Pope Francis released his much anticipated encyclical today titled Laudato Si’ and as expected, liberals are giddy over the pope’s message on the environment:
Thank you so much @Pontifex for your #encyclical. It will make a huge difference this critical year #action2015 pic.twitter.com/XP87xsCSlm
— Christiana Figueres (@CFigueres) June 18, 2015
"In his teaching letter, Pope Francis has framed climate change as an urgent moral issue." http://t.co/87pWIkFTmb #LaudatoSi #encyclical
— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) June 18, 2015
Full text of Pope Francis first papal encyclical focused solely on the environment. Annotated http://t.co/iiQGMxl55I
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 18, 2015
But contrary to that NYT headline, the pope’s message on the environment is much more complicated than that. From Patheos:
While the 184-page encyclical wades into controversial topics such as climate change, it also aggressively argues that it is not possible to effectively care for the environment without first working to defend human life and dignity.
Exactly. Will liberals discuss Pope Francis linking “human life and dignity” to environmental issues?
For example, here’s what Pope Francis wrote on how gender issues are tied to his overall message on the environment (emphasis ours):
It is enough to recognize that our body itself establishes us in a direct relationship with the environment and with other living beings. The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek “to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it”.[121]
And on abortion (emphasis ours):
120. Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away”.[97]
Got that libs? Your global warming alarmism is “incompatible” with your views on abortion.
National Review’s Kathryn Lopez urges that we take Pope Francis’ complete message “in full,” not piecemeal depending on your poltical views:
Consider Accepting Pope Francis’s Invitation to a View of Human Creation in Full http://t.co/oBAleITgu9 via @NRO
— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) June 18, 2015
Seems fair, but will liberals listen?
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