Let’s give the old guy credit: he was received in the U.S. like a rock star and showed more resilience and stamina than men half his age.  Moreover, he’s speaking out on progressive issues.  On the plane en route to the U.S. from Cuba, a reporter asked if he was a leftist.  He replied something to the effect that everything he does is commensurate with the gospels.  Translation: Christ was a progressive revolutionary AND a religious man.  The two went hand and hand, no matter what conservative wonks think (some are right-wing Catholics, of course).

He’s painted environmental concerns as a moral issue that transcends all religions.  Climate change is a pressing concern for every human being on this planet, not to mention Gaia’s flora and fauna.  It’s the moral imperative of this generation to protect Gaia and all her creatures, according to the pope.  Of course, I didn’t need his encyclical to realize that.  Many people didn’t.  And a few are either too greedy and/or stupid, that they’ll resist that idea until they die, which might be sooner than later if we don’t deal with the pressing environmental problems.

There are many bad guys and gals in this story, but the Koch bros are representative.  Not a moral bone in their bodies, of course.  They had one of their puppets declare, “The pope should back off [the climate change issue].”  Mr. Calvin Beisner, who’s not even Catholic, also declared that campaigning against climate change is “really an insult to God…and will eventually lead to tyranny….”  The Koch bros and their sycophants are really insulting the pope, of course.  They want no environmental restrictions.  Anti-pollution campaigns affect their bottom lines.  Never mind that they’re killing planet Earth.  It’s all about profits and loss.

I celebrate this pope and his progressive agenda.  It isn’t all progressive, of course.  It was hard to see all that pomp and circumstance at St. Patrick’s and watch the fat cats of the Church hierarchy strut their stuff (Cardinal Dolan was the worst offender), so obviously contradicting that message of serving the poor.  The pope is also bucking the conservative elements in his own Church, and many of them, like Dolan, were the only ones allowed in that cathedral (the cardinal probably screened them).  I was amazed when the Argentine became pope and often wonder how that happened.  My experience in Colombia and elsewhere taught me that the dichotomy between haves and have-nots, those inequities the pope talks about, is entrenched in the Church, especially in Latin America.  The hierarchy of the Church has traditionally taken the side of conservative and despotic regimes and worked against the poor.

Yet this pope has performed at least one miracle in the U.S.:  He has made the GOP and its ultra-conservative constituents now call for getting religion out of politics, especially in reference to climate control.  Here and around the world, the pope has been saying something to the effect that he’s not buying what they’re selling.  You can’t pollute at will; you can’t keep destroying the middle class and exploiting the poor; and you can’t use immigrants, migrants, and refugees as scapegoats so people will ignore your immoral policy positions.  Capitalism isn’t immoral per se; our leaders dedicated to raping the planet and ignoring income inequality and people in need are the Devil’s handiwork, though.

Not necessarily in the religious sense.  Although I’ve often wondered if the Koch brothers are just two faces of old Lucifer—the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum from the fiery pits—you don’t have to be religious to know what these two and others of their ilk are doing, including their sycophants in Congress and their lobbyists, is completely inhuman and immoral.  They put profits over people and the environment.  Always have and always will, until they’re stopped.

The pope’s pronouncements on his trip and his encyclical show where he stands on the environment.  Another visitor to DC, Pres. Xi JIn Ping of China, announced a cap-and-trade program to limit emissions.  California has often led the way in controlling polluters—with the EPA, they discovered VW’s criminal activity in faking emission tests (I’m expecting other car manufacturers to say their mea culpas soon—it’s as easy to fake this stuff as it is to take control of your car).  Fines and jail time are in order.  Candidate Clinton announced she won’t support the pipeline.  Pres. Obama has expressed environmental concerns (although he’s far from consistent).  All this might be too little, too late.

How dare the ultra-conservative right demand that the pope not warn about climate control!  Yes, this is often seen as a political issue, but it isn’t!  Every person on this planet has the moral responsibility of preserving it for future generations.  Moral politician is often an oxymoron; moral businessperson is too.  It shouldn’t be that way.  We should insist that politicians face up to their moral responsibilities—tell them to join the human race, as it were, and do some good for a change.  We should require corporate boardrooms to do the same.  It took a long time to destroy our planet as much as we have.  We might be beyond the tipping point.  But admitting defeat in this moral battle isn’t an option.  The pope knows that.  It’s high time others know it too.

And so it goes….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2015 at 4:00 am and is filed under Politics, Science, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.