, but at the price of not seeing what is going on elsewhere. Perhaps we do need a encyclical to say so, despite the economic flaws in the document.
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One of the most ‘wrong’ things about the encyclical is the lack of an official Chinese version, and there have been others. Wonder why?
“The enviornment can only be addressed after the human being is addressed.” Yes Mary DeVoe
The very word “environ” suggests the viewpoint of one who is “in and surrounded by” To speak of the environment of the Earth sans people would be meaningless… though It would still be weather and water and wind … but there would be no moral component
“The human being is the steward ….” Mary DV
Yes. That stewardship calls us to be temperate, prudent, just and to stick with our principles (fortitude).
We can agree with the pope that there is a moral aspect to our living and moving and having our being in this earthly environment. Basic to practicing those virtues is our need for knowledge – to know clearly what is good and what is bad. We need knowledge of real effects. There is so much that is still unknown, but we have a responsibility to find out.
This is when we need real leadership in the world.. and the ability to weigh effects and consequences and choose best paths of action.
Leadership that is clear and thoughtful– with no axes to grind, no fingers to point. Servant leadership- a leader that loves the people he serves, not dividing them into opposing camps, Institutionalizing Rivalry is the lasting legacy of Marx.
“Actually, it doesn’t take a lot of power at all. The U.S. Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 show just how it should be done. One wonders if any other country on earth did anything as successful as this.”
Taking land from current owners and redistributing it to new owners does. (Better have a large military when a government attempts such a Robin Hood land “reform” policy.) Additionally, the Morrill land grant colleges, my alma mater the U of I was one of them, were funded through immense donations of all the vacant land owned in the West by the Federal government,30,000 acres per each member of congress in a state. I doubt if the government of Paraguay has such a painless way of funding rural education.
Laudato Si would had more impact if it examined the state of the world in all its selfishness and moral weakness and the consequences this has had for environmental degradation and income inequalities.
Isn’t sin the cause of the problems Pope Francis mentions? Wouldn’t it have been more credible of him to have addressed Catholics and other Christians about the need to reform and simplify their own lives? Wouldn’t it have been better to blame the leadership of the Catholic Church, particularly since Vatican II, for turning the Western World into a spiritual wasteland by downplaying and neglecting the moral teachings of Jesus?
And what did Jesus say? “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so you will be judged…. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but not perceive the wooden beam in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye”
Let us pray that Pope Francis begin addressing the problems in his own house first.
Donald R McClarey wrote, “Better have a large military when a government attempts such a Robin Hood land “reform” policy…”
And yet, the French Revolution managed to turn ten million tenant farmers into heritable proprietors when it was, in Belloc’s words, “sustaining all the weight of civil conflict within and of universal war without.” With Carnot at the War Office, the policy was overseen by a handful of determined men: Kléber, Moreau, Reynier, Marceau, and Ney in the North, Hoche, Desaix, and St. Cyr in the centre and Bonaparte and Masséna in the South and they managed to do so whilst holding the frontiers against all of Europe.
This was simply the policy commended by Bl Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio, that “24. If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation. Vatican II affirms this emphatically.”
“And yet, the French Revolution managed to turn ten million tenant farmers into heritable proprietors when it was, in Belloc’s words, “sustaining all the weight of civil conflict within and of universal war without.””
Through a bloody civil war, immense armies and turning much of France into a charnel house.
“Bl Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio”
Theft is theft MPS, even if the gun is held by the State or the Church. Far better to implement measures that encourage sale of land, with a government giving low cost loans to small holders. I do not think such policies are necessarily wise, but far better than confiscation of land by the State.
Donald R McClarey wrote, “Theft is theft MPS, even if the gun is held by the State or the Church.”
As far as theft or private property rights go, it is law that distinguishes mere possession (which is a physical fact) from ownership (which is a legal right) and law is an expression of the general will.
According to St Thomas, “the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement which belongs to positive law, as stated above (57, 2,3). Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto (adinventionem) devised by human reason.” (ST IIa IIae Q66, II,obj 1)
As the great classical scholar, Charles Rollin (1661-1741), reminds us, “Theft was permitted in Sparta. It was severely punished among the Scythians. The reason for this difference is obvious: the law, which alone determines the right to property and the use of goods, granted a private individual no right, among the Scythians, to the goods of another person, whereas in Sparta the contrary was the case.” He cites the Gleaning Laws of the OT as further examples.
You can see this principle everywhere enunciated in the French Revolution. Take Mirabeau (a moderate) “Property is a social creation. The laws not only protect and maintain property; they bring it into being; they determine its scope and the extent [le rang et l’étendue] that it occupies in the rights of the citizens” So, too, Robespierre (not a moderate) “In defining liberty, the first of man’s needs, the most sacred of his natural rights, we have said, quite correctly, that its limit is to be found in the rights of others. Why have you not applied this principle to property, which is a social institution, as if natural laws were less inviolable than human conventions?”
“As far as theft or private property rights go, it is law that distinguishes mere possession (which is a physical fact) from ownership (which is a legal right) and law is an expression of the general will.”
Rubbish. Theft is condemned by the Ten Commandments. As is the case with all basic moral values, the condemnation of theft comes from God. Private property is not a creation of the State, rather one of the driving forces behind the creation of States is the protection of private property.
[…] on with the translation by PopeWatch of the Green Encyclical. Go here to read the first part, and here to read the second […]
“This was simply the policy commended by Bl Paul VI in his 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio…”
As usual, the problem with such pronouncements is their application – particularly by the State which is no more free from the effects of Original Sin as anything else. A history lesson not only on how such a tactic can be abused but lead to worse consequences. It also points out the failure of Populorum Progressio’s advocacy for international aide:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/botswana-zimbabwe-tale-two-countries
Donald R McClarey wrote, “Private property is not a creation of the State…”
St Thomas certainly thought so. ““Community of goods is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common and that nothing should be possessed as one’s own: but because the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement which belongs to positive law (pertinet ad ius positivum), as stated above (57, 2,3). Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.”
How can there be a positive law without a lawgiver, or a lawgiver without a state?
“‘Private property is not a creation of the State…’” St Thomas certainly thought so.”
…(buzzer sounds: time-out)…
STA when he spoke of the positive law, or where he calls it elsewhere “the more particular human determinations” of the natural law, has nothing in mind regarding the modern godless “State”, as though in this case “the State grants private property” as its own possession. Thomas with his usual perspicacity accepts that in human society ruled by Christian monarchs and subjects personal property is a perfectly good thing, but to suggest that it is “granted by the State” goes a long way from the “human agreement” that permits private property.
Corollary to 79. Church must protect man from burning in Hell (talk about a bad environment!)
58. thru 72. 🙂 This word popped into my head: eco-pelagian.
There is a lutheran pastor in Ohio who has written about eco-theology. This is what it says about his book on the Amazon page:
….Santmire’s much-acclaimed “The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology” documented the unfortunate legacy of many Christian theological notions in the use, abuse, and destruction of the natural world, along with its positive aspects. This new brief, but penetrating, look at Christian theological concepts of nature returns to the fray, this time to reclaim classic, mostly pre- modern Christian themes and re-envision them in light of the global environmental and cultural crisis.
This revisionist work–to revise the classical Christian story in order to identify and to celebrate its ecological and cosmic promise–mines Christian cosmology (the Great Chain of Being), Christology, Creation, and Eucharist, so that the Christian story can be then rediscovered (history), reshaped (theology), re-experienced (spirituality), and re-enacted (ritual).
30
Tom D: I’m not denying the fact that the stewardship of this, our temporary home, has not been what it should be considering it is part of God’s creation. I simply do not think Pope Francis, who is neither a scientist or a climatologist, should use an encyclical to state unverified scientific theories are true and then write pages upon pages of text that adopt the ideologies of eco-terrorist/population controller/anti-humans who use this kind of outlet as a tool of propaganda. Especially considering the fact that this world is awash is moral and ethical degradation, which is something a pope should be addressing.
Lanie. What a succinct summary of Laudato Si!! Pope Francis has adapted “the ideologies of eco-terrorist/population controller/anti-humans who use this kind of outlet as a tool of propaganda. Especially considering the fact that this world is awash is moral and ethical degradation, which is something a pope should be addressing.”
Let us pray that Pope Francis gets his priorities straight.
Steve Phoenix
The origin of property is clear enough: in the Institutes, explaining the origin of ownership, we read “ea quae ex hostibus capimus iure gentium statim nostra fiunt” [by the law of all peoples, what we take from the enemy becomes ours at once]. Hence, private property arose from the distributions made by victorious generals. Every acre of Roman land, except the hut of Romulus on the Palatine, as the Gracchi were fond of pointing out, in proposing their agrarian laws, had been acquired by the arms of the legions; this, too, was one of the great issues in the Social Wars, in which Rome’s friends and allies, who had furnished auxiliaries in Rome’s wars, claimed their share
It is noteworthy that the Latin words praes = bondsman and praeda=plunder, spoils of war, booty gave rise to praedium meaning property in general, especially a landed estate. English “predator” is a cognate.
We see the same thing in France, where the great fiefs were distributed by Clovis and his successors to their principle followers, the Gallo-Roman population holding of them as their vassals and likewise in England, following the Norman Conquest.
In Scotland, the common method of conveying land was a resignation in favorem, whereby the granter resigns his feu to his superior (the Crown or a mid-superior) in favour of the grantee. The heir, too, receives his sasine from the superior, under a precept of clare constat.
[…] on with the translation by PopeWatch of the Green Encyclical. Go here to read the first part, here to read the second part and here to read the third […]
On St T Aquinas, and the origination of private property: All well and good and noted, re. your citations of historic property law from Rome to Scotland, MIchael PS, but as for the claim [“’Private property is not a creation of the State…’”: St Thomas certainly thought so” ], St Thomas Aquinas never conceived of the present godless socialist “State” and its operatives as remotely part of his system.
St Thomas may have held that private property was a creation of the State but Catholic social teaching holds it is a natural right.
“9. Here, again, we have further proof that private ownership is in accordance with the law of nature. Truly, that which is required for the preservation of life, and for life’s well-being, is produced in great abundance from the soil, but not until man has brought it into cultivation and expended upon it his solicitude and skill. Now, when man thus turns the activity of his mind and the strength of his body toward procuring the fruits of nature, by such act he makes his own that portion of nature’s field which he cultivates – that portion on which he leaves, as it were, the impress of his personality; and it cannot but be just that he should possess that portion as his very own, and have a right to hold it without any one being justified in violating that right.”
“Clarity, dear Francis, clarity, please.”
If he wrote clearly, it wouldn’t be possible for faithful Catholics to find quotes in it with which to reassure each other that the encyclical can be interpreted as orthodox Catholic teaching, while also allowing the secular media and zero-pop globalists to interpret the whole thing to support their own culture-of-death agenda (Obama has already expressed his appreciation).
The question is whether he did that on purpose.
The demand for clarity (meaning precision) is often misplaced and reveals a rather limited view of the function of language. “Uttering a word,” says Wittgenstein, “is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination” and this can be done for a whole range of purposes – “My clerk will show you out” may function, at one and the same time, as a wish on my part (optative), as a piece of information to the client (indicative) and as an order to the clerk (imperative).
Or try,
“How is the patient feeling?”
“He’s very restless.” – Does this description of behaviour answer a question about feeling?
One very common use of language is to set in motion a train of reflection in the hearer. For example: “The philosopher treats a question; like an illness.” (Wittgenstein PI 255) may produce the following reflections:-
1. The philosopher TREATS a question as one would TREAT an illness (The philosopher does not answer questions, for example).
2. The philosopher treats a question like an ILLNESS, something disabling or hindering healthy discussion.
3. The PHILOSOPHER treats a question like an illness; others respond differently
4. The philosopher treats a question; like an illness; how do we effectively treat an illness? Do we treat symptoms or causes? Do we place the illness in the environment or context of the individual’s life, in order to understand it?
Is the original sentence “unclear”? “What is its “meaning”? What sort of statement would serve the speaker’s purpose better?
[…] on with the translation by PopeWatch of the Green Encyclical. Go here to read the first part, here to read the second part, here to read the third part and here to read the fourth […]
Aaron B, The bishop of Rome is a master of Jesuit speak. When I read Francis, I am transported to my 1970s undergrad years at Boston College. Vagueness is the Jesuit specialty. Add to this the plain fact that Francis is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. OK, fine. Neither am I.
What Francis had to say did not require an encyclical. But when one shakes hands with the elites and accepts their praise and awards, well, one can expect a to be asked a favor.
The elites have that favor now, in writing and in spades.
The best is yet to come.. (Encyclical-speak part III).
Again, I am struck by the writers of Laudato Si (because I doubt it was our magical-visionary, stream-of-consciousness pontiff) purging out the important summary part of S. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, from which the whole encyclical is supposedly titled):
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“Happy those who endure in peace,
for by You, Most High, they will be crowned.
Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Bodily Death,
from whose embrace no living person can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those she finds doing Your most holy will.
The second death can do no harm to them.”
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S. Francis shows his consciousness that everyone will come before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (that be Jesus; who is only peripherally mentioned in this tome-like work, 17 x’s out of 246 paragraphs, and JC is mostly relegated to window-dressing in 96-100 and 217ff afterthought wrap up.
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Why? Francis reveals his real thinking in 243: “At the end, we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), and be able to read with admiration and happiness the mystery of the universe, which with us we will share in unending plenitude. ”
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Really, in PF’s world, there is no need to profess Jesus Christ: we aren’t going to be judged at the end of our lives or the end of time: we are all going to see God, regardless of how we have lived our sinful little lives. In fact, why DID Jesus die on the cross and all that?
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So I guess it doesn’t matter what we do, does it, whether we “cease to pollute” or go off the grid?
A sharing of the value of the earth commons does not imply common ownership. But those who do own the earth should not retain the rent but share it with all. While the owners of labor and capital are entitled to retain wholly without taxation their earnings, this argument does not apply to the earth. The earth was a gift from God to all and was created by no creature.
Anzlyne: I thought that I had responded to your comment . I just learned that I have not. Your comment clarifies the threads, for me at least and I hope for the Pope. Sharing in joint and common tenancy the earth in gratitude to God for all creation. One of the Blessings of Liberty is one another, our neighbor. Thanks again. Class warfare is Marxism.