Laudato Si

America Magazine: A Sentimental Education

America bills itself as the go-to publication for “thinking Catholics and those who want to know what Catholics are thinking.” Distressingly often, the Jesuit flagship puts me in mind of the hookah-smoking Caterpillar who shouts to Alice “I’ve something important to say!” Sometimes it really does. Other times I wonder if St. Ignatius has his regrets. My wonderment spikes when the editors prod me to think deeply about the eco-spirituality of Pope Francis. Laudato Sí placed environmental issues at the heart of Christian concern. Continue Reading
Jeffrey Sachs: The White Man's Burden Redux

Jeffrey D. Sachs’ presence at the now-concluded Amazon Synod is the dog that did not bark. Why not? The Catholic press describes him as “pro-abortion” and leaves it at that. But it is an inadequate description that evades a larger reality. The synod set in play two different games, a long one and a short. The German-led agenda (e.g. married priests, female ministry, etc.), which absorbed most attention, is the short one. While that covers matters of close concern to Catholics, it functions as a red-herring to distract from the globalist despotism represented by Sachs and the other two egoists behind the Vatican curtain: Ban Ki-Moon and Hans Schnellnhuber. Continue Reading
Jesus, the Male Gaze, & Laudato Sí

Every thoughtful Christian is invited to learn what is possible about Jesus in the context of first century Galilee and Judea. The much publicized Jesus Seminar, with its biases, stagecraft and colored-bead consensus, has skewed popular understanding of what we can grasp of the reality of Jesus of Nazareth in his own time and place. Nevertheless, respect for the tools of modern historical research keep us close to the words of Benedict XVI, spoken in November, 2012: “. . . faith is a continuous stimulus to seek, never to cease or acquiesce in the inexhaustible search for truth and reality.” Continue Reading

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.                                                                         —Daniel J. Boorstin
“Religions die.” Those two words open Philip Jenkins’ The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died. It is a stark beginning. We prefer to keep our eyes on the West’s relics of a not-so-distant Christendom and avoid the sweep of Christian history filled with reminders of the transience of human affairs. Continue Reading

Every First Things reader should spend a few minutes with Matt Ridley’s “The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science,” in the current issue [June 19, 2015] of Quadrant, Australia’s leading monthly. Neither the pope nor the encyclical are mentioned. Nevertheless, Ridley’s article is supremely relevant to a full grasp of what Laudato Si signifies.  His article is entirely concerned with the corruption of science by political agendas and the funding dependent on them. It is a clear-eyed examination of the intellectual bankruptcy of the species of ideologues who have the pope’s ear, and on whose voice the moral credibility of the Church has been gambled. Continue Reading