Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Vale Pope Francis: A Legacy of Faith Over Facts

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Pope Francis’s death marks the end of a papacy that boldly thrust the Catholic Church into climate change politics, most notably through his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’.

His fervent advocacy, framed as a moral imperative to save “our common home,” reshaped the Church’s role in global debates, and at a cost. By leaning on institutional authorities like the IPCC, Francis blurred the once sacred line between religion and science, a divide the Church had respected for some time. His reliance on contested climate narratives, without engaging the underlying science, sidelined dissenters—dismissing “climate deniers” as “foolish” in a 2024 CBS interview. Shame.

Laudato Si’ was a masterstroke of moral rhetoric, tying environmentalism to Catholic social teaching. It inspired movements like the Laudato Si’ Action Platform and pushed Catholic institutions toward divestment from fossil fuels. Shame.

By prioritizing institutional consensus over open inquiry, Francis stifled the Church’s potential as a neutral arbiter. His calls for “decisive action” at COP28 and interfaith climate declarations, like the 2024 Jakarta statement, showed zeal but ignored economic trade-offs and ignored the failure of climate models. The simulation models are useless at forecasting weather and climate, useful as political tools.

To his credit, Francis’s heart was with the poor, whom he saw as climate change’s worst victims. His push for “ecological debt” forgiveness for poorer nations was a sincere, and foolish, plea.

What if science limits the meaning of our lives; there is no purpose beyond that which we create? Some of us will live on—through our genes, our inventions, our writings or the good works we have sponsored. Even Pope’s die, and that which he has writ cannot be erased, not one line of it however foolish.

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Comments

  1. Christopher Game says

    Pope Francis was a Marxist, so betraying his flock and calling. Support for the religion of harmful man-made carbon-dioxide-emissions global warming is an article of Marxist agitprop. Simple.

  2. Don Gaddes says

    The Earth/Solar Orbital ‘calendar’ demonstrates there are always 360 Day/Night Intervals for each Earth/Solar Year. Therefore there are 12 X 30 Day/Night Interval Months per Earth/Solar Year – and the Earth orbits through One Degree of Solar Longitude for each Rotation of its Axial Spin. Thus, there are NO equal ‘7 Day Weeks’ per 30 Day/Night Interval Month. This is empirically proven by the exact frequency, duration and ‘terrestrial footprint’ of the Solar-induced Orbital Dry Cycles.
    Priest-led Religion of ALL denominations, (and their attendant Monarchies) is based on falsehood and fabrication – perpetrated and perpetuated by the Catholic Church in a continued denial of the observation that the Earth orbits the Sun,(Galileo vs Inquisition.)
    The Gregorian Calendar of 1582 should be relegated to the ‘scrapheap’ of history.
    Humankind has never had ‘God on its side’ – and never will have.

  3. Mike Thurn says

    Unfortunately Francis was involved in far more than the politics of Climate Change! Happy to expound, but not here. Cheers

  5. spangled drongo says

    Thanks Jen. With all the silly socio-reverence that is going on now, someone needed to mention this.
    And possibly a lot more.

  7. cohenite says

    “Christopher Game says

    April 21, 2025 at 8:10 pm”

    Correct.

    He also embraced Islam.

  9. Don Gaddes says

    ironicman;
    You may have made a note of the dates provided from previous posts.
    Australia will be Wet/Normal until the current Dry Cycle Vanguard arrives in early January 2026,(Byron Bay circa 155 degrees E.)
    At present the current Dry Cycle Vanguard is over the Eastern Pacific, the Gulf States and the Great Lakes of the U.S.A. (circa 90 degrees W) – moving East to West at 15 degrees of Longitude per 30 Day/Night Interval Month,(half a degree of Longitude per Day/Night Interval.)