Laudato Si: Sic Et Non

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK

Remember the scene in A Man for All Seasons, where Paul Scofield, playing St. Thomas More, diligently scours through the oath issued by King Henry VIII demanding recognition of his marriage to Anne Boleyn, looking for “some way that we can take this oath” without violating his conscience? I felt that way when I started reading Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change. Thomas More found that he could not in good conscience accept what Henry VIII was demanding. I don’t have that problem with Laudato Si (literally “Be praised” or “Praise to you”). I found the passages I was looking for. I can live with the encyclical.
“Live with it?” Does that mean that I wish Pope Francis had not written this encyclical? Yes. Secular leftists dedicated to government control of the economy and transnational political organizations will seize upon the encyclical, whatever Francis’ intentions, to advance their agenda. That is how the world works. You have seen the headlines by now: “Pope Francis Condemns Climate Change-deniers.” “Pope Francis Says That Global Warming is a Reality.” “Pope Blames Global Warming on Free Market Capitalism.”
The secular liberals lauding the Pope for his activism on global warming are not going to focus on those passages that caught George Weigel’s attention, which led him to conclude that Laudato Si’s emphasis is on an “integral human ecology” that calls upon us to recognize “that being ecologically conscious and environmentally committed necessarily means being pro-life.” Nancy Pelosi and Katie Couric will act as if those passages don’t exist.
I’ll go further: My suspicion is that the Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio is sympathetic with the global-warming activists; that his intention was to use Laudato Si to bring the prestige of the Church to bear in favor of those who are convinced that the use of fossil fuels needs to be cut back for the good of mankind. Fr. Bergoglio is entitled to think that way.
But Fr. Bergoglio, SJ, is now Pope Francis. He cannot move beyond the clearly established record of his Predecessors in the social encyclicals: The Church claims authority only in matters of faith and morals, not in science and economics. Some might say that the Pope makes that point begrudgingly; others will say it is a reflection of his fair-mindedness and reverence for the Church. I see no reason to not give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt and conclude the latter. It is why I am reacting to Laudato Si differently from Thomas More reading the oath required by Henry VIII.
Here is what Francis writes in chapter 5 of Laudato Si: “There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus…[t]he Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I want to encourage an honest and open debate, so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.” Everything found in Laudato Si needs to be read in light of this caveat.
For example, Francis writes that the “environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces,” and that we are now living with a “structurally perverse” economic system that leads the rich to exploit the poor and turn the Earth into an “immense pile of filth.” OK. Pollution is bad; greed is bad. We have seen privately owned businesses strip-mine and dump toxic waste at places like Love Canal in upstate New York, with no regard to the health or safety of their workers and the community. They should be condemned.
But we can also point out the people we see in China walking around with facemasks to protect themselves from the air pollution spewed out in that Communist country. There are areas of the former Soviet Union that are still uninhabitable because of the industrial contamination of the soil and water during the time that the government controlled all production in the country. Pre-industrial Haitians living a “simpler” life close to nature have stripped bare the timber resources of their country. The point? Free-market capitalists are not the only polluters and despoilers of the environment. The problem is bigger than that.
Francis instructs us in the encyclical that “environmental protection cannot be assured solely on the basis of financial costs and benefits.” True. But it is not just privately owned businesses that overlook that reality. State-controlled economies have just as poor a track record. Capitalists don’t pollute; people pollute. Perhaps Pope Francis would reply, “I know that. Why do you assume otherwise? My criticism is of greed, not of an economic system.” If so, I wish that message would have been made more explicit in this encyclical, so that left-wing activists would not be having a field day quoting from it to advance their agenda. Catholics reading Laudato Si are entitled to point that out, as part of the “honest and open debate” Francis encourages.
We are entitled to react in the same way when the encyclical speaks to a need for “forms and instruments for global governance” and “an agreement on systems of governance for the whole range of the so-called ‘global commons’.” It is true: We cannot attack pollution through the actions of sovereign nation states on their own. Polluted air and water will move across national boundaries.
But individual Catholics are free to object that in the current political climate, a call for “global governance” is likely to lead to organizations such as the Clinton Global Initiative being placed in charge of the effort to clean up the environment. Individual Catholics are within their rights to say that we don’t trust such groups; that we are convinced that they will burn more fossil fuels with their private jets and fleets of SUVs than entire middle-class neighborhoods, if they are given responsibility for solving global warming.
It would be even worse if the UN-sponsored groups that push for abortion and contraception in the developing world end up in charge. Calling for the rejection of these international organizations does not make one indifferent to pollution or the plight of the poor. It is a plea for common sense.
Then there’s the encyclical’s talk about the “very solid scientific consensus” that “indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system.” For the life of me, I cannot see how it can be a matter of faith and morals that we accept a “consensus” on a scientific question. A consensus can be wrong. They say that 70 percent of the world’s scientists agree that man’s use of fossil fuels has caused global warming. Does that mean it is immoral for a Catholic to agree with the other 30 percent?
The Pope can’t be saying that. Disagreeing with the consensus on climate should be included in the “honest and open debate” that the encyclical calls for, since, as Francis says, the “Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics.” Yet it strikes me that much of the encyclical proceeds as if the consensus on climate change cannot be challenged, as if Al Gore is correct when he calls man-made global warming “settled science.” But it is not settled science. It is a hypothesis, albeit one that a substantial majority of modern scientists accepts as valid. Science is never settled. Scientists are called upon to test and retest consensus views. It is how scientific progress is made.
There would be nothing objectionable about the Pope calling upon Catholics to take seriously the scientific consensus on climate change, to not dismiss it out of hand on the basis of some glib comment by a talk-show host, for example. But he can’t be arguing that is morally wrong for Catholics to read and find themselves in agreement with the findings of the serious scientists in the many groups that challenge the work of climate change activists. I don’t think the Pope is saying that. But, again, I wish he would make that clear.
Look: There are many admirable and important issues raised in Laudato Si: “The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all mankind.” We must be caretakers of the gift of God’s creation; caring for it is an “essential part of our faith.” The “throwaway culture” is to be strongly discouraged. We must work to ensure that rights of Third World peoples are respected when we pursue natural resources in their homelands. (Although it seems to me that corrupt local socialist leaders with Swiss bank accounts do more harm to them than oil and mining companies.) The developed countries of the world should seek ways to elevate the less developed. All true.
But socialism, big government, and global governance spearheaded by the modern transnational organizations are not the answer to these challenges. Or, at the very least, there is nothing anti-Christian about saying that.