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Why I’m Disregarding Laudato Si and You Should Too


Al Gore: Ghost Writer of Laudato Si?

Written by  Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist

Having wasted over an hour of my life, I now can say that I have read Laudato Si. It is the Pope’s latest verbose tome of an encyclical, which: espouses global warming alarmism, calls for international organizations to police climate change, and waxes poetic about people leading animals to God. In short it is as if Al Gore, Karl Marx, and Teilhard de Chardin wrote an encyclical. What’s worse is that because it came from a Pope, otherwise sane and rational people are actually taking it seriously. For instance, many Neo-Catholics, who would normally laugh Laudato Si to scorn it if were penned by Al Gore or Joe Biden, are now praising the encyclical. They are busy touting its hidden genius and quoting banal lines from the encyclical as if they were precious gifts from God. At times, one really is forced to wonder if these people are sane or whether they truly have any core convictions at all. For it is no exaggeration to say that this encyclical is an embarrassment, and I am ashamed as a Catholic that my pope issued it.

With ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ “marriage” being touted by almost all Western governments, true marriage being attacked by Cardinals who want to give public adulterers Holy Communion, abortion raging on unabated, and transɛҳuąƖism now making inroads in popular Western culture, our pontiff chose to use the majesty of his office and over 100 pages of mostly ambiguous and meaningless verbiage to lecture the world on the dangers of a pseudo environmental “crisis” manufactured by the Church’s enemies. The worst part is that those behind combating “climate change” are not in the least concerned about the environment, “sister earth”, “brother moon”, the poor, or the rest. They are concerned with using this manufactured issue, and those who care about it, as dupes to support their own agenda. An agenda that involves large international governing bodies enforcing climate policies, which will affect almost every aspect of our lives. Our pope, by issuing this encyclical is now complicit in lending credence to the upcoming Climate Conference in Paris where the pro-abortion UN will attempt to get nations to sign on to a “climate agreement.”

For those of you who have not read the encyclical, first, be glad you didn’t waste your time. I wasted mine so you wouldn’t have to. Second, as a lay Traditional Catholic with common sense, I will now lay out the reasons I found the encyclical an embarrassment, many of which you will probably never hear from the Neo-Catholic pundits. I will first quote a selected portion of the encyclical in red, then give my reaction. The number in parentheses is the paragraph in Laudato Si where the quote can be found. Predictably I did not get past the first ten paragraphs without spitting my coffee out.

As Christians, we are also called “to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment of God’s creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet.” (9)

First of all, what does “accepting the world as a sacrament of communion” mean? Like all post-conciliar encyclicals, this one is heavy on nonsensical ambiguous language. We know as Catholics that there are only seven sacraments instituted by Christ Our Lord and “the world” is not one of them. Further, the sacrament of Holy Communion is not defined as “sharing with God and our neighbors on a global scale.” However, even if it were, what exactly are we supposed to be sharing with God and our neighbors? We aren’t told. Who knows!? That is what keeps the Neo-Catholics in business isn’t it? The pope provides the nonsensical ambiguity and the Neo-Catholics “interpret” it for us and tell us what it means.

As for the second sentence, I have no idea what it means either. However, the words “seamless garment”, made famous by the infamous Cardinal Bernardin in order to downplay the sin of abortion, should give one immediate pause. And, it turns out, for good reason. For this encyclical uses the seamless garment in the same fashion by appearing to equate the heinous sin of abortion with emitting too many greenhouse gases.

Further, encyclical states that the human and divine meet in the last speck of dust of our planet. Really? Let’s ponder this for a moment. Our Pope just said it is his “conviction” as a Christian that the human and the divine meet in a speck of dust. Has anyone in the history of Christendom heard such a statement before? A speck of dust is in no way human and it is in no way divine. It is a piece of created matter. Yet it is the pope’s “conviction” that God and man meet in a speck of dust? I really have no words. Moving on…

By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. (11)

A recurring theme in this encyclical is “feelings” which is all the encyclical is really based on. Really good warm fuzzy feelings that mean you care. You care about the furry animals, the cute dolphins, poor people, and mother earth. This means you are a good person and that is all that really matters. That said, how can one force oneself to “feel” intimately united with ALL that exists? ALL that exists. So if I were to try to meditate on this encyclical (God forbid) do I sit in my chair and imagine myself merging in union with frogs, cockroaches, skunks, bears, bushes, dirt, concrete, computers, all people in the world etc.? And then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously inside me? I do like how the word sobriety is used, as if the author assumes one would have to be inebriated to even attempt the exercise.  

Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. (14)

If there was one part of the encyclical where I felt Pope Francis was finally talking directly to me, this was it! I finally felt special and included for the first time in a post-Vatican II encyclical. I pretty much meet all of the categories. I am a believer (though belief in what is not specified). I deny there is a problem. If there is a problem, I am nonchalantly resigned to it as there is nothing I can do about it (China is belching out tons of CFC’s and me selling my car and riding a bike isn’t going to help). Also, if there is a problem then I’m all for blind confidence in technical solutions, because if there is no technical solution to this problem, then there is no solution. Humanity is not giving up cars and manufactured things regardless of what the pope or UN say.

It is my hope that this Encyclical Letter, which is now added to the body of the Church’s social teaching, can help us to acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face. I will begin by briefly reviewing several aspects of the present ecological crisis…. In light of this reflection, I will advance some broader proposals for dialogue and action…Finally…I will offer some inspired guidelines for human development…(15)

This is interesting. It’s as if Pope Francis is afraid that this encyclical will not be taken seriously enough to add it to the body of the Church’s social teaching, so he must be sure to write that it should be. Has any encyclical in history stated this? This may be the Church’s first neurotically insecure encyclical.

Lucky for us, something doesn’t become “Church teaching” because the pope says “add my private musings on unproven man-made global warming (which I labeled an encyclical) to Church teaching.” Church teaching was set in the Deposit of Faith. Anything not directly related to faith or morals or inconsistent with Tradition is not Church teaching. Especially when the pope himself couches the “encyclical” as a “reflection,” followed by “proposals,” followed by “guidelines.” In other words, this is nothing more than the private opinion of a pope in the form of a letter. I don’t care if it is labeled an encyclical, a bull, an apostolic exhortation, or a decree. The form is irrelevant in this case just as form and formality is irrelevant to Francis in most cases. The subject matter and intent of the encyclical is what is controlling. Once again we are confronted with a “pastoral” letter, like the “pastoral” Council, that elucidates no doctrine, but instead ambiguously opines, ad nauseum, about an apparent climate crisis.

Another question to guide us is who is the pope addressing in his encyclical? Only the members of the Church in order to give his infallible authoritative decision on a matter of Faith? No. Instead the pope says “I wish to address every person living on this planet.(3)” Thus, it seems this encyclical has as much binding doctrinal force on Catholics as it does on atheists living in Timbuktu. But I digress…


A Pope United With the World

As examples, I will point to the intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet, the conviction that everything in the world is connected… (16)

The planet is “fragile?” The planet was created by the omniscient God almighty and according to modern scientists has been around for 4.5 billion years. Are we to believe God made a planet that was to survive and sustain us until around 1970 A.D., at which point it would suddenly become “fragile” and need all of humanity to undergo “radical change” to save it? Did God, creator of all matter, not foresee the industrial revolution and the modern combustion engine? What sheer hubris and condescension on our part to think God handed over a “fragile” planet to us that can be decimated by the use of hair spray and motorcars.

Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it. (19)

If the goal of the pope was to make me “painfully” aware of something, then mission accomplished. I have not experienced this much pain from reading a text in quite some time. However, all I became “painfully aware” of is that our pope has swallowed the same tired old propaganda from the environmentalist extremists that I have been hearing for decades.

Also, did the pope just say I should dare to turn “what is happening to the world” (i.e. dirt, water, insects, animals) into my own personal suffering? Understand we are not talking about turning the infinite number of offenses against Christ Our Lord being perpetrated daily by modern man into our own personal suffering and offering reparation and penance for it. This is actually what we should be doing. No. Instead we need to unite our sufferings to the June bug, the firefly, and particles of dust (where man meets the divine) to inspire us to some sort of action to “save” them.

Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right. (33)

So now we are supposed to cry over extinct species? What about the Dodo bird? It was lost forever. Are my children worse off for it? Not really. They can see a picture of this stupid bird (it went extinct because it was too dumb) on the internet in living color. Also there are nearly 10,000 other species of birds my kids can study and look at. Also, isn’t the pope a big fan of evolution? Isn’t the entire premise of evolution the “survival of the fittest?” Where maladaptive and inferior species are supposed to die off? Would the pope have us work against evolution!?

Also, the pope laments that these extinct creatures can no longer convey their “message” to us? What “message” could they possibly have had for us?

Consider that some extinct species include:

Purassaurus, a 13 meter long crocodile.

Pulmonoscorpius, a meter long scorpion.

Arthropleura, a two meter long millipede.

Attercopus, a spider that could sting like a scorpion.

Jaekelopterus, a 2.5 meter long scorpion/ millipede hybrid that would lie in wait in fresh water and tear its prey to shreds

Megapiranha, a meter long piranha.

Titanoboa, a 13 meter long snake that weighed over a ton.

Meganuera, a dragonfly that had a wingspan the length of your arm.

Megalodon, a 50 foot long shark with teeth the size of your hand.

Inspired by this encyclical, I will now turn what happened to Megalodon into “my own personal suffering” as I became “painfully aware” of his extinction approximately 5 minutes ago…

Ode to Megalodon

“Where have you gone sweet Megalodon? I never knew ye and my children never had the chance to see thee! You have been lost forever sweet Megalodon. You will no longer give glory to God by your very existence. You will never convey your message to us. What was your message precious Megalodon? What mystic words of wisdom did you mean to speak to us, but could not?”


Message From Megalodon: “GET IN MY BELLY!!”

Read the rest HERE