Pope Francis made his strongest statements yet about climate change Wednesday, rebuking fossil fuel companies and urging countries to make an immediate transition to renewable energy.
In a new document titled “Laudate Deum,” or “Praise God,” the pope criticizes oil and gas companies for greenwashing new fossil fuel projects and calls for more ambitious efforts in the West to tackle the climate crisis. In the landmark apostolic exhortation, a form of papal writing, Francis says that “avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people.”
“Laudate Deum” is a follow-up to the pope’s 2015 encyclical on climate change, known as “Laudato Si’,” which lamented the exploitation of the planet and cast the protection of the environment as a moral imperative. When it was released, “Laudato Si’” was viewed as an extraordinary move by the head of the Catholic Church to address global warming and its consequences.
Nearly a decade later, the pope’s message has taken on new urgency.
News about what the head of the Catholic church does is as important as news about what the head of USA, China or Russia does. It’s hugely influencial even when it comes to lives of non-catholics, non-americans, non-chinese… because of the massive number of people that belong to the religion or state and the power that religion or state has. It’s a good thing the pope talks against fossil fuel companies, because his influence is big.
Can you name a few things that a pope has influenced politically in the last, say, three decades?
Because I call complete bullshit on this. Catholicism is big in its own domain (oversized Jesus-based pyramid schemes) but is irrelevant to the vast majority of the world, especially those countries which don’t recognise it as the official state religion which is pretty much all of them.
The Popes of recent history have done nothing of note except hide pedophilia, hoard the earnings of the poor, and resign.
The pope influences opinions of millions of catholic voters.
Distributed across many countries, limiting the impact of their vote outside of countries that are state- or majority -catholic.
There are lots of countries with significant catholic population or even majority.
There are significantly more that don’t.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. If you were to ask me, "are there a lot of Catholics in the world?” my answer would be: yes. Because there are. About 15% of the population of the planet is technically* Catholic. That’s a lot of the population of the earth comparative to almost anything that isn’t a birth-given attribute.
However, in the biggest countries in the world, and for the majority of countries in the world, they are not a majority. Even less so for countries that play a significant part on the world stage in a political way.
I’m happy to ask the same question again as I’m awaiting an answer and, as a scientist, I will change my view in line with the evidence that is presented: in the last 30 years, outside of Vatican City, and in states where Catholicism is not the state or most widely recognized religion or denomination, what meaningful and significant political decisions or stances has the pope influenced?
* The methodology of this is questionable but I’m happy to take it on face value for the purposes of this discussion.
E: it’s easier to accuse someone of trying to impersonate you than it is to actually win an argument, see below for a demo.
E2: Oh so they always resort to childish ad hominems, how embarrassing for them! https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=3261234
Is Latin America not important enough? How about Poland or Italy? There are even 20% of catholics in the USA. According to Wiki, there is 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide - that’s important enough to me. Do you really think major religions play no role on the political stage?
15% of the world’s population is ~1.3b people. You don’t need to quote the same stats back at me.
Where did I say anything about SA not being important? Equally, why fixate on SA if the pope has influenced so much politically in the rest of the world?
Also we’re talking about Catholicism and the Pope, not other major religions. Stop moving the goalposts.
I’m still waiting for the answer to my question.
You say as they address your issue and name several Catholic majority countries where the opinions of the pope sway politics far more than you’re accepting.
You’re the one moving goalposts on them lol