Well … Not really.
But His Holy-Rollerness Pope Benedict did make another impassioned plea for the faithful to become — wait for it — environmentalists.
From his New Year’s speech in St. Peter’s Square:
I would like to underline the importance of the choices of individuals, families and local administrations in preserving the environment. An objective shared by all, an indispensable condition for peace, is that of overseeing the earth’s natural resources with justice and wisdom.
As you can imagine, every big environmental group on God’s Green Earth™ is promoting this quote. (Here’s the Natural Resources Defense Council, for instance.)
Maybe Pope Benedict missed a memo. Part of the climate-hope-and-change program that’s been made necessary because WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE™ includes — wait for it — population control. Apparently, we’re killing the planet by overpopulating it. So some of us have got to go. Or at least we shouldn’t all be having so many babies.
Oops.
Here’s how the Sierra Club, the granddaddy of greenies, puts it. They have a big ol’ “Population Justice Environmental Challenge” program, don’tcha know:
The Global Population and Environment Program’s mission is to protect the global environment and preserve natural resources for future generations by advancing global reproductive health and sustainable development initiatives.
Working with domestic and international coalition partners, we seek to increase universal access to voluntary family planning services and comprehensive sex education …
Join our nationwide campaign, the Population Justice Environmental Challenge, by signing our petition to renew U.S. global leadership on human rights, community health, gender equality and environmental protection.
Let’s find a few thousand nuns who aren’t allowed to become priests, and ask ‘em what they think about that whole “gender equality” part of going green. Their boss has kinda signed on, right? If that doesn’t give him a holy coronary, maybe the sex-ed and universal family planning will.
Or he could just call off the whole thing and go back to the 24k gold toilet on his gargantuan, solid-platinum airplane that burns Old Testament scripture for fuel. Or whatever Popes have. Hey, he’s supposed to be the proxy for Jesus on earth, right? When Jesus walked on water, I bet he didn’t leave footprints–carbon or otherwise. Think about that.
(I just discovered, upon finishing this post, that I wrote about this very topic a year and a half ago. My memory is going. I blame the altar wine.)
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Oddly, I’ve been reading about the population crisis in Japan, perhaps the environmentalists should change tactics to shipping extra youth to Japan?
Wouldn’t the promotion of the Pope’s quote make the baby-hating green organizations hypocrites?
I like babies and trees. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, even if the Sierra Club says so.
This made me sad. As a practicing Catholic and strident Global Warming Denier I expected better.
I think the pope is just going with what he believes the masses are concerned about. I don’t think he’s knows much about the whole issue about climate change or global warming. (Not that I do….)
Am I the only one who looks at that pic and sees Emperor Palpatine? I’m waiting for lightening to shoot from his fingertips.
Darn, that should have read “lightning”, not “lightening”.
Oh well, you get the gist…
anyone else expect the condom aisles to be empty by this time tomorrow?
No, Vince, you’re not. You’re totally not. And you also won’t be the only one to wake up screaming at 3 a.m.
Based on his past statements, I think that the Pope is supporting “good stewardship” of natural resources, with a focus on lowering materialism and improving social equality (for example, better pay to Third World countries for their resources). Many Christian groups are becoming more outspoken about caring for the earth and respecting God’s creations, which is sometimes interpreted as supporting all aspects of the environmental movement. However, favoring less consumption, pollution, and resource exploitation does not equate to supporting environmental ideas that contradict theological teachings. I think that members are asking for clarification on their churches’ positions on various issues as they become more prominent in the news, which results in the appearance of “playing to the crowd”, but I don’t think the Pope is looking to appease Greenpeace.
As a global warming denier and loyal Catholic, I don’t see anything wrong with Pope Benedict’s quote. He’s basically saing to treat the earth well. Where’s the BC endorsement in that?
I would think that the Pope’s biggest concern would be converting heathens to Christianity before the end of the world. Not that the coming apocalypse means we should treat the earth like a trash heap, but in a belief system in which there’s going to be a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1) I have a huge problem with a religious leader wasting breath on treatment of the environment. It makes it seem like his priorities are a little confused.
I’m not Roman Catholic, so I don’t keep much track of what the Pope says. When’s the last time he said something about dealing with Muslims? He’s pretty much the CEO of the world’s largest corporation, and Islam is a definite threat to the Pope’s business, seeing how Islam has a “dominate the world” worldview.
As a praticing Catholic there isn’t a problem with practicing population control. The church is fine with watching the ovulation cycle and simply abstaining from intercourse when near that time. The Church’s problem is with artificial means such as chemicals, pills, and condoms. So still population control.
Perhaps we should include more colors than black and white on our palette, hm? Just because he encourages conservationism doesn’t mean he buys into everything the most extreme environmentalists claim.
Interesting, especially since God said: “Be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it. (Gen 8:7)” not “be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it until the population reaches 6 billion or so.”
The pope unfortunately is less of a religious leader and more of an icon, now, and they live up to it. And, being that the catholic churches fundamental doctrine gives the pope equal standing as Christ, that’s a lot of power to wield.
As for me, i plan to continue multiplying, heheheh.
HAHAHAHA, i totally didn’t see that until vince pointed it out. “Wipe them out. ALL of them.” rofl.
On the sliding scale of sane vs. batpoo insane, Emperor Pope-atine (I keed, I keed, I love ya, Benny) doesn’t seem all that batpoo. The quote doesn’t mention population control (which, as mentioned in a previous comment, the Church does support naturally), but instead the responsible allocation of natural resources. Whether or not you believe in man-made global warming or not, responsible stewardship of the earth and new strides in energy innovation are good things to have, if only by getting us off foreign oil interests.
3/10 for effort, Oversneer. This is a little too much of a stretch for me to call actual hypocrisy.
I’m with AllyKat on this one. Encouraging responsible stewardship of the Earth is a good thing, and he didn’t go with any scare tactics. It was more “If we take good care of the planet and are judicious in how we use its resources, there’ll be more to go around and we’ll have more peace on Earth” than “OH MY HOLINESS WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM GOLBAL WAMRIGN!@!1″
If anything, it’s sad that enviro-groups have so thoroughly hijacked what was probably a well-meant statement.
I bringe every time I read the word “justice” and it involves Lefties.
Popes in general are a rich source of hipocrisy, but in this case the Pope was rather demagogic than a hypocrite.
The fact that he’s making statements about preserving the environment does not automatically endorse the opinion of the Sierra Club.
I thought Catholics could only practice the rhythm method of birth control.
You know, that method that leads to every Catholic couple that uses it to have like eight children.
I’m not Catholic. Not even a little bit. But one thing I am, is fargin’ SICK AND TIRED of having green this, and eco-friendly that, and recycled the other thing crammed down my damn throat ten times a day. People, imagine not being able to buy a car, or a pair of pants, or see a movie, or eat a snack, without having Jesus’ picture on it or without having to listen to a lecture on how “conscious” we “ought” to be of WWJD. Would it bother you? Would it get a bit, oh, I don’t know–OLD?
How is the whole green line of BS any different, Pope or no, from any other religious cult?
Short answer: IT. ISN’T.
Beige, you’re just pissed the Pope knows your sex life is killing the planet.
Yeah, it actually ISN’T Palpatine’s business if I gotta be the naughty librarian. Again.
This is Thursday, right?
In conclusion: none of us should have sex ever, especially if you’ve already had one kid. That’s all you get, you seal-clubbing deforesters.
Then there’s no more gettin’. For anybody.