Continuing on with the translation by PopeWatch of the Green Encyclical. Go here to read the first part, and here to read the second part.
101.The mess that the environment is in is our fault and in this section of the encyclical the Pope will explain why this has happened.
102.Two centuries of rapid technological advances.
103.Technoscience when well-directed (By whom?) is good.
104.Technology has greatly increased our power to destroy.
105.Our technology has advanced far more rapidly than our wisdom to use it properly.
106.The Pope does not think much of the scientific method when nature is viewed as an object. He believes that this plays into the illusion that resources are limitless. (Like most Leftists, the Pope views the world through the belief that it is a fight over a limited pie, not taking into account Man’s manifest ability to expand the pie.)
107.Many of the ills of society come from viewing technological advance as an end in itself.
108.Making technological advance as a mere instrument rather than an end seems inconceivable in the modern world.
109.Pope stops to bash free markets yet again.
110.Rapid technological advance leads to fragmentation of knowledge rather than the generalized knowledge in many areas we need to make decisions. (Actually, the politicians who make the decisions in most countries usually have a fairly general education and are frequently untouched by much in the way of knowledge of individual technological fields.)
111.The Pope wants people to look at the world through an ecological prism rather than a technological prism. He wants people to be educated to view the world in that manner. (Mission accomplished Your Holiness, considering the amount of time wasted on green propaganda in most schools these days.)
112.Time to rein in technology and direct it. (By whom?)
113.People have lost faith in a better future through technology.
114.Pope calls for a cultural revolution. (A phrase with an unfortunate historical resonance.) The Pope assures us that he is not calling for a return to the Stone Age, but he is calling for a slowing of technological progress. (Leaving aside whether that would be desirable, would it even be possible on a global scale?)
115.A purely technological way of viewing the world detracts from the dignity of the earth and of human beings.
116.Not clear, but Pope seems to be calling for a turning away from technology and a more traditional way of viewing life, one more in harmony with nature. (The Pope seems to have a romanticized view of the past prior to modernity.)
117.Ties in lack of care of nature with lack of care of people, including embryos. (The most ardent environmentalists PopeWatch has known have usually been pro-aborts.)
118.Must have care for the environment along with care for each human person.
119.A healing of the environment must tie in with a healing of interpersonal relationships. (PopeWatch is sure he saw something like that on a dorm poster back in the seventies.)
120.Decries the irrationality of pretending to be in favor of the environment while simultaneously being in favor of abortion.
121.The Pope calls for a new synthesis.
122.Too much looking out for number one is bad for the environment.
123.Pope zeroes in on his root of all evil: free markets.
124.Ties in the value of labor with ecology.
125.Calls for a correct understanding of work.
126.Points to monasteries and the role work plays in them.
127.Work for everyone no matter whether it makes sense economically or whether a business has any need for the work.
128.Pope calls for technology to stop replacing workers. (A true Luddite feel here. Is this even possible, let alone desirable?)
129.Calls for shackling of large enterprises and government boondoggles to help small enterprises. The Pope shows a true lack of understanding of how economies operate.
130.Calls for limitations on experimentation on animals unless it is being done to the care of humans or the saving of human lives.
131.Caution as to genetic manipulation.
132.Experiments on plants and animals genetically should be done only “to favour its development in its own line, that of creation, as intended by God”.
133.Genetic manipulation of food.
134.Caution as to genetic manipulation of food.
135.Pope calls for open debate on the issue.
136.Pope criticizes environmental groups concerned with protecting the environment but not concerned with experimentation on human embryos.
137.Pope considers elements of what he calls an integral ecology.
138.Everything is interconnected.
139.Environment is the relationship between nature and the human society that lives in nature. “Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”
140.Research will aid us in producing growth that is sustainable and respects all of nature.
141.Calls for an economic ecology that will protect the environment as well as fostering economic growth. (PopeWatch suspects that the Pope is clueless as to how and why economic growth occurs.)
142.The health of a society’s institutions impacts the environment. To have a healthy environment the institutions of a society must not promote injustice, violence and loss of freedom.
143.Ecology also involves protecting the cultural treasures of humanity.
144.Respect the rights of people and cultures. The Pope seems to fear that global markets have a leveling effect on local cultures.
145.Many forms of environmental exploitation also undo local social structures.
146.Protect indigenous communities and their cultural traditions!
More on Wednesday.
What a massive buffet!
146.Protect indigenous communities and their cultural traditions!
Darn, those early Jesuits that tried to convert the Indians
(can we still say Indians and be Christian?)
134.Caution as to genetic manipulation of food.
But, what if there’s a “very solid scientific consensus”?
“105.Our technology has advanced far more rapidly than our wisdom to use it properly.”
The power of the state has always been more advanced than our wisdom to use it properly.
“103.Technoscience when well-directed (By whom?) is good.
112.Time to rein in technology and direct it. (By whom?)”
By the State.
“142.The health of a society’s institutions impacts the environment. To have a healthy environment the institutions of a society must not promote injustice, violence and loss of freedom.”
Time for an encyclical on the dangers of an ever-increasingly powerful State.
“140.Research will aid us in producing growth that is sustainable and respects all of nature.”
Didn’t he early decry the resort to technological solutions?
That should read “earlier”.
What is glaringly missing in all this socialist/humanist/paganist speech is the Person of Christ the Savior of the World; the One who came into the world to save each and every one of us individually from our sins, not collectively, as the communists like to say, and not through a completely inverted concept of “social justice”. Whenever someone turns the real Gospel message of Jesus on its head and professes a “new” teaching/doctrine, St. Paul, in the epistles, tells the disciples to flee and remain in that which the Apostles preached, taught and gave their lives for. I haven’t seen any of those involved with “newchurch” or the gospel of man as god, earth as “sacrament” (this is in the encyclical I’m afraid. Last time I checked we had 7 sacraments and the earth was not one of them) sacrificing their lives for the “sacrament” of earth and I doubt the “earth” can forgive anyone’s sins. Teilhard deChardin, a famous, or infamous Jesuit, was a pantheistic. Many of his ideologies were and are still in vogue even though he was in fact a pantheist. Just as no socialist/communist or atheist can be considered a Catholic unless they repent, (pre-Conciliar popes have declared that there exists no compatibility between any of the aforementioned and Catholicism), no one who teaches/preaches or lives another gospel is of Christ. At the end there will be many false prophets. They have been w/us since the beginning and they will not prevail.
I am treating this encyclical as a dead letter – which is how the USCCB treated Orientale Lumen and Ex Corde Ecclisiae.
Out.
A little less than halfway through the Encyclical myself. While there are some laudable components to it, the thought that keeps reoccurring to me as I read is that it should properly have been titled Industrial Society and Its Future.
The upcoming synod, it has just been announced, will honor this encyclical with dignity and gravitas as follows:
“The cardinal [that would be Balldisseri] highlighted certain novelties in the first part, which refer principally to the anthropological-cultural, socio-economic and ecological contexts, “now happily enlightened by the new Encyclical letter Laudato si’.”
And more (cf to par 50 of the Encyclical) and note the forthcoming synod agenda on “responsible procreation” and “reduction of births”. Baldisseri is doing the Pope’s bidding:
“The general secretary of the Synod of Bishops noted that it makes reference to “the family and ecclesial accompaniment, the streamlining of procedures for causes for annulment, the integration of faithful in irregular situations, the eventual introduction of a penitential route, the pastoral problems regarding mixed marriages and disparities of worship, as well as questions related to responsible procreation, reduction of births, adoption and fostering, respect for life from conception to natural end, and education of future generations.”
As Don L points out, “what a massive buffet!”
And a mass of contradiction. Simply another Modernist, Newspeak, nonsensical treatise of heresy, lies and obfuscations.
[…] 5 Laudato Si’ Is Not Fundamentally About Climate Change – Jeffrey A. Mirus PhD, Cthlc Cltr Summarizing Laudato Si’: #’s 101 to 146 – Donald R. McClarey JD, The Amrcn Catholic An Encyclical for People Who Don’t Read […]
[…] of the Green Encyclical. Go here to read the first part, here to read the second part and here to read the third […]
The Holy Father Pope Francis specifically has said we shouldn’t call the Encyclical “Laudato Si'” a green encyclical… He has clearly indicated it is a Social Encyclical. Why are you misguiding the Catholic faithful insisting in classifing it differently from what his author, the Pope, has told us? A non-biased person by just doing a fast perusal of this document will realize that this papal teaching goes beyond the climate changes and thoroughly deals with a whole range of social issues consistently with the rich Social Doctrine of the Church?
Because it is all about the environment Antonio, and because the Pope is a true believer in environmentalism. The Pope can call green blue, but his saying so does not alter the color green.
“A non-biased person by just doing a fast perusal of this document will realize that this papal teaching goes beyond the climate changes and thoroughly deals with a whole range of social issues consistently with the rich Social Doctrine of the Church?”
Actually having read most of it, it does not deal consistently with the rich Social Doctrine of the Church. The true social doctrine taught that free markets were licit and good for society in both Centesimus Annus and Caritas in Veritate. The Church taught that there should be limits but not that the market was evil. Quite different from this encyclical. Just one example of breaks with the Social teaching of the past.
But as you know, the Pope is not infallible in matters of science nor of economics. Something which this Encyclical is heavily into. Here, a view of the many errors of Laudato Si.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/24/where-did-pope-franciss-extravagant-rant-come-from/
Phillip: Thanks for the link to the federalist. It is the most accurate critique of this encyclical I have read.
@Maureen Mullarkey very articulate and incisive in her article. I believe she has Pope Francis’ number and doesn’t mince her words. cf. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/mullarkey/2015/01/francis-political-illusion.
[…] 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 […]
Maureen Mullarkey is a great writer. Her editor at “First Things” publicly scolded her for the piece in January. He told her not to write on the encyclical. Thus the “Federalist” paper. The editor wrote a mildly skeptical review of the encyclical himself. Maureen’s writing is heavy with affection for the Catholic church. Many of us conservative Catholics feel attacked and dismissed by this wayward and quixotic pope.
The pope is certainly correct in calling for a new synthesis. But first we must be clear about the thesis and antithesis leading to a new synthesis. If he is calling the free market the root of all evil, he is only making a mistake most make today. The political economy we have today is not a free economy. If that is understood, then I agree with him that corporatism or crony capitalism, not capitalism itself, is the root of evil.
The economy is a subset of the earth ecology. That means that the economy is naturally constrained by the natural environment. What the economy takes from the environment, it should pay for. But the economy should not be constrained by politicians with privileges and subsidies for their favorites to be paid for by counterproductive taxes on economic earnings.