The Nicene Creed, recited by Roman Catholics at each Mass which in Latin begins ‘Credo in unum Deum…’ (‘I believe in one God…’) appears to have been replaced by ‘Credo in caeli mutuatione…’ (I believe in climate change…’). The Holy Roman Church, to which I belong, has been captured by the climate catastrophist lobby and, like the fish rotting, this has started at the head (the Pope) and spread to Bishops and diocesan activists further down the tail.
Pope Francis, no stranger to these pages, whose occasional outbursts of good sense are notable only for their paucity, fully subscribes to the climate change agenda: that human activity is to blame, and that we must make drastic changes to avoid disaster. He inflicted his anxieties on Roman Catholics first in 2015 in his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si‘ and again in his execrable Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum in 2023.
I can’t attest the extent to which all Roman Catholic Bishops subscribe to the doctrine of man-made global warming, or even those in the United Kingdom. But I can attest to what is going on in my own Diocese of Middlesborough where Bishop Terence (‘Terry’) Patrick Drainey, a man whose faith and sanctity I do not question, seems to have fallen hook, line and mitre for the Vatican view of climate change. This view is remarkably close to the views espoused by radical groups such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
Thus, the March 2024 issue of Voice, the free monthly newspaper of the Middlesborough Catholic Diocese, features climate change twice. The first report is on the Year 7 Indoctrination Reflection Day at St Mary’s College Hull, the Roman Catholic School which all eight of my children attended. The day was ‘focused on Care for God’s Creation, particularly through the lens of Pope Francis’ letter Laudato Si‘, which encourages Care for our Common Home.’ In addition, the event was explicitly linked to the COP28 UN climate change conference.
Apparently the day was ‘a fantastic example of faith-based social teachings and contemporary global issues to empower students to become responsible stewards of the environment.’ Pick the bones out of that; seems a lot like the global secular tail wagging the Christian dog.
But there follows a full page of climate change hot air headed, not at all sensationally, as: ‘The climate clock is ticking – we need to act now!’ Written by one of our deacons who recently joined a group of lay people who want to see how they can inflict that papal drivel Laudate Deum on ‘people of our diocese’.
The major goals of Laudato Si‘ are reiterated. These include ‘Adoption of simple lifestyles’ and the cracking ‘Ecological Spirituality’. The latter is pure theological gobbledegook and, as for the former, I expect they’ll be selling off the Vatican treasures any day now to ‘raise awareness’ of climate change and respond to ‘the cry of the poor’, which is another of the major goals of the encyclical.
Under the deacon’s message of no hope there appear three diocesan climate activists, all better Catholics than me I’m sure, who convey messages such as: ‘The world is collapsing and may be at breaking point’; ‘the climate crisis can only deepen’; and how people feel ‘indignation at the lack of interest shown by the powerful.’ It’s clear that these poor people have become unhinged due to the daily drip and deluge of climate change catastrophism that is the fare of the mainstream media in the UK.
The world ‘may be at breaking point’, but then again it may not, and there is accumulating evidence that the climate change emergency is no such thing. If there is no climate crisis, it cannot deepen and, if there is a ‘lack of interest’’ by the powerful, who the hell makes me trundle out with three wheelie bins every week under the threat of a fine if as much as a tea bag ends up in the glass and plastics bin? Who attends COP28 and Davos, the poor and dispossessed?
The propaganda about the climate change crisis is being inflicted on us by the rich and powerful who urge simple lifestyles on those of us at the bottom of the heap, while continuing to live jet-set lifestyles across multiple homes consuming the best of food and drink. The Vatican, its present head boy and the minions of the Roman Catholic Church are simply playing their part in enforcing this global hoax. The page ends with the ‘old mantra’ to ‘Think globally, act locally’. I would urge my Catholic brethren (and cistern) simply to ‘Think’.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Whilst this is a well-written article, one can’t, however, help but notice with some amazement the irony of the passing reference to the author’s multiple offspring: “all eight of my children” (but then he is a Catholic!) – well over the modern UK national average. So he has thereby contributed to a little micro ‘climate change’ of his own!
Could part of the reasoning behind this by the RC Church be (apart that is from reinvigorating the fall of man idea – other varieties of human are apparently available – through his/her/they responsibility for now destroying the Earth?) to stop protesters damaging RC property and stick to secular targets?
I suggest this is tried out via some token, but non property damaging, church stunts. No, on second thoughts, the Church would probably consecrate the stunt and add some rainbows for extra effect.