San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said this week that for many Catholic voters the issue of climate change is more important than opposition to abortion.
Since “the survival of the planet, which is the prerequisite for all human life, is at risk,” Bishop McElroy declared in an Oct. 13 online meeting, “many Catholics are concluding that in fidelity to future generations they cannot support a candidate for national office who does not vigorously fight climate change.”
Rejecting the idea that abortion should be the preeminent issue for all Catholics, McElroy said that there are several viable contenders for the weightiest issue in the upcoming election, with no clear winner.
Some Catholic leaders, he stated, claim that “Church teaching demands” that climate change is “singularly determinative for faithful voting in the election of 2020.”
“Decisions on climate change in the next four years will either irrevocably amplify or arrest our world’s trajectory toward climate annihilation and the possible ending of all human life on this planet,” he warned.
The bishop said that “there is a clear international scientific consensus that climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels and other human activities poses an existential threat to the very future of humanity, and that air pollution resulting from fossil fuels is already a major cause of premature death on our planet.”
While air pollution is verifiably responsible for numerous premature deaths, it is a separate issue from climate change and it is unclear where the bishop comes up with a “clear international scientific consensus” that climate change poses an “existential threat to the very future of humanity.”
“Existing trajectories of pollutants being placed in the atmosphere by human activity, if unchecked, will raise the temperature of the Earth in the coming decades, generating catastrophic rises in human exposure to deadly heat, devastating rises in water levels and massive exposure to a series of perilous viruses,” McElroy declared.
“In addition, there will be severe widespread famines, droughts, and massive dislocations of peoples that will cause untold deaths, human suffering, and violent conflict,” he predicted.
“This year’s devastating fires are a prophetic sign of what lies before us, and a testimony that, on so many levels, our current pollution of the Earth is stealing the future from coming generations.”
“Because the trajectory of danger unleashed by fossil fuels is increasing so rapidly, the next 10 years are critical to staunching the threat to our planet,” the bishop stated while bemoaning the failure of the United States under the Trump administration to embrace climate alarmism.
In his address, McElroy also claimed that fighting climate change and opposing abortion are both “questions of prudential judgment,” meaning that neither takes absolute precedence over the other.
In their voter guide, however, the U.S. Bishops’ Conference takes a different approach.
“The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed,” the bishops declared.
When that language was being debated among the bishops last fall, Bishop McElroy opposed it but his opinion ultimately did not prevail.
Read more at Breitbart
Ironic that a Churchman should suddenly show such concern for planet Earth. For centuries it has preached an otherworldly ideal, against the earlier mythologies and religions which respected and looked at Mother Earth as their origin. The Church has also followed the Genesis injunction to Adam to have dominion and control, supreme above nature. The persecution down the ages of “witches” and gnostic sects which related to all life and nature showed the disregard of the Church for all things earthly. Hence the Church is largely to blame that we have rather carelessly exploited the planet. The Bishop should start to look at history and facts and his own theologies. Also as a Catholic bishop vowed to celibacy he is in denial of nature and sexuality, as well as further life.
He’s just following the lead of the Communist Pope.
The involvement of Popes and Bishops may imply a connection between climate change and religion. Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/22/things-eco-nuts-worry-about/
Why should we accept the declaration
of a mere bishop?
Will the DOPE weigh in?
The vicar of XIST and a Jesuit besides
and therefor knows everything?
Why do we need deity?
When the Jesuits are omniscient.
Sounds like the same kind of Screwball who worships false deities like Gaia a False Prophet to avoid is sounding like the False Pope and is probibly like seventh Day Adventis a strict Vegan and like that crack-pot James Lovelock probibly rides a Bike Yes a False Prophet
They are the same lot that believe people arise from the dead, the second coming, etc., etc., Why should we listen to someone who uses fairy tales they obviously made up to control people and exploit them using the phoney legitimacy of that control. Like the UN IPCC – and our governments.