Riding around on the Pope's encyclical

  I finally got my hands on an abridged version of Laudato Si, the Popes encyclical on climate change.  Now I know why I’m what they call a Renegade Catholic, or Lutheran for short.  But Laudato Si makes for some interesting reading nonetheless.  First, I should point out that I learned that an encyclical is just an advisory letter to the church.  The Pope doesn’t try to say he speaks inerrantly. 

            It’s pretty conventional wisdom.  You have to Sacrifice Big in order to avoid global warming, like ride a bicycle, throw your used beer cans in another hopper, and stop eating big greasy cheeseburgers and farting.  (Just kidding about the last one!)  But, he points out, “A very solid consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming…” So there we have it, a scientific consensus, just as we’ve had scientific consensi before—bleeding patients gets rid of bad blood (1700’s), the earth is flat  and covered by a large dome with little holes seen as stars at night but that is where the rain leaks through (ancient HebrewsH), and mountains are caused by swelling sections of the earth’s crust (pre-1968).  And it is getting warmer which is all our fault.  This is surprisingly arrogantly humanistic considering that up until now, we can’t change tomorrow’s forecast let alone climate for the ages.

            Who then is responsible?  Surely, I think, it is not the world’s rich who often give their old furniture to Salvation Army for recycling.  Instead it would revolve around the poor who rent from me and often, upon transfer, leave several truckloads of detritus that they are too lazy to wash or pick up. Our Personal Best Record was a woman who left 55 large trash barrels of dirty clothes.  Rather than do laundry, she just bought more at garage sales.  But no, the Pope says I err.  The poor are not responsible.  The evil rich are. They possess the automobile which emits CO2 and unburned hydrocarbons.  Do I need to take this guy on a tour and show him my renters with cars that belch black smoke thick enough to choke a goat?  Do I need to show him the piles of discarded old tires?

            And then there is water.  By wasting water, the rich of the world “deny the poorest of the poor, a right to life and inalienable dignity”.  Access to clean water is “a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and as such, is a condition for the exercise of other such rights.”  Oh yeah? So if CO2 exhaled is also necessary for survival, do we have a right to CO2?  What I notice in this writing is the confusion of “rights” with “stuff”.  And it seems the rest of us are held liable when someone goes without water.  Worse, those of us from South Louisiana must conserve, lest the guy in the Sahara gets thirsty.

            Holding an innocent party guilty for results they cannot change is what fascists do.  Where does this happen, Argentina?  The Pope goes on to accuse the rich of unjustly depriving the poor of a right to life.  Isn’t that normally called murder.  Murder, I guess, by using an old toilet which uses 3 gallons of water.

            The Protestant in me wants to ask, “where do you find that in scripture?” Here’s what I am reading.  Romans 9:1 and Hebrews 9:9,14 imply that the Holy Spirit uses our conscience to direct our lives. God puts a relationship inside us when we have faith. That relationship is not manmade and is sustained by God. Men must have the inherent and inalienable right to follow wherever that inner voice leads.  This is termed “Liberty”. Hence we conclude that any governing authority that seeks to obstruct this inner voice or prohibit “the free exercise thereof” of Liberty sets itself up against—not us fumbling men—but God.  Moreover, Jesus’ parable of the Talents (and many more of his stories about money) illustrates that The Almighty put certain resources in our hands to fulfill a personal mission He sets us upon. Woe to any godless government that deprives people of their property.  Separation of powers is spoken to as a principle in Is. 33:22.  The equality of all is ringingly proclaimed in Gal. 3:27-28.  Tolerance?  Jesus was truly God’s Son, yet when people disagreed with Him, He just let them walk away.  Romans 14:3, and 15:5 prescribe this principle.  Above it all, God who watches every little sparrow also watches every lousy little king.  These are the principles of our Declaration of Independence.

            You think I need to write the Pope an encyclical?