Popes have written on "the environment" before, though please pardon me I have no citation yet either of us could satisfy the question with a quick search.
Remember when they reported that he was going to loosen up on gay marriage and women priests? On abortion?
He's the most slandered man in the world. What really creeps me out is how people who claim to distrust the media all of a sudden find it perfectly credible when it lies about the Catholic Church.
I think that, if/when and "anti-Pope" arrives, your Catholic friends will know it before you do. And before CNN does.
correction: “...if/when an antiPope arrives....”
He’s not being slandered. He is going to talk about global warming, and this will be the substance of his “environmental encyclical.” I read the Spanish and Italian language press, and this has been out there for a long time.
Please trust in Our Lord. St Peter was to be the Rock - which meant that he would support the Church and defend the teachings of the Church, as they had come from Our Lord - and the successor of St Peter has usually done this. If he doesn’t, he is no longer the authentic successor and can be deposed.
I don’t think Pope Francis has risen to this level, but some of the things that are being said through his surrogates...which he doesn’t reject... are certainly heretical and could bring bad times and persecution onto those members of the Church who stay with the deposit of faith.
Just pray hard and hang on. When the extraordinary council met in the 4th century to depose Pope Marcellinus (because he had offered incense to the emperor), he resigned voluntarily, repented publicly, and was reinstated. He died a martyr a few years later.’
So you never know what’s going to happen. But the important thing is the Faith, which develops the teachings given to us by Our Lord. And extends His presence for all.