For the Vatican, Climate Change Leads to … Abortion?

Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo has got something he wants to say to you...

Wikimedia

Via Life Site News come some frankly bizarre statements from the Vatican official who put together last month's Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity conference. Two major speakers at the conference were Jeffrey Sachs, widely criticized for the abject failure of his Millennium Villages initiative, and Ban-Ki moon, current secretary general of the United Nations—both of whom are extremely pro-abortion. Which the Catholic Church is not.

Stefano Gennarini asks Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Sciences, whether he knew about the pro-abortion and population control chops of his two big guests and whether that mattered.

The reply:

I've just come back from Argentina, where I attended a conference to combat new forms of slavery, like human trafficking, forced labor, prostitution, and organ trafficking, which I consider, together with Pope Francis and Pope Benedict, to be a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, there is not only the drama of abortion, but there are also all these other dramas, in which you should also be interested, because they are closely related. The climate crisis leads to poverty and poverty leads to new forms of slavery and forced migration, and drugs, and all this can also lead to abortion.

Wuh?

The climate crisis leads to poverty and poverty leads to new forms of slavery and forced migration, and drugs, and all this can also lead to abortion….

Let's keep it going: And abortion and birth control can lead to sex, which can lead to smoking, which can also lead to…the climate crisis…and all this can also lead to abortion…

And by the way, if you don't get with the program about addressing climate change through coercive means, the prelate will see you in hell, teabaggers! When asked "Several Catholic intellectuals and media sources criticized your decision to collaborate with Ban Ki-moon and Jeffrey Sachs on climate change, because of their positions on abortion and population control. Do you have any reply to these concerns?," here's the response:

The Tea Party and all those whose income derives from oil have criticized us, but not my superiors, who instead authorized me, and several of them participated.

Double wuh? on that one.

If stopping abortion ever regains the edge over "climate change" at the Vatican as a top issue, the archbishop may think about courting those gas-guzzling Tea Partyers in the United States. According to Pew, about 59 percent are against abortion in "all or most cases," compared to just 42 percent of all Americans.

As it happens, global fertility and poverty rates are declining and global temperatures seem to be moderating over the past couple of decades (more important, as Ronald Bailey points out, a belief in man-made global warming doesn't actually dictate any specific policy response).

So maybe we're all good here?

Comments

[SIV]

In B4 Catholicz

[SugarFree]

They knew about this post when it was just a tiny clump of pixels.

[Almanian!]

nice!

[Tonio]

Well-done, Sug.

[l0b0t]

Yeah... that was a good one SugarFree; I almost shot tea out of my nose.

[MJGreen]

Very nice, though I'd think the comparison would be when the post was only a 1 and a 0.

[tarran]

The hubris of this liberation theologian Cardinal is pretty staggering.

[Tonio]

Meh, about par for the course for a religious leader.

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

I've yet to see a United Methodist with such a Grand Unified Theory of Derp... and we generally ignore our so called "leaders" anyway.

NOW PEOPLE GET ANOTHER REASON WHY WE HAD A REFORMATION!

*resumes slightly dour Protest scowl*

[Almanian!]

*joins Swiss with the Protestant scowl thing, being totally a WASP*

[Catatafish]

*scowls at Catholic self in curvature of fishbowl*

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

Lady Whiteadder: "Cold is God's way of telling us to burn more Catholics."

[Almanian!]

So.....Archbishop Marcelo S?nchez Sorondo....is as bad as....Adam Lanza? Or is he a harmless old man?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW! We need Richman to weigh in!

/no we don't

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

Richman...reminds me of:

Blackadder: Well, it is said, Percy, that civilized man seeks out good and intelligent company, so that through learned discourse he may rise above the savage and closer to God.
Lord Percy: Yes, I've heard that.
Blackadder: Personally, however, I like to start the day with a total dickhead to remind me I'm best.

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

Cardinal Tony? Cardinal Shriek?

[Tonio]

+1 Comfy chair

[WTF]

If you don't believe that AGW causes everything wrong in the world, you are a climate denier and a science denier.

[Pan Zagloba]

Yup, that's the magic of externalities! It already leads to more war, weird weather, poverty, male violence, why not abortions, too? Prove that it doesn't!

[Almanian!]

We need to teach the weather not to rape us.

[Catatafish]

Speak for yourself. I enjoy a good wind rogering.

[mad.casual]

Not the way it's done in the Midwest.

[CatoTheElder]

Not only are you a climate denier and a science denier, you're an agent of Satan and a menace to national security.

/Catholic Church and Obama

[LynchPin1477]

It's not hard to follow his chain of thought on climate change and abortion. He thinks climate change will lead to poverty and conflict, and that people in poverty and generally shitty conditions are more likely to have an abortion.

I'd point out that the same thing could be said for the socialist policies the Church seems to be increasingly embracing (much to me chagrin).

[Tonio]

Never let a good crisis go to waste! And when you can blame one crisis on another crisis, so much the better, and the crises don't have to be real or universally acknowledged as such.

[tarran]

Sadly, the policies he advocates, depriving people in the developing world, such as indigenous South Americans and Africans, of cheap reliable energy increases their suffering and shortens their lives.

In my mind there's no moral difference between this cardinal and the Christian Scientists who pray over a child dying agonizingly of an easily cured disease because their superstition tells them God wants them to stay away from the hospital down the road.

[Cytotoxic]

The Catholic Church is just getting zanier and zanier. I mean it was never exactly a bastion of clear rational thought by nature but this kind of loopiness is a symptom of an organization that is shrinking in potency and size. Maybe it pretends a Catholicism-free and thus better future.

[Tonio]

They are very much playing to their audience. They are hemorrhaging members and support in the developed world, so they're playing to the global poor.

And whatever you do, don't mention the weeping statues. That really sets them off.

[Pan Zagloba]

But the developed world is exactly who they are playing to. Global poor don't generally give a fuck for socialism-lite from their religious leaders, they want fate, prayer, fire and brimstone. Anglican Church will probably have a full-on schism on the issue in the next 15-20 years.

I'm an atheist, but if I were religious, I'd want this guy, not some namby-pamby "God may or may not exist, but he's certainly a well-meaning socialist" prat.

[AuH20]

Why would the global poor give a shit avout AGW? Measures against it just constrain their economic development. It's much more a concern of the developed world, which is weird because the developed world can afford technological advances to counter the effects. Social signaling, I guess.

[CatoTheElder]

The global poor do well if they can see past next week. It is irrational that AGW would even be on their radar. However, the tinpot dictators, oligarchs, and demagogues in the third world see a great opportunity to perform a cashectomy on the developed world. With effective propaganda, they can indoctrinate the global poor such that they blame their current plight on AGW.

Here's the really crazy thing about AGW agreements. China and India are supposed to be recipients of clean development initiative and other cash for their abatement of emissions from the US and other developed countries. And, where is the US going to get the money? Well, it is going to borrow the money from China.

[Tonio]

Transfer payments, lads, the correct answer is transfer payments. The global poor may not care about CAGW per se but they do care about the imagined payout. Also remember that the poor are always, as a class, neither the best nor the brightest, and as such they are easily swayed by the narrative that rich white people overseas created their problems and owe them something.

[AuH20]

Which is weird. Jesuits are the scholars. You'd think a jesuit pope would be very interested in theological minutiae and not this bullshit.

I guess

Latin american catholic socialismJesuit scholastic tradition

[Apatheist ?_??]

Funny too because Pope Benedict actually is a scholar.

[Homple]

Whoever bumped Benedict didn't want a scholar. They swapped a theologian for a guy with the mind of a sophomore sociology student.

[Winston]

You Know Who Else Wanted a Catholic-Free Future?

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

Cromwell?

[Xeones]

The Know-Nothings?

[creech]

The Know Nothing Party?

[Almanian!]

The Know Nothings? Was it the Know Nothings?

[Xeones]

Abortions for some, tiny Popemobiles for others!

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

"The climate crisis leads to poverty and poverty leads to new forms of slavery and forced migration, and drugs, and all this can also lead to abortion."

Given that the global poverty rate has fallen precipitously over the period of time 'climate change' has been occurring, the exact opposite of this seems to be true.

Also, if you want to talk about poverty, maybe we should discuss the socialist policies of many South American nations which the Pope seems to support and which have done more to cause poverty than anything the dastardly Tea Party's ever done. The Pope supports poverty inducing policies, the hypocrite.

[l0b0t]

To be fair, there actually hasn't been a pope since the 1958 death of Pius XII, just a series of Protestant Antipopes - Novus Ordo Watch

[Pan Zagloba]

I like the cut of your jib - is it time to install a true Pope in Avignon?

[Viscount Irish, Slayer of Huns]

Holy cow, that's some high end crazy.

"The primary mission and purpose of Novus Ordo Watch is to educate. We wish to compare and contrast the Catholic Church and the Catholic Faith with the new religion ("Novus Ordo" -- see below) instituted after the supposed election of Cardinal Angelo Roncalli as "Pope" John XXIII in 1958 and his disastrous Second Vatican Council (aka "Vatican II" - 1962-65). We are confident that our web site provides sufficient documentation, esp. at our continually-updated Novus Ordo Wire blog, to prove that since the death of the last known Pope, Pius XII (1939-58), the apparent Catholic establishment in the Vatican has been run by anti-Catholic infiltrators who have done everything in their power to destroy the Catholic Faith and cause scandal and impiety among the faithful, all under the guise of a "Great Renewal" of the Faith and ad nauseam references to a supposed "New Springtime" of Catholicism. The truth, however, is quite the opposite. This web site is dedicated to pointing out that truth."

[Almanian!]

Also, "Protestant Antipope" would be an excellent name for a band.

[l0b0t]

How about The Damned singing Antipope?

https://youtu.be/s1G1y7_r8bE

[l0b0t]

This is why I laugh at the Botard when he accuses some here of being SoConz. The actual conservatives I know are more of the Throne and Alter type and read Carlyle, Mosca, and Filmer not Beck or Limbaugh. They would break people like the Botard on the rack.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Wait, people still read Filmer? I mean, other than for laughs or in the course of reading Locke?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

The interview actually makes the Archbishop look like an arch-asshole.

Not because of his perfectly defensible linkage of abortion to poverty, and poverty to climate change (which makes sense if you think climate change is a real problem).

No, what makes him an asshole is the way he responds to the interviewer - and the way he blows off conservative Catholics more generally.

His continual insinuations that conservative Catholics, especially in America, are oil-subsidized Tea Partiers is a slap in the face to millions of loyal sons and daughters of the Church, people who have defended the Church when the Bidens and Pelosis abandoned her.

Us "reactionaries" are in for a tough time under this pontificate.

[LynchPin1477]

The sad fact is the Church seems to be embracing class warfare.

[Almanian!]

I'm sorry, Eddie, but I'm enjoying it all....

*pulls another bag of popcorn out the microwave*

[Rhywun]

Except the "winner" after all this blows over is going to be one of the kookier protestant sects, no doubt.

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

*narrows gaze*

[Winston]

You Know Who Else argued that attacking Catholicism would lead to kooky Protestants sects?

[Xeones]

Thomas More?

[Xeones]

Mormons?

[tarran]

His continual insinuations that conservative Catholics, especially in America, are oil-subsidized Tea Partiers is a slap in the face to millions of loyal sons and daughters of the Church, people who have defended the Church when the Bidens and Pelosis abandoned her.

He also strikes me as pretty heretical; man is in charge of the Earth and not the other way around, and the sort of violence of state action that he advocates to bring about justice on Earth violates Jesus' core teachings about leaving justice in the hands of God...

The good news is that the climate change movement is really at the tail end of their run. This is why they are demanding ever larger demonstrations of loyalty and starting to eat their own for insufficiently toeing the line. The divergence of reality from their dire predictions cannot be painted over and denied convincingly any more.

So he's hitched his wagon to a loser movement, and it will suck him down with it.

[Square]

"the sort of violence of state action that he advocates to bring about justice on Earth violates Jesus' core teachings about leaving justice in the hands of God"

Not to mention the portrait of poverty as something evil to be avoided, rather than a necessary precursor to entering the Kingdom Heaven. Someone somewhere said something about casting off material possessions, placing no stock in the things of this world, etc., etc.

Who was that again?

[Swiss Servator, Quelle frisch]

Siddhartha?

*ducks and runs from room, cackling*

[Xeones]

Dorothy Day?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Counsels of perfection - voluntary poverty is a good thing, embracing unsought suffering has spiritual benefit, but in the latter case this doesn't preclude escaping the suffering in this life if possible.

[Apatheist ?_??]

and poverty to climate change (which makes sense if you think climate change is a real problem).

Not even then. Even if everything global warming alarmists believe is true, the use of fossil fuels is dragging people out of poverty at a far greater rate.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I'm referring to scenarios such as the flooding of coastal cities, which (if it happens) would in fact hit the poor the hardest. I can't say I believe these will happen, but a person who believes in climate change is going to consider these possibilities.

[SQRLSY One]

Everything is related to everything, in that it is all made out of matter-energy, and so, the Catholic Church has it all correct, yet again! Your derp is related to my navel-gazing, it all makes sense now...

[Spartacus]

A couple of months ago, we had a colloquium speaker who is a well-known climate change researcher. He had a whole bunch of scary-looking graphs of temperature trends. I thought something was a bit odd, then a few slides in I realized that all of the data sets he was putting up ended around 2001-2002. I guess it takes time to update those.

[Bill Dalasio]

Double wuh?

I think you echo the voice of millions of Catholics with that comment.

If the pope really does stand as the voice of God on Earth, I think we have good reason for concern for the Lord's early-stage Alzheimer's.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Bear in mind that this is a curial official, not the Pope, and His Holiness is preparing an environmental encyclical. I'm sure he'll say a lot of things people disagree with, but I don't think he's going to echo Archbishop Retardo's conspiracy thinking.

I'm holding my breath until the document comes out.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

(I don't actually know if he technically qualifies as in the Curia, so don't quote me)

[tz]

Poverty is related to energy. Cheap energy = high standard of living.

Energy cleans and transports water.
Energy keeps you warm or cool.
Energy can wash your clothes or cook hot meals.
Energy provides communication.

If you can afford the energy.

Let the Pope, and every cardinal and bishop go via cruise ship or train to save energy - lead by example.