Rome, Italy, Apr 27, 2017 / 09:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A leading scholar in the Arab world has applauded the goodwill of both the Vatican and the prestigious Islamic al-Azhar university Pope Francis will visit for aiming to increase Catholic-Muslim dialogue.
But she also issued a warning that goodwill isn’t enough for things to change.
“Dialogue is good, generally any dialogue is good. Any kind of debate and any steps to show goodwill, to show a commitment, to show a recognition of the other in principle is very good,” Mariz Tadros told CNA in an interview.
However, “the extent to which this will translate into a change in eliminating or reducing the appeal of militant Islam, that’s what I’m questioning.”
Tadros, who spoke over Skype from the U.K., is an author and scholar on persecution in the Arab world. She is currently a fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University in the U.K.
She spoke ahead of Pope Francis’ April 28-29 visit to Cairo, where he is set to meet with Coptic Pope Tawadros II and the Grand Imam of the Mosque of al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayyib, as well as Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the bishops of the local Catholic Church.
His visit comes as the result of a recent thawing in relations between the Vatican and the al-Azhar University, which had been strained since 2011. The imam of al-Azhar is considered by some Muslims to be the highest authority the 1.5-billion strong Sunni Muslim world and oversees Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque and the prestigious University attached to it.
Dialogue picked up between the two after el-Tayyib visited the Vatican in May 2016 with a message condemning the acts of Islamic fundamentalism, culminating a year later in the Pope’s visit to Egypt this weekend.
However, in addition to the heightened prospect for dialogue, the trip will also have an inevitable undertone of the very real risks Christians still face in Egypt, particularly from extremist factions of militant Islam.
While Catholic-Muslim dialogue has picked up over the past year, so have attacks against Coptic Christians.
According to His Grace Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, there have been at least 40 reported murders of Christians in Egypt in the past four months alone.
In February 2015, Egyptian society was shocked by the grisly beheading 20 Orthodox Coptic faithful in Libya carried out by ISIS, the video of which was circulated online. The extremists have also claimed responsibility for several other high-profile attacks, including a bombing at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo in December that killed 29 people.
Most recently, ISIS claimed responsibility for twin bombings in Tanta and Alexandria April 9 that left some 45-people dead. The blasts took place on Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar commemorating Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem before his Passion and Death.
With these attacks looming closely in the rear-view mirror, many are asking whether the Pope’s attention to dialogue with Islam, particularly his relationship with al-Azhar and his trip to Egypt, will make a difference.
The debate surrounding al-Azhar
According to Tadros, the prospect of any dialogue is good and shouldn’t be discouraged. However, she cautioned that despite the well-intentioned gesture of meeting with the Pope and cementing good relations with the Holy See, there is still cause for concern regarding al-Ahar – particularly the university’s duplicitous curriculum.
“When we look at institutions such as al-Azher, there have been many Egyptian non-Islamist Muslims, very progressive Muslims, who have sought to hold al-Azhar accountable for the duality of its discourse,” she said.
On one hand, “al-Azhar will sit with you and say we love you, we care for you, we’re all one citizenship, we’re all one people.” But on the other hand, “if you look at the syllabi, what they are teaching the generations of scholars that graduate from that university about the religious other, it is horrendous.”
What they are teaching is “undoubtedly a message that these are infidels, and at best they should be tolerated and at worst, killing them is not such a travesty.”
If one actually looks at what comes out of al-Azhar, “there’s a massive, massive disconnect between the public discourse and what is being taught to people across the country,” she said, explaining that there have been several moderate Muslim activists who have called on the university to reform their syllabi, including a man who was jailed for his activism, but who has recently been released.
While al-Azhar is seen by many militant Islamic groups as lacking legitimacy for not following the “right path” of Islam, others have criticized the university for failing to speak out strongly enough when condemning extremist groups such as ISIS.
Many have asked al-Azhar to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and declare ISIS as “un-Islamic.” In short, it’s no longer good enough to simply condemn what they are doing, but the entity itself must be recognized as not being faithful to the Muslim religion.
“As a Christian you can tell me, ‘if you lie that is not consistent with Christianity,’ but you are not telling me, ‘for shooting people in the name of Christianity, you no longer belong to Christianity.’ Do you see the difference?” Tadros said.
But when it comes to Al-Azhar, they have “consistently cowed away from declaring ISIS as not part of the Islamic community.”
Although some might say making such a declaration is playing into the game of name-calling and labeling one another as infidels, Tadros stressed that “unless you tell the broader international community that those who kill and maim and commit genocide in the name of Islam no longer are part of the Islamic community, they do not have the right to claim themselves as Muslim,” nothing will change.
That, she said, is “a very different story and they have cowed away from doing that.”
Tadros clarified that she is “in no way” saying that dialogue between Pope Francis and al-Tayeeb isn’t good or that it shouldn’t happen. “All I’m saying is let’s not count on that as a way of making militant Islam less appealing.”
She stressed that there are “a lot of Muslims” that have shown solidarity with Christians in Egypt, including speaking out on their behalf after the most recent bombings earlier this month, proving that not all Muslims espouse the radical views of ISIS or other like-minded branches.
However, while not all Muslims are extremists, she said history has proven that no matter how much dialogue is done, fundamentalism will never entirely disappear from Islam.
When asked if she thought this was a realistic eventual outcome of the dialogue between the Vatican and al-Azhar, she said “absolutely not.”
“I think that is the biggest myth that exists in the West and it’s a myth that history has dispelled and is it a myth, the perpetuation of which, only serves to increase the vulnerability of religious minorities in the Middle East. In fact, I would say it directly contributes to it.”
The growing threat of militant Islam “is one that we should not take lightly,” she said, “because they are networked.”
“Even though organizationally they follow different leaders, there are links between them, they are well-resourced, they are recruiting people globally from around the world, and they represent an existential threat to Christians and religious pluralism and all kinds of pluralism in the region.”
So while the importance of dialogue as an expression of finding common values and forging friendships across religions should be appreciated, it should only be valued to the extent that true goodwill and respect for the religious other result, she said.
“But I do support those who challenge their effectiveness in making militant Islam more appealing or undermining its power and influence and implications for Christian minorities.”
A history of persecution
Christian persecution has happened on and off for centuries in Egypt, but this intolerance recently spiked in the 1970s under President Anwar Sadat, who empowered radical Islamists, but was assassinated by fundamentalist army officers in 1981.
A period of higher tolerance ensued after Sadat’s death, but attacks targeting Christians picked back up during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.
The 2011 revolution, part of the Arab Spring, had overthrown Hosni Mubarak, a military officer who had been Egypt’s president since 1981. The following year Morsi, of the Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood, became the first democratically elected Egyptian president.
On July 3, 2013, Egypt’s military ousted Morsi, and in August began a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Violence then spread across the country, with Islamists killing hundreds of people from August to October. Churches were vandalized, burned, and looted, as were the homes and businesses of Christians.
In January 2014, the interim government approved a new constitution, leading to the May 2014 election of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the country’s new president. The elections were boycotted by the Muslim Brotherhood as well as other political groups.
Tadros explained that part of the chaos after the revolution was due to “a complete breakdown in public safety and law and order” in which police left the streets and organized groups of “thugs” took over, meaning public safety was no longer a guarantee.
With a lack of secure borders given the crisis in Egypt and the collapse of nearby Libya, extremists became emboldened, and began smuggling and trading weapons with greater confidence and ease.
Radical Islam also began to take on different forms in this time, Tadros said, explaining that whereas previously terrorists were homegrown and committed smaller acts of violence, the rise of factions such as ISIS looking to impose maximum damage through suicide bombs is new.
“The fact that ISIS is now a player is a game-changer,” she said, explaining that with an increase in deadly attacks, there is greater need for security. However, she voiced doubt that the current state of emergency declared by el-Sisi in wake of the April 9 bombings will be effective in terms of protecting Copts.
From a scholarly and historic point of view, emergency law has done nothing, she said, noting that it was implemented by both Mubarak and Morsi when they were in power, “and in both cases it was not conducive to the well-being of the Egyptian population in general.”
Since his election el-Sisi has been praised for receiving representatives from both the Orthodox and Catholics, as well as Protestants.
However, even though the situation has “officially” improved under el-Sisi, who has said and done the right things, Tadros said the improvement is due not so much to el-Sisi’s efforts as it is to the fact that Morsi was driven from power.
“The situation under el-Sisi is very complicated, because on the one hand there is an improvement in the Copts’ everyday experience. Not directly as a consequence of any of el-Sisi’s policies by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an unintended outcome of ousting Morsi,” she said.
“Never in the modern history of the Copts have they been such a target of militant targeting as they are today,” she said, explaining that if fundamentalists want to target Copts, there is realistically little that can be done to stop them.
How can Christians be helped?
With Christians in Egypt increasingly becoming a target of systematic violence and a bleak prospect of effective help from the government, Tadros suggested several things that can be done now to help the 9 million-strong Coptic community in Egypt.
First, “security is crucial,” she said, explaining that the ability to ensure basic protection of schools, places of worship such as churches and monasteries, and faith-based organizations, “is extremely important.”
Another essential help is “drying out the sources of funding,” Tadros said, noting that currently “we do have a problem with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab countries funding Islamist movements.”
“They have to be named and shamed, and even if it goes to the point of economic sanctions against any country that funds Islamist movements, that would significantly help the Christians,” she said, adding that this is “one of those unintended outcomes: if you remove their sources of income, they can’t buy arms, and therefore their ability to strike is significantly decreased.”
A third option Tadros mentioned is the growth and promotion of solidarity among the different churches in the region. As an example, the scholar noted how Pope Francis called Coptic Pope Tawadros personally to offer his sympathies after the April 9 attacks.
“We need to see more of that,” she said, stressing the need for Christians of all rites and practices to band together, because “divided we fall, united we’re strong.”
Finally, she pointed to the importance of raising awareness in international Christian communities of the “existential threat” that Christians in the Middle East face.
“We’re no longer talking about what we saw in Egypt four or five years ago where it’s a number of Muslim mobs burning a number of houses,” she said. “We are now talking about a broader, new strategic plan to eliminate Christianity from the region.”
The global community, she said, needs to “raise awareness and sensitize their congregations of the need to support the churches in the Middle East” in various ways, such as through prayer and concrete initiatives that will help those who have lost everything to rebuild their lives.
Another important aspect is “strengthening local Christian civil society,” she said, “because sometimes Church leadership, such as in the case of Egypt, find themselves in a position where they can’t come out and criticize governments, there’s too much at stake.”
“So you need Christian civil society that play the role of monitoring the situation, raising alarm bells when they see signs of genocide and of strengthening local initiatives.”
Holding governments accountable is also part of the equation, she said, sometimes by “criticizing the government, and sometimes mobilizing against government policy if it’s not going to be conducive to citizenship.”
[…]
What an unbelievable joke.
Politicians going half way around the world to talk about a supposed global climate crisis?
Right. Like they’re experts at anything.
Anything at all.
I know a guy who parks cars at an upscale restaurant. He should go because he drives all those cars.
And I know an elderly lady who’s always cold because she weighs about 85 pounds. She should go.
It’s ridiculous.
These clowns think human sexuality isn’t binary but the earth’s endlessly variable climate is.
The only people stupider than the governors of California and New York are the gentlemen with big red noses and whoopee cushions at the Dark Vatican who invited them.
Do I sound annoyed? Resentful? Angry even?
So be it.
Jesus deserves so much, much better.
The Dark Vatican has more business addressing proper ballet technique, or the real story behind Fatty Arbuckle, or the history of trepanning.
Clowns addressing clowns addressing clowns.
I feel your hate.
I do not feel his hate but I sure feel his pain.
God does have a sense of humor. He created ears didn’t He. I’m sure he’ll give us some relief with this spectacle. Maybe Francis will call all the politicians “good Catholics” even if they’re not even Catholics by baptism. Always good for a laugh.
Perhaps the most apt image for the Franconian Papacy – a circus – replete with clowns, sideshows, bearded women, sword swallowing, sleight of hand, chimeras, dumbbell-lifting, house of horrors, and all orchestrated by the ringmaster himself- Bergoglio 1st.
So, they fly in all these imbeciles to talk about depletion of the ozone using vast amounts of fossil fuels to do so. As with Covid, the people are easily fooled by these clowns who hold the reins of power. Not to fear, though, the center is not holding and Deep State is falling apart as we speak.
Well said!
The only way that many of the proposed climate change measures will become reality is if everyone becomes wealthy, and I don’t think that will ever happen. And considering how few children are being born in the U.S. and considering how many American high school graduates are entering college (assuming that they actually set down their phones and come out of their bedrooms) to major in “human studies” or “equality issues”–well, there won’t be enough scientists and engineers to do any research that might change the entire outlook on climate change!
I think many (especially young people) in the U.S. are under the influence of the “celebrities,” especially actors and musicians, along with gamers and online “personalities” with unknown qualifications. My daughter (a practicing Catholic!) has worked in “show biz” all her life and earns a good living. She is very intelligent and earned a Masters’ degree–but her knowledge of science is quite limited, and she freely admits that! I think it’s sad when someone who pretends to be other people (or robots, animals, ghosts, fairy tale characters, etc.) or who tells us how to win at online games has so much influence over real-life people as they dispense “fantasy science” and somehow manage to convince us that it’s “real science.”
Brilliantly said, Sharon.
Powerful ignorance. Drill baby, drill!
How is drilling ignorance? I don’t know about you but my vehicle runs on gas & so do most people’s. Even if every single vehicle went electric it still requires a source to provide that energy.
CA has experienced power brown-outs. Can you imagine that many people all drawing current to charge their cars & trucks- which is what the CA powers that be are promoting for the future?
Having varied sources of energy including oil seems prudent. And we have good sources of that in the US.
Yes Mrs. We do have the most oil in the world. I was surprised. Saudi Arabia?
In 2023 the executives of Exxon Mobile earned $30 billion while raising gas prices beyond the reach of middle and lower income classes. Their greed has set the cost of gas near $4 a gallon. Their new norm?
Nuclear fusion: The spent fuel rods are causing concern what to do with the millions of barrels of lethal waste that is currently being stored deep under Yucca Mountain. It decays for many decades. Today there are 91 nuclear plants in the US. One day fission may be replace by nuclear fusion. Hope that day comes soon.
Compressed Natural Gas, is a widely used as motor fuel in the world. It is the cleanest burning fuel, at the moment, in terms of NOx and soot (PM) emissions. Currently, there are 75 countries propelling their vehicles with CNG. The US is not high on that list.
You may recall in 8/23/21 in Beijing China the fuel smog caused by a spike in the use of coal and was so toxic that babies had to wear masks when outside, schools and parks were closed. Another deadly fossil fuel.
You are also right that electric vehicles have many issues. I think the largest is battery technology. They don’t go far and the need to recharge frequently. The supply of minerals used in batteries is in question as car and truck companies increase their EV manufacturing.
Thanks for your thoughts.
You are off in your prognostications . Do “executives” raise prices capriciously? Whenever dishonest journalism mentions a corporation with “record profits,” they never mention record taxation, and many armchair socialists, quick to invoke presumptions of greed, don’t even trouble themselves to know that profits are pre-tax and need to be planned large enough to stay in business, pay bills, maintain payroll, and sustain research and development. Every barrel of oil from the ground to the pump goes through seventeen taxation processes.
The energy/power efficiencies of EVs are way less than hydrocarbon vehicles. And the ignorance of liberal politicians have made it worse by sabotaging nuclear power, despite newer technology producing a tiny fraction of the waste of older plants, resulting in reliance on hydrocarbon plants (fossil fuel is a term for idiots). After the refining, electrical conversion process and multi-stage transmission process, the per gallon equivalent of gasoline fuel milage produced by hydrocarbons consumed for equivalent electrical production is about ten by ten by ten consumption of coal, a thousand cubic feet of coal.
And liberal politicians, in their infinite capacity to be intelligence challenged, are at war with natural gas.
The vatican continues inviting morally corrupt people to Rome. “Nothing to see here”?
Birds of a feather…
Brilliantly said, Sharon.
Nauseating.
Pathetic
I proudly displayed the American flag in front of my house for more than twenty years. After the 2020 election, I took it down, and I haven’t raised it since. I had to face the facts and acknowledge that we are America in name only. I think it’s time Catholics did the same. The Vatican is no longer remotely Christian and you might as well admit it. The bands still play and the marchers still march, but the poiēma is nowhere to be found. Life means nothing without it.
Punctuating the silliness of this is the notion that the Vatican will now cooperate with the pro-abortion UN to promote this stuff!
Donations to the Vatican fund these boondoggles, providing a megaphone for morally bankrupt bigwigs. How is it charity to pay for such activities?
I did not agree with climate lethality, but as a Catholic I will opt on the side of caution.
NASA: The vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world.
There seems to be a major world-wide scientific effort to bring forward the message. I am no scientist, but I am a Catholic father, grandfather and a RHINO.
God gave us this marvelous finite home. We cannot ignore that our pollution is not a source of climate issues.
https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/
Don’t be deceived, Morgan.
Opt on the side of rationality. Do a little research.
Start with this website:
https://globalwarmingdeception.com/
Then proceed to my text that follows.
It’s disturbing to me that Bergoglio is weighing in on “climate change” when he clearly knows absolutely nothing about climate science.
Here are a few brief points about climate change that people should know.
• The earth’s climate is changing. Indeed, the climate has always changed. Look at a graph of the earth’s average temperature that goes back a few million years. It looks like a yo-yo. Yet life on earth has always adjusted. It’s what life does. Devastating the economies of entire nations in an impossible quest for an unchanging climate is needlessly imposing misery on humanity. Yet climate alarmists like Bergoglio — or Varmaloff — never even say how they came up with the idea that the earth’s climate is generally stable.
• A 1.5-degree warming of the climate in a century is hardly the “existential threat” that the warmists claim. Think of the people now living 60 miles south of your home. That’s what your hometown will be like after a century of warming. What is their lifestyle like with a climate that’s 1.5 degrees warmer than yours? Is their town an uninhabitable hell-on-earth? Are they bursting into flames atop thousand-foot-high sand dunes? No? You might want to think about that.
• Carbon dioxide is not a poison. It’s not a pollutant. It’s a necessity for life on earth. Indeed, carbon is the molecule of life. In eons past, the earth did experience significantly higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we have now. The difference then? Plants thrived, food was plentiful and large mammals literally covered the earth, from pole to pole. In sum, more carbon dioxide equals more plants equals more animals equals a better, less stressful life for all. It’s hardly the “existential threat” that Bergoglio and the rest of the climate stooges claim.
• The “scientists” we keep hearing about who are sounding the climate alarm are meteorologists — weathermen. Their climate hysteria is based on computer programs that are not validated. They are closed loops with no way to account for all of the parameters that determine climate now, let alone decades from now. (Such as solar activity, the earth’s magnetic field, etc.) These are the same types of computer programs that predicted that the deaths from COVID-19 would be exponentially higher than what actually came to pass. Lowering all of humanity’s living standards based on such flimsy computer modeling is diabolical.
• Much is made about the “consensus” of scientists who warn about global warming in their publications. All this proves is that the left controls the print media as effectively as they control the broadcast media. Have you seen ‘Scientific American’ lately? No? You should take a look.
• There are indications that the sun may be entering a period of relative dormancy, as it did for a few hundred years, starting in the fourteenth century. The inactive sun meant less energy released, which led to the Little Ice Age in America and Europe. Rivers and canals in northern Europe froze, vineyards were destroyed, cereal production in Ireland was devastated, and famine hit France. (Interestingly, the cold also caused hardwood trees to grow denser and harder, leading to the remarkable tone of Stradivarius’ string instruments.)
I could go on and on. And on.
For example, about the indications that the earth’s magnetic field may now be in the process of flipping. This will affect how much of the sun’s energy strikes the earth. The problem is, the last time such a thing took place — an event known as the Laschamp excursion — was more than 40,000 years ago. So information on how earth’s climate was affected is hard to come by.
Anyway, it is quite clear that Bergoglio knows next to nothing about the climate. What’s surprising is that he has the audacity to offer such a definitive statement about a field that is totally unknown to him.
On second thought, maybe it was inevitable.
My dear fellow, how do you know that the Pope knows nothing about climate change? He is a very smart man with Jesuit training and discipline and has access to well versed academics; and as a head of state (his other hat) he has an obligation to speak out on secular matters. Apart from that, even if global warming IS a natural phenomena we do have an obligation to keep our planet clean and non toxic. All kinds of pollution cause serious health problems and we have a moral obligation to address them. “Drill, baby drill “ is not the answer. Big business should not dictate morality.
Nor should fanatics who will not tolerate other opinions and/or facts that dare to question.
Abortion is the most important environmental challenge we face. Women’s wombs are the most endangered sites on planet earth. There, humans are dying by the tens of thousands every day because of an assault on the wombs of women. There is no true environmentalism as long as abortion continues. Let’s do something about an environmental problem that’s immediate and easily remedied.
Thank you Deacon Edward Peitler for stating the obvious about abortion killing more humans than any other natural catastrophe. That is what is so sad and infuriating about this Papacy. Bergoglio destroyed JPII’s Institute for Marriage and Family and the JPII Pontifical Academy for Life by firing all of its qualified members who were all pro-life and replacing them with pro-abortion people.
The head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Sciences, Archbishop Sorondo invited population controllers to attend meetings at the Vatican, and Sorondo has called Communist China the best example of social justice! Maybe he should ask all of the Chinese women who were forcibly aborted by the Chinese government what they think of that diabolical statement.
Anyway, it is quite clear that brineyman knows next to nothing about the climate.
MICHAEL CRICHTON on climate change:
“Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse manure? Horse pollution was bad in 1900; think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?
“But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900.
“Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, the Internet, interferon….
“Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.”
Your comments are getting increasingly naive. You’re right about not being a scientist I have multiple degrees in physics and worked in the field for years. Dishonesty in science rivals academics, politics, and the practice of law. Do you think some identifiable group of human beings are immune from the sin of pride?
Could you at least refrain from using that silly unscientific word “model,” which is now being tossed around to impress the gullible to make them think scientists are generally deep thinkers when they’re not? Truth never changes because all truth is the reflection of the mind of God. Discovery exists, but we can only discover what God already knows and has always known. Atoms existed before Rutherford began his pioneering work in describing them.
And the propagandists of NASA are credible by what criteria exactly? And by what criteria do they judge other “propagandists/scientists” as reputable? There is no substantial evidence that manmade climate change exists by the analysis of scientists not looking for public adulation.
I stand with morganD. There is an elephant (no politics intended) in the room and we must look at it. It’s too big to go away and we must face the fact that we have not always been good stewards of our planet. Politics, business and greed (products of our common fallen nature) have brought problems that we must face and determine if we can and should do something about them. All sides must grow up and be willing to soberly consider ALL research and determine where we really stand and take necessary measures to address any REAL problems. All this mud slinging and name calling is very immature and counterproductive. Let’s at least have enough common decency to allow those who we disagree with as being sincere. After all it is possible to be sincerely wrong. It’s even possible that we may be wrong. Since we humans tend to exaggerate and misinterpret things, we must learn to put things in perspective and be more objective. In all things we are obligated, as Christians to show love and respect.
James, you sound like a sweet guy, but I fear you may be slightly naive.
Let me just ask you this.
Wherever did you get the idea that the “normal” state of the climate is stable?
Have you ever seen a graph depicting the temperatures on earth throughout its history? It looks like a yoy-yo.
Climate stability is a delusion.
And so the climate crisis is a delusion.
The Green New Poverty is a threat to humanity — and there’s absolutely no reason for it.
I make several points about the climate discussion in a post above. Here’s one more.
The scientific “consensus” includes only meteorologists — never the scientists who study the sun, heliologists.
And yet the sun is the source of the great majority of the earth’s heat.
The fact is, heliologists cannot reliably predict the sun’s solar output beyond about a decade into the future.
In fact, until the recent massive solar storm, the sun’s output has been somewhat reduced in recent years.
Until you see heliologists sounding the alarm about global warming, you can pretty much write it off as an issue.
I’ll own up to being naive, but I don’t think I am stupid or yet senile (although I’m going on 85😢) . I do however think that we must be seriously concerned about the footprints we are making on the environment. This is quite apart from the question of whether or not we are causing global warming. We know that we ARE causing serious pollution problems. Our oceans are full of junk which will not break down easily. Dangerous atomic waste is all over. Toxic gases are in the air etc. etc. Many on the political right have lumped all issues together and brand all environmentalists as leftist radicals. To be environmentally Globalist is not the same as being a politically globalist. Pollution does not stop at boarders. We can not be isolationists, we must work together as nations. Man Is the problem. The animals live and leave the planet as they found it with seemingly less brain power. We were given brains but don’t seem to use them very well. Yes, I own up to being naive and perhaps even stupid! God bless, my friend. 😇
Pollution & waste are one thing. Climate change narratives are another. You can do something constructive about pollution & waste that doesn’t involve a political agenda.
Conservatives should conserve nature & be stewards of God’s Creation. Cardinal Sarah said that Creation itself is a silent word of God. That’s good enough for me.
🙂
James, please. The oceans are NOT full of junk. Atomic waste is not everywhere. It is just such overstatement and hyperventilating that causes skepticism about the alarmist claims. Yes, there are problems. But remember, from the dawn of humanity human beings arrogantly thought they were the cause of every natural event, especially disasters … like not offering sacrifices to the right god, spraying deodorant into their armpits, shooting rockets into the sky (remember that, James? How often did we hear that in the 60’s?). As for our pope, he does have authority over bishops concealing sex abuse, the creep Rupnik, a church going off the rails in Germany … he should do his job first, and then he can “witness” to how everyone else isn’t doing theirs. And he doesn’t need to fly in celebrities and heads of state to get it done. Stop it with the photo ops and virtue signaling … by the way, I thought he famously said “Who am I to judge?”
As everyone knows, “Aliens Cause Global Warming,” just as Michael Chrichton said at Stanford 21 years ago:
https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf
And besides consenting-scientists “picking our pockets,” we have “Vadigun-Clericalists-in-the-McCarrick-Cult,” led by the Pontiff Francis, doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist State and its Marxist-American-politicos like boy-wonder-Gavin-Newsome.
And isn’t it true that our galllant-un-Eminence-McCarrick, while he was doing his decades-long gig as a “false shepherd,” was traveling back-and-forth to the homicidal Chinese state (the world’s biggest polluter and yet somehow also the world’s biggest solar panel monetizer), somehow managed by his “independent financial means” to afford his frequent flying back-and-forth to Peking for some 20 years, first discharging the many duties that we know all NJ Bishops are bound to do, and somehow “getting stuck” with the same Chinese Communist State junkets, despite lying his way into the Archbishop of Washington job, with the help of the utterly corrupt, Chinese Communist toadies of the “Vadigun-Secretariat-of-State.”
McCarrick, Newsome, the Pontiff Francis, three peas in the same phony pod, and all three capable of switching jobs, without it making any difference.
“There’s no such thing as “consensus science.” (Michael Chrichton)
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/michael-crichton-explains-why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-consensus-science/
Planet Earth is thirsting for tender care, love, and respect. It’s time for fellow-mortals to do their bit.
I trust that you will not be driving a car in the future nor taking any form of transportation that relies on fossil fuel. Because if you do, you would be ignoring your own admonition to the rest of us which would be hypocritical.
I think that line was written by Secretary Xi, and farmed out for political consumption.
Yes, there is some change in climate; human activities definitely play a part in it. Yet I do not believe it is the Pope’s business. His business is the change of the spiritual climate.
Alas, what is going on now is a fulfilment of the prophecy of Vladimir Soloviev’s ‘A short story of the Antichrist’. I urge all Roman Catholics to read it. It is a wonderful piece of work and very instructive. Here is the test: http://www.wittenberg2017.us/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/a_short_tale_of_the_anti-christ_-_by_vladimir_soloviev.pdf
(Vladimir Soloviev was an Eastern Orthodox religious philosopher, visionary, and philocatholic – some argue he became a Roman Catholic.)
But Anna, it IS the Pope’s business. He is both the head of State (the Vatican) and head of Church. This is confusing to many people. It’s not an ideal situation and perhaps won’t last much longer, but it is the way things are now and he may as well use the bully pulpit as long as he can. We should be happy that he has some say and credibility in secular matters. Very few secular leaders have ANY moral credibility these days. Think about how much St. John Paul did!
James, the sooner the Vatican is denied recognition as a temporal entity, the better for the Church’s mission.
Isn’t any Bishop’s main job to save souls in all he does?
When years past on one round trip from NY to the SW I was startled that the top of majestic stratovolcano Mt Taylor NM, was shaved off by uranium excavation, water in many places throughout the SW both federal property and reservation areas was contaminated by excessive mining [even oil conglomerates Philips, Exxon with their vast wealth turned to include mining], that former pristine trout fishing brooks and lakes [including upstate NY] were affected I knew then it was a moral issue that had to be addressed. And it’s our Catholic Church that addresses moral issues.
Insofar as global warming the evidence is clear, whether it’s naturally cyclic or not. Industrial air pollutants, besides cows breaking wind [if it’s an issue are we going to neglect humans] causes a dramatic increase in UV rays and its effect on humans.
“The link between air pollution, UV irradiation and skin carcinogenesis has been demonstrated within a large number of epidemiological studies. Many have shown the detrimental effect that UV irradiation can have on human health as well as the long-term damage which can result from air pollution, the European ESCAPE project being a notable example. In total, at present around 2800 different chemical substances are systematically released into the air. This paper looks at the hazardous impact of air pollution and UV” (National Library of Medicine). What impressed me were the incredibly long lines of retired veterans and their families who moved to the SW showing up at the SW VA that I served for carcinoma treatment.
Many will say climate is a distraction that belongs attention elsewhere because personal morality is more important. Agreed that the latter holds priority. Although it’s also said that many of us can also chew gum and walk at the same time.
Bergoglio is pushing all the right butyons of the transhumanist globalists elite. He recently endorsed the blessing of homosexual couples. Now he is fully aboard the global warming wagon. Of course he does not condemn China, whose abuse of the environment is far worse than anything done in the West; just as he kept silent about what China has done with the Catholic Church there, or with Falon Gong or with the Uyghurs. It is less risky to attack the U.S.
Please read this letter to the California government by 1600 actual scientists supported by 16 pages of data
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/no-climate-crisis-says-coalition-of-1600-actual-scientists/
NO Climate Crisis Says Coalition of 1600 Actual Scientists
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is ‘one of the worst sources of dangerous misinformation’
By Katy Grimes, May 13, 2024 2:55 am
Excellent link, Oscar!
Those “1,600 scientists” certainly sound like a “consensus”
to me!
LOLOL!
Like I said. Global warming is a delusion.
Carbon is beneficial to life.
Bergoglio knows nothing about climate science.
The earth was warmer which is why Greenland got it’s name. It is now an icy expanse. The warming climate may once again bring it back to a green tree filled country:
“During 1981, researchers removed a huge tube of ice from the middle of a glacier in the Southern region of Greenland. The glacier was taken from a site called Dye 3, and it was more than a mile long — offering an incredible insight into Greenland’s history.
According to the scientists who examined the ice, the pattern of dirt, rock, and soil within was difficult to analyze at first. Lower layers of ice had been disrupted by the formation of new glacier.
Fortunately, later, DNA was distracted from the previously ignored bottom of the glacier, revealing some interesting information on the history of the country.
According to the data, Greenland was green. Not only was the country rich with grass and fields, but forests too. Biologists say Greenland may have been home to similar forests we see throughout Scandinavia today.
Scandinavia’s stunning scenery is one of the things which contributes to the happiness and health of the people within.
The team of analysts responsible for examining the ice say DNA was retrieved from yew, pine, spruce, and alder trees. The scientists also discovered species of insects ranging from spiders to butterflies.
According to the group, the icy discovery marked the first example of evidence that southern Greenland was once a highly forested place. Indeed, experts believe based on the trees found, Greenland must have reached at least 10 degrees Celsius in Summer. ”
From Scandification: Why Is Greenland Called Greenland?