Posted on 06/15/2015 3:10:19 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It takes a big ego to run for president. How else could you keep a straight face while telling everybody: “I’m the best person in the entire country to be the next president of the United States?”
But if it takes a big ego to fun for president, it takes an even bigger ego to run against — the Pope! Meet Rick Santorum. Desperate to find one issue that separates him from the rest of the Republican pack of clowns, Roman Catholic Santorum has decided to attack Pope Francis for daring to speak out on climate change.
In a radio interview with talk show host Don Giordano, Santorum said the Pope has no business talking about climate change. The Pope would be better off “leaving science to the scientists,” the recurring presidential candidate volunteered, “and focus on what we’re really good on, which is theology and morality.” And, above all, Santorum advised, the Pope should stay out of politics: “When we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, then I think the church is probably not as forceful and credible.”
A couple of days later, Santorum doubled down, insisting that while it was not OK for the Pope to express his opinion on climate change, it was OK for him, a politician, to do so because: “Politicians, whether we like it or not, people in government have to make decisions with regard to public policy that affect American workers.” Besides, Santorum told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the Pope had more important things to worry about: “I think there are more pressing problems confronting the earth than climate change.”
To which, we should all shout out: “Pray tell, what? Name one issue that’s more important than climate change!” Santorum’s wrong about this issue on so many levels he should be ashamed to show his face in public. Let’s start with the fact that Pope Francis is, indeed, a scientist. He has a degree in chemistry and worked as a chemist before joining the Jesuits.
Even were he not a scientist, Pope Francis is still on solid ground talking about climate change because it is the most critical environmental issue of our day, and Christians have long considered protection of the environment a moral duty. Taking his cue from the first book of the Bible — Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” — the Pope believes God put us on this beautiful planet, not to destroy it, but to protect it for ourselves and future generations.
As a Catholic, Santorum should also know better than to suggest that popes should stick to strictly theoretical or theological issues. In their encyclicals, popes have always talked about controversial issues of the day. Paul VI spoke out against the Vietnam War. Pius XII condemned the Nazi invasion of Hungary. And, perhaps most famously, Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (1891) affirmed the right of workers to form labor unions and receive a living wage.
Most importantly, Santorum’s wrong to assert that there’s no clear science on global warming. If he refuses to open his eyes and see shrinking glaciers, he might check with the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which reports that 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is “unequivocal,” is a serious threat to the planet, and is “very likely” caused mainly by human activity.
Scheduled for release on June 18, the Pope’s encyclical will be entitled “Laudato Si,” or “Praise Be,” a line from the “Canticle of Creatures” by St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope’s patron saint. And it could not come at a better time: just six months before the international conference on climate change in Paris this December, and four months before the Pope’s September 24 address to a Joint Session of Congress.
In it, according to Vatican sources, Pope Francis will argue that the health and beauty of God’s creation is now seriously threatened by climate change — and that action to fight global warming is now a moral imperative for all 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, and for all people of faith.
And that’s why Rick Santorum doesn’t want the Pope to talk about climate change. Because when he calls climate change “the moral issue of our time” — that means Santorum, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and other climate change deniers are, by definition, immoral. And that’s why Santorum doesn’t want the Pope to talk about climate change. Because now to the list of grievous sins — theft, murder, adultery — will be added: denying climate change. Rick Santorum? Guilty!
Lying about the causes and solutions of global climate change is immoral.
too bad we can’t have the nazi back. he was less dangerous.
Nazi?
He was the opposite of a Nazi. His whole family were resisters to the regime, but he was finally dragooned into the Volkssturm (people’s storm or militia) at the end of the war. Look it up.
Thanks for that comment, 2DV.
Climate change is a perfectly natural event, and therefore part of Creation.
Other than stating that the climate is always changing and is a natural state of being for the planet. I’m withholding other comments until the encyclical is actually published and there is a translation by an organization not linked with the left or the MSM.
He’s either insane or a cynical statist ba$tard.
“No wonder the Left loves him. He’s handing them tons of ammo to use against conservatives!”
Telling the truth is handing ammunition to leftards?
So, the only way to avoid handing them ammunition is to be complicit in their lies? That about it?
As a Catholic, I am distressed by Satan’s attacks on the Church. The election of this Argentinian commie to the papacy I count among those attacks. It is every Catholic’s duty to God to contradict him on the subject of “climate change.”
A previous Pope lied about the Knights Templar, a group that had dedicated and lost many lives to protect pilgrims visiting the holy sites. That lie was done for one reason. To wipe out the debts of the King of France. This current Pope is doing the same, except he wants to wipe out the debts of socialist nations. God is once again ashamed.
More liberation theology from this left wing south american priest.
What did Obama and Algore promise this guy ,LOL
So you believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming?
>>Pope: Climate change is immoral
Yes it is. It is immoral to expect people to give up productivity, wealth, luxury, comfort, security, safety, and a future for a Progressive theory that has gone from cooling (1970s) to warming (1990s) to cooling (2010) to vague “change”.
It is immoral to take advantage of stupidity by acting like a 1 cm increase in sea level or a 1 degree change in temperature is something catastrophic.
It is immoral to use emotion to take away a nation’s most abundant energy source—especially a nation that has spent billions on scrubbing emissions of power plants, while giving a pass to nations that have nothing but a smokestack after the induced draft fans!
Catholics should demand that Benedict come back and kick Francis’ commie butt out of the Vatican.
>>God is once again ashamed.
Why would God be ashamed? Men put this man in office. He serves the desires of men as he preaches his Marxist rhetoric.
107 in Vegas today, Summer is here (climate change)
fixed it.
Your post is rather contradictory.
It’s been in the 80s in Seattle. I’m going to call my congressman and tell him we need legislation NOW to get the temps back into the 70s.
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