Peter Kreeft, the Anomaly – “Kreeft’s gift isn’t just in philosophy — it’s in making the hardest parts of faith feel accessible.” On the Occasion of a Favorite Professor Turning the Pen on Himself (New Oxford Review)
When Secularism Turns Deadly – “In terms of sheer numbers, the misery, deaths, and destruction visited on religious communities by secularist regimes in the twentieth century vastly exceeds the violence committed during the early-modern European Wars of Religion…” A Very Short Introduction to Secularist Violence in Modern History (Church Life Journal)
The Victims of Sexual Liberation – “John Lennon was an artist. And like a good artist—I use the term loosely—he sensed Something coming in advance. Then he captured it in a single, 1968 track of music: Revolution 9,’ eight and a half minutes of incoherent noise.” Course-Correcting the Sexual Revolution (First Things)
Papal Press Conferences and Interviews – “I really, seriously, absolutely think that the Pope – any Pope – should not do press conferences or drive-by press gaggles – ever. It was a huge problem during Francis’ papacy, and even the few Leo has engaged in have fueled flames.” No Comment (Charlotte Was Both)
Blessing Ice Is Not Pagan or Communist – “The blessing (of ice) was a perfectly orthodox gesture, inspired by the same social concern that animated his predecessors.” Why are Catholics melting down over the Pope blessing ice? (Unherd)
Political Polar Icecaps – “Pope Leo XIV has hit out at those who minimise the ‘increasingly evident’ impact of rising temperatures in his first major statement on climate change.” Pope Leo condemns climate change critics (BBC)
New Vatican Observatory Director – “Some of the deepest, most timeless questions of humankind actually lie at the very heart of astronomy itself. These aren’t just abstract curiosities—they shape the foundations of different fields of astronomical research.” Fr. Richard D’Souza, Director of the Vatican Observatory, Speaks on God and the Universe (Catholic Connect)
Secret Contraceptive Deliveries – “AP News published a report Sept. 30 claiming that there are underground networks of people who are distributing contraceptives, sexual aids, and abortifacients on Catholic college campuses, directly opposing the Church’s teachings on sexuality and life.” AP: underground networks distributing contraception, abortifacients on Catholic campuses (CatholicVote)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
“Pope Leo XIV has hit out at those who minimise the ‘increasingly evident’ impact of rising temperatures in his first major statement on climate change.”
Spare us…please. The Pope is a theologian, not a climatologist. If he really cared about global warming, he’d cancel his trip to Turkey and Lebanon as it will add to his so-called carbon footprint. And, besides, he’s the hishop of Rome and not the bishop of Beirut.
While blessing ice is in itslef neither pagan nor communist, and the old Catholic prayer books have blessings for all kinds of inanimate objects, the offense was NOT that it was inanimate object but that it so deeply represented, in that context and at the moment, an agreement with climate change IDEOLOGY, which is very, VERY different from being concerned about the environment (or better, the gifts of God’s creation).
The same with the Pope condemning “climate change critics.” WHICH critics? There are those, perhaps the majority, who use climate change as a bludgeon for wealth distribution, the unmaking of civil society into a global, centrally planned socialism, and many more things on their agenda. The Pope should CLEARLY distinguish between THOSE climate change activists, and normal, thoughtful people who understand that whole the climate may be in a “warming” phase, one must distinguish between what humans can actually bring about. There is no point making the poor suffer from massive heating bill increases, and massive expenses all across the board (did we REALLY need to give rich people a huge tax credit for buying electric cars?). If Americans (and I especially include poor and low income Americans) suffer needlessly, of what benefit is it if China keeps building coal fired plants?
Finally, the Pope needs some education. The research is VOLUMINOUS, and climate change advocates hide the fact, that there is no “green energy.” Solar panels, electric cars, windmills etc. etc. all require fossil fuels in their production, generation, transportation of parts and finished products, mining of what is needed for batteries etc. ad infinitum.
Absolutely right. In fact if we measure units of energy in terms of hydrocarbon consumption for manufacturing an electric vehicle as compared to an internal combustion engine vehicle and translate this data to the equivalent of driven miles of an ICV, the electric vehicle consumes the equivalent of a 115 thousand miles, whie the ICV consumes 20 thousand miles for construction. So out the door the EV is 95 thousand miles behind. And it will never catch up given the electrical power consumed for recharging it’s power cell, and the power consumption cost of manufacturing replacement power cells trying to catch up.
@ New Vatican Observatory Director
About the scientific/theological question, “are we alone?” Does greater convergence between faith and science also involve greater precision and even divergence?
A prescient remark from Pope Pius XII: “…Others destroy the gratuity [!] of the supernatural order [!], since God, they say, cannot create intellectual beings without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision” (Humanae Generis, n. 26). The Beatific Vision is totally gratuitous within a larger “world” than is contained in any scientific cosmology.
So, with Fr. D’Souza, what about such possible intellectual beings?
(1) Have hypothetical and technologically advanced civilizations (space travel?) in the cosmos NOT been GIVEN, by the transcendent God, the washroom key for “wisdom” and for the Beatific Vision?
(2) How, exactly, might cosmically-multiple polygenesis square with terrestrial Original Sin (just a quaint local narrative?) plus the SINGULAR Incarnation and redemptive act of Christ (fully human and fully divine)?
(3) Or, is any such Redemption multiple across space and time while still ONE ACTION, just as every Mass on our backwater planet (backwater Judea writ large!) is the unbloody renewal/extension of the singular Self-donation on Calvary, while also “numerically distinct”—within and by the indwelling Holy Spirit?
(4) Or, instead–and with Blessed Duns Scotus–might Christ have become incarnate “here” (and simultaneously elsewhere in God’s eternity?) ABSENT our fallenness, by an action of overflowing divine charity that includes, but is not limited to our terrestrial need for divine damage control?
(5) Or, despite hypothetical technical superiority across the galaxies, is our human access toward beatitude still a most singular gift into the LOGOS? About the Beatific Vsion and the “world [!] without end,” and being supposedly alone, already we are “surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1).
RE: Papal Press Conferences and Interviews
Impromptu or not, press conference or no press conference, Leo let the cat out of the bag when referencing the death penalty as “not pro-life”. This was Francis’ view, which Leo clearly shares, and it muddies the waters on the Church’s traditional teaching on the death penalty.
Is the death penalty the right and a duty of the state -for the “preservation and security of human life”–as the Council or Trent once proclaimed or is it antithetical to the Gospel? Which is it? It can’t be both, in spite of so-called “development”.
This is the most pressing doctrinal issue facing the Church today. If the Church desires to essentially reverse the teaching on the death penalty, other doctrinal issues are also up for grabs. A future pope needs to re-affirm the traditional teaching.
With regard to: “why-are-catholics-melting-down-over-the-pope-blessing-ice/”
A couple of reasons:
1. A matter of priorities. A number of writers say we need to give him time – he has only been pope for 5 months. But, he has found time to bless a block of ice and host a climate change meeting.
2. The author of the article refers to previous popes addressing things like racism, anti-semitism, mistreatment of workers. But these are things within the moral area of papal teaching and expertise. Climate change, and supposed man made climate change, are not in the area of Vatican/Papal expertise.
@Blessing Ice is not Pagan or Communist
In his piece, Sohman Ahmani asserts that Pope Leo’s blessing of a block of glacier ice at the “Raising Hope for Climate Justice” conference “was a perfectly orthodox gesture, inspired by the same social concern that animated his predecessors.” I hope that someone more knowledgeable about the purpose of blessing objects can provide insight about this, because I would not expect that the desire to promote “social concerns” such as a greater awareness of climate change would be a typical, expected reason for blessing an object. But maybe my understanding is incomplete or faulty.
I understood that what is being blessed is not the object itself, but the use of the object for “the sanctification of men and the praise of God,” per the Catechism. So, for instance, in the “Blessing of Pasture, Meadows and Fields” that Ahmari links, the priest says
“We humbly beseech Thy clemency, O Lord, that Thou wouldst render these fields (pastures, meadows) fertile with rains in due season, that Thou wouldst fill them with Thy blessing, and so grant that Thy people may be ever thankful for Thy gifts …”.
That blessing would also be used to bless a particular territory, not “pastures, meadow and fields” in general, whereever they may exist.
But looking at the Pope’s blessing at the conference, I could not grasp what the “proper use” of a block of ice from a glacier sitting on a stage would be, or really, what the intended purpose of that blessing was, and this is why it looked so odd. Pope Leo was not blessing the ice as a form of water, to reserve it for liturgical use as holy water, otherwise he would have used a form for that purpose. Unfortunately, the setting (a climate justice conference) did not help because climate justice activists are well-known for staging theatrical events to attract attention, such as throwing soup at Old Masters paintings.
In short … I just don’t get it. Perhaps someone can help.
Re. Pope Leo condemns climate change critics:
(Sigh.)
Again. We have a pope who knows nothing about climate science but who feels justified in condemning those who don’t toe the leftist line.
I have contributed much of this to CWR commentary before, but clearly it is merited once more.
This diatribe of Leo’s is *definitely* not of the Holy Spirit.
* * *
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 — and now Leo — 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 early seventeenth 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.
As MIT emeritus professor of atmospheric science, Richard Lindzen (check him out on Wiki), put it:
“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”
TO STABILIZE CLIMATE WE WOULD HAVE TO:
1. Force the sun to maintain a constant energy output; as it is, the overall output can change a few percent annually.
2. Stop the solar system from moving through the Milky Way galaxy
3. Stop the Earth’s orbit from changing
4. Stop the variation of the Earth’s tilt on its axis
5. Stop the Earth from wobbling on its rotational axis
6. Stop nearby stars from going supernova
7. Stop the ocean currents from changing
8. Control the reflectivity of snow and ice
9. Regulate the evaporation of water from the oceans
10. Stop the molten core of the Earth from varying its
rotation
Oh, yeah. It all makes perfect sense.
Where did the climate geniuses on the left ever get the idea that climate stability is even a thing?
It used to be called “Global Warming” but now “Climate Change” covers all the bases. If we have a blizzard in the deep South & all our citrus dies, well that’s “change.” How do you define change if you’re promoting an agenda? Probably anyway you want to.
🙂
We appeal to making accurate “distinctions”, but who’s listening in an age of memes and phot-ops and the market-share 24-hour news hook cycle? Very Scholastic and therefore “backwardist”, the “rigid” distinction thingy.
Re. Pope Leo condemns climate change critics:
One more note on Pope Leo’s climate change rant.
Michael Crichton, the noted author of science-oriented fictional works like ‘Jurassic Park’ was a noted global warming skeptic.
He contributed this very sensible — obvious, really — observation to the debate, which anyone can understand.
He said:
“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.”
— Michael Crichton
Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, the late physicist Freeman Dyson was always thought-provoking.
From Freeman Dyson Takes on the Climate Establishment
By Michael Lemonick Jun 4, 2009
Excerpt:
Freeman Dyson:
Syukuro Manabe, right here in Princeton, was the first person who did climate models with enhanced carbon dioxide and they were excellent models. And he used to say very firmly that these models are very good tools for understanding climate, but they are not good tools for predicting climate. I think that’s absolutely right. They are models, but they don’t pretend to be the real world. They are purely fluid dynamics. You can learn a lot from them, but you cannot learn what’s going to happen 10 years from now.
What’s wrong with the models. I mean, I haven’t examined them in detail, (but) I know roughly what’s in them. And the basic problem is that in the case of climate, very small structures, like clouds, dominate. And you cannot model them in any realistic way. They are far too small and too diverse.
@Political Polar Icecaps
Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters
October 7, 2025
Leo XIV: A Pontificate On Ice
“Finally, the third question, “Are we alone?”, opens the door to the search for life beyond Earth. This includes looking for extra-solar planets, understanding their composition, and examining whether their conditions might be capable of sustaining life.”
This has already been examined by honest astrobiologists, as opposed to religion hating scientists. The chance of their being another planet in the entire universe fullfilling all of the variables necessary to support life are less than one in ten to the negative 23, which is to say, virtually non-existent. It is never good science to accept as a premise not wanting to offend religion haters.