Earlier today Pope Francis released a new encyclical “Laudato si'”.  Praise Be: On the Care for our Common Home. As with anything the Pope writes or says, there is sure to be a lot of misinterpretation, especially by the mainstream media. Some of the issues in the encyclical are climate change, global warming, fossil fuels and that political bodies need to act to fix the problem. 

I have only read some parts of it mainly because I wanted to see exactly what the Holy Father has to say about the whole subject of climate change. I can imagine that the secularist press will somehow manage to turn this into how the Pope is now for population control since we need to conserve resources. And, of course, this will be further turned into  how the pope is now in favor of contraception and abortion. How long do we think that will take?So far from

So far from what I have read this isn’t what Francis is saying.(not that I expected it would be) rather he is saying that we need to take care of the earth that God made for us.God created the world then He created us and charged us to be the stewards of it. The problem is not overpopulation, but rather it is the materialism, greed, reckless consumption and selfishness of people. We abuse what we have and it is this that is causing the problems. We have so much yet we have more people who go hungry in the world than ever before. 

Just for the record, I am not a global warming believer. Yup, I am one of those deniers, I admit it. Until I see something other than “junk science” proving the planet is getting warmer I will remain one. I am not saying that we shouldn’t take care of the planet, but we don’t need to do it because of made up numbers. Anyway, where was I?

I agree with what Pope Francis says here:

“We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it. We have had enough of immorality and the mockery of ethics, goodness, faith and honesty. It is time to acknowledge that lighthearted superficiality has done us no good – Laudato Si (229).”

We have a responsibility to take care of each other and the world and the best way we can do that is by treating each other with kindness and respect. You know that whole “Golden Rule” thing.