Unlike the widespread political and media interest surrounding Laudato si' in 2015 or even Fratelli tutti in 2020, this encyclical received little attention beyond Catholic circles.

An encyclical's impact takes time.

In 2015, Laudato si' coincided with the COP21 summit in Paris, which amplified its reception. For Dilexit nos, however, there was no prior anticipation.

Unlike Fratelli tutti, which included accessible themes such as migration and human unity, this new encyclical on the Sacred Heart appears almost inscrutable to the French media landscape.

This lack of visibility reflects some level of media disinterest in church life, a point the church should consider.

To complicate matters, the encyclical was released just days before the conclusion of the Synod, diluting its impact.

Additionally, Dilexit nos may have unsettled some readers.

The pope's last two encyclicals were highly social in focus, making Francis appear more of a political figure than a religious leader.

Public opinion is often more engaged with his social and political positions than the spiritual reflections underlying them.

Thus, Dilexit nos might surprise or even disappoint some. IYet, by meditating on human love, it addresses the most significant social bond, ending with the "heart of hearts": the role of love.

It's a profound message that aligns with his consistent teachings since the beginning of his papacy.

An encyclical for everyone

I don't believe this encyclical is aimed solely at Catholics. For those who take the time to read it, Pope Francis offers solutions to address today's crises.

For me, Dilexit nos completes a trilogy with Laudato si' and Fratelli tutti.

First, he addressed the environment, our shared "body" marked by ecological suffering; then the social body, torn by war and division; now, he turns to the bodily self, emphasizing human interiority.

Without reconnecting with the inner power of love, humanity won't find solutions to the struggles highlighted in the first two encyclicals.

Though the message—calling for the awakening of hearts—has yet to be widely received, I'm convinced this encyclical has a promising future.

The pope underscored that true change begins in the heart.

Love is an antidote to an increasingly cold, indifferent world. Therefore, we must embrace this text and convey what the pope seeks to communicate.

"There seems to be a waning interest in the pope"

Jean-Louis de La Vaissière, former AFP journalist accredited to the Vatican from 2011 to 2016 and author of several books on the papacy.

Media disinterest

It's unsurprising that this encyclical received little media attention.

Over time, though still popular, Pope Francis attracts interest only when addressing hot-button issues like same-sex couple blessings or women's ordination.

Topics like his health or potential resignation also draw attention, but little else does.

After eleven years of pontificate, there's a noticeable erosion of interest.

This was evident after his trip to Marseille in September 2023, where his message, particularly on immigration, wasn't universally well-received.

During his September trip to Asia, French news outlets barely covered it, overshadowed by domestic stories.

Similarly, his visit to Belgium was only noted for his comments on abortion, which sparked shock.

The French media and society are largely indifferent to deeply religious subjects like the Sacred Heart.

Francis' previous encyclicals, Laudato si' on the environment and Fratelli tutti on fraternity, resonated because they touched on issues relevant to the public.

Pope John Paul II's powerful words attracted a lot of attention in previous decades, as did Benedict XVI's, despite their theological depth.

With this encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Francis presents a deeply religious text tinged with traditional, popular devotion, which France's major media tend to dismiss.

It reflects the paradox of a pope who embraces the modern world yet draws deeply from tradition. His call to return to the essentials—love, affection, connection—runs counter to today's values: speed, efficiency, profitability.

Pope Francis is a cultured man, steeped in French theological tradition and European mysticism. Yet these references no longer resonate widely.

This disinterest may also reflect a deeper issue: some feel disillusioned with him because he hasn't conformed to the progressive ideals many expected.

His message is paradoxical, at times daring, at others more conservative.

His recent strong statements against abortion in Belgium, for example, surprised the French, who largely support constitutionalising abortion rights.

Such views may have led the media to dismiss him as a relic of the past, not the progressive leader they anticipated.

• First published in La Croix
• Arnaud Bevilacqua and Clémence Houdaille are journalists at La Croix

Groan!

Last month, Italian Bishop Domenico Pompili revealed that Pope Francis is preparing a new papal encyclical — the third of his papacy and his first in five years — to focus on the economic, environmental and spiritual change that is necessary to address today's modern challenges.

To be released Oct. 3, the vigil of the feast of St. Francis Assisi, the encyclical will be titled "Fratelli tutti" in Italian or, strictly translated, "Brothers all."

Hopefully, the official English translation of "Fratelli tutti" will be "Brothers and sisters all," but it is sad to see the church continue to suffer from self-inflicted wounds. It would have been so easy to have titled the encyclical "Fratelli e Sorelle tutti." The concern about language in the title will increase the focus on the language of the entire encyclical.

The response from the Vatican will be that "fratelli" in Italian is inclusive. Sure. That what we said about "brothers" and "men" in English. Couldn't the church get ahead of the curve for once?

"Italian (and Argentinian) culture has not gotten to the point where patriarchal language is offensive and unacceptable," acknowledges Lisa Cahill, professor of theology at Boston College.

But, she noted, "The gender inclusion issue cannot be explained away via grammatical rules, which was the rationalization of English exclusive language back in the day, and not that far back.

"Technically ‘man' and ‘he/his' were inclusive, but they bias the imagination toward men as the primary, if not exclusive, referents, which is why they have fallen out of use as cultures become more gender-equal."

Cahill said that the outcry over the language in the United States "is predictable because the wording is so out of sync with the culture."

However, she added, the most damage "will be in patriarchal cultures where this terminology will simply reinforce the marginal and silenced position that women have always held."

Some theologians may have preferred that Francis use the term "solidarity," a favourite concept of his that he seems to realize is abstract and impersonal compared with "fraternity."

"I imagine a big part of Francis' desire is to personalize solidarity with fraternity," explains Vincent Miller, professor of theology and culture at the University of Dayton. "Once we explain solidarity, a lot of people like it. ‘Brother and sister' function without explanation."

Francis also sees "fraternity" as a term that transcends religions and cultures, as in the document on "Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" that Francis and the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, signed in February 2019 in Abu Dhabi.

But kinship references like fraternity also have their own problems.

The Nigerian Jesuit Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator noted in a 2010 article in the journal Theological Studies that kinship and family metaphors can validate tribal and in-group loyalty, as we see not only in Africa, but also in polarized U.S. electoral politics today.

Whatever the metaphor, there is always a need to push our thinking toward universalism.

The greatest concern, as Cahill and Miller suggest, is that all this discussion of sexist language will distract the media from what Cahill and Miller expect to be the outstanding content of the encyclical, which will focus on how Catholic social teaching relates to the world today.

The media "relate primarily to low-hanging journalistic fruit," complains Cahill, by focusing on "the Catholic Church is sexist."

"I don't think (giving him the benefit of the doubt) that Pope Francis is intentionally trying to confine women to a lesser place," says Cahill. "It is a matter of the ongoing ecclesial inertia, cultural limitation and tone-deafness."

Cahill, Miller and other theologians fear that the new encyclical will be treated by the media like the Amazon synod, where all the attention went to "who can be ordained," with limited focus on Indigenous issues and participation. This media obsession still upsets Francis, who feels that the Amazonian issues at the synod — the devastation of the rainforests and Indigenous peoples and their cultures — did not get adequate coverage.

Let us pray that the encyclical's language does not distract from its content.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CathNews.

Cardinal Peter Turkson said proposals to drop the concept of just war were "legitimate".

He called for a "broad and deeply felt" debate on the question of just war theory.

"A possible encyclical is plausible only as the fruit of much dialogue, not as a starting point," he said.

Continue reading

In a front page article in L'Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti wrote that in 1891, Pope Leo "turned the maternal gaze of the Church" to the labour question.

This was during the transition away from an agricultural society during the industrial revolution.

We now live in a similarly crucial time of transition, Cardinal Bassetti continued.

This is one predicted by Fr Romano Guardini in The End of the Modern World, in which a "non-human man" claims limitless dominance over nature and an "economic, technical, organisational state" asserts limitless power over humanity and creation.

The most important challenge of Laudato Si', then, is the challenge to the "ungovernable power" of the "techno-economic paradigm".

Continue reading

In an interview with the Financial Times, the cardinal appeared to distance himself from the science behind some of the statements in Laudato Si'.

In the document, released last month, Francis called for global action on climate change and criticised world leaders for not addressing the issue urgently enough.

But last week Cardinal Pell warned: ". . . [T]he Church has no particular expertise in science. The Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science."

Cardinal Pell did praise aspects of the encyclical, saying, ""It's got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful".

The cardinal noted the encyclical had been "very well received" and said Francis had "beautifully set out our obligations to future generations and our obligations to the environment".

Cardinal Pell is a known climate change sceptic.

In 2011, he clashed with the then-head of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, Greg Ayers, who said the cardinal was "misled" in his climate change views.

The same year, Cardinal Pell spoke of his "deepening suspicions" around man-made climate change during a talk an audience at Westminster Cathedral Hall in London, at an event sponsored by The Global Warming Policy Foundation.

He said then that global warming had "stopped".

He went on: "Animals would not notice a doubling of CO2 and obviously plants would love it."

While Pope Francis won praise from environmental activists for Laudato Si', others have argued the pope should not be wading into the political and scientific debate.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Crux
• Image: The Guardian

continued simply overwhelmed by the direct evangelical call to action, personal and collective. The encyclical is no mere commentary on the world's current concerns - although its narrative of the facts of environmental and social degradation is succinct and discerning.

Instead, it lifts and intensifies the debate by demanding that we see these great issues of pollution, poverty and powerlessness as direct personal challenges - challenges to the way each one of us lives, to the businesses we run, the jobs we do, and the choices we make.

So, when the environmental world welcomes the Pope as a powerful ally and the religious Right dismisses him as a disingenuous radical, both have missed the essential point.

This is the Gospel call, as disconcertingly direct today as was Jesus's confrontation with the rich young man, the scribes and the Pharisees, or the moneychangers in the Temple. That's the unique quality of the encyclical.

It is not just the declaration of assent to a programme of international environmental action, but also the prophetic voice of the Church. It is therefore far more fundamentally disturbing and uncomfortable, demanding an individual response that will change our lives for ever.

Pope Francis is at pains to set the whole process in its religious context. He sees this encyclical as the natural development of the teaching of the Church, not as some immediate response to a secular agenda.

Firmly rooted in the Bible, he draws continual inspiration from St Francis of Assisi and develops the teachings of John Paul II and Paul VI, and even brings in the particular insight of the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, whose long-standing commitment to environmental theology he celebrates. Continue reading

• Lord Deben is chairman of CCC, the UK's independent Committee on Climate Change.

While the new phrases he uses in his ecology encyclical are not as punchy, they succinctly help illustrate his points that care for the environment is a human and moral obligation, that global warming and pollution have an unfairly heavy impact on the poor and that a real commitment to ecology will entail individual conversion and changed political and economic priorities.

The following is a list defining some key phrases Pope Francis uses in the encyclical, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."

— "Integral ecology": The heart of Pope Francis' teaching in the encyclical is his affirmation that the environmental crisis is not only about polluted land, water and air, but includes dangerous attitudes toward other human beings as well as economic practices that harm people and the environment.

His solution is an "integral ecology," one that challenges all people to broaden their focus of concern and their daily behavior to include standard environmental ecology, but also: protection of all human life; concrete acts of solidarity with the poor; ethical conduct in economic affairs; greater attention to urban planning to facilitate social relationships and give all people some contact with nature; and protection of people's cultural heritage in an era when media saturation tends to erase distinctions.

— "Ecological debt": The world's richest countries, the pope says, have an outstanding "ecological debt" to the world's poorer countries and they have a social and moral obligation to repay it.

Particularly between the global North and South, he says, there is a debt "connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time."

The wealth of the world's most industrialized countries, the pope says, comes in large part from excessive profits drawn from practices like mining or logging in developing countries and taking advantage of their weak environmental protection laws and cheap labor. Continue reading

Sources

• Vassallomalta
• Image: Vassallomalta

Italian Bishop Mario Tosi, formerly secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said the Pope changed the structure of the document from its first draft.

The initial version had a long introduction of a theological, liturgical, sacramental and spiritual character, Bishop Tosi said.

Had it stayed this way, it would have been addressed more immediately to the Catholic world, the bishop said.

Rather, Francis moved the theological part to the middle and end, as he also did with passages on spirituality and education.

The final document was structured so as to present a consideration of the situation, as well as an evaluation and a "prefiguration of practical guidelines" for working on a solution, the bishop said.

"He thus wanted to involve the largest possible number of readers, including non-believers, in a thought process that, to a large extent, can be shared by all."

The encyclical, released last Thursday, was addressed to "every living person on the planet".

"I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home," Pope Francis wrote.

Writing at UCA News, Fr William Grimm noted that the encyclical has been published without a Latin version.

In an article posted on June 22, Fr Grimm wrote that the only versions on the Vatican website are Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.

"As Pope Francis tries to wean the Catholic Church from the top-down, centralised way of life and thought that has characterised it for the past few centuries and bring us back to a more traditional form of Church life, he is looking to the voices of communities throughout the world.

"That is symbolised in his not using the Vatican's official language, Latin," Fr Grimm wrote.

Sources

• L'Espresso
• UCA News
• Image: Salt and Light TV

In fact, it's a document so perfectly in line with usual Catholic teaching that the most illuminating piece of commentary on it I could find was perhaps this 2009 column by The New York Times' Ross Douthat on his predecessor's encyclical "Caritas in Veritate."

But, then again, it's that very usualness that makes it unusual, since Catholic teaching is, itself, so very different from the categories we usually ascribe to it.

The Pope's encyclical is very much a Catholic vision of care for creation, which makes it stand out from either pop environmentalism (which sometimes veers too close to Gaia worship) or conservative indifference (or what looks like it) to care for the environment.

In line with a famous Biblical phrase, Catholic theologians and pastors over the years have emphasized the "seamless garment" of the Church's teaching — that every piece of it is connected to the others so that they form a coherent whole, making it impossible to take out one piece without ruining the rest.

In contemporary politics, where we bracket things between left and right, "social issues" and "economic issues," that is a sorely needed corrective.

Here's an example of the seamless garment at work: In the encyclical, Pope Francis reiterates his and the Church's opposition to abortion, birth control, and population control, and warns that concern for the environment must not be used as a pretext to support these policies.

Francis' vision is of a "human ecology," to reprise a phrase from Pope John Paul II. The Biblical vision is that man was created by God as the centerpiece of His creation, and as its caretaker and steward.

This means that man has a duty to care for creation and not destroy it, seeing it as a trust, not property. But it also means that caring for creation must not come at the cost of human dignity. Continue reading

• Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C.

Here are some of the key quotes from the document:

Introduction
We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.

Warming and the greenhouse effect
A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon…

It is true that there are other factors (such as volcanic activity, variations in the earth's orbit and axis, the solar cycle), yet a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity.

Sea level rise
If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.

A rise in the sea level, for example, can create extremely serious situations, if we consider that a quarter of the world's population lives on the coast or nearby, and that the majority of our megacities are situated in coastal areas.

The imposition of "reproductive health"
Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of "reproductive health"…

To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues. Continue reading

Sources

• aleteia
• Image: Inquirer.net

Quoting his patron saint, Francis of Assisi - who is also the patron saint of ecology - Pope Francis begins his papal letter with a beautiful verse from the saint's Canticle of the Creatures: " ‘Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.'

"St. Francis of Assisi reminds us," writes the pope, "that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. …

"This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will."

Pope Francis explains, "Each year hundreds of millions of tons of waste are generated. … The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth."

Siding with 97 percent of climate scientists he says, "A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system" (visit http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/).

The pope urgently calls for worldwide conversion from the use of global warming fossil fuels - oil, coal, gas - to "clean renewable energy" found in wind, solar and geothermal. (visit Earth Policy Institute http://bit.ly/1JaEb9B).

"Climate change … represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day."

The Holy Father writes, "The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming. …

"Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change."

Francis writes that in political and economic discussions the poor seem to be brought up as an afterthought. "Indeed, when all is said and done, they frequently remain at the bottom of the pile. …

"Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor."

The Church "must above all protect mankind from self-destruction."

The Holy Father sees the environmental problem as part of a much larger, more serious problem: Our failure to consistently recognize the truth that everyone and everything is interconnected.

He explains, "When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities - to offer just a few examples - it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected."

However, because we continue to ignore the vital necessity of nurturing this interconnectedness, the ecological, social and spiritual web is tearing.

But if we care at all, we still have a little time to mend the tears.

For anyone interested in being a part of the solution, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" is a must read!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated columnist from the U.S. who covers a wide range of social justice and peace issues.

A second, whose hands have been lopped off, gestures with gory stumps. A third holds his own severed head by the hair. These were, in life, sowers of discord, who, for the divisions they created, will spend eternity hacked into bits.

"In me you may observe fit punishment," the severed head helpfully points out.

The subcircle of the schismatics came to mind this week, when someone—presumably a Vatican insider—leaked a copy of Pope Francis's encyclical on climate change and the environment three days before its official release.

The leaked document appeared on the Web site of the Italian weekly L'Espresso on Monday, with a brief introduction that declared, triumphantly, "Here it is."

The whodunit story of how the magazine obtained the document quickly edged out coverage of the encyclical itself, which, at that point, most of the world couldn't read, because only the Italian version had been posted.

The Turin daily La Stampa described the episode as a giallo—Italian shorthand for a detective novel. Whoever had passed along the Pope's letter, the newspaper speculated, had a "double goal": to undermine the message of the encyclical and to undermine Pope Francis.

Vatican officials asked journalists from other publications to refrain from reporting on the version released by L'Espresso, a request that the majority pointedly ignored.

The encyclical, which is titled "Laudato si' "—"Be Praised," a line borrowed from "The Canticle of the Sun," a poem attributed to the Pope's namesake, St. Francis—was finally officially released Thursday, as planned, in Rome. (It was very similar to the leaked version.)

The Vatican made available translations not just in English but also in German, Spanish, and Portuguese. Though a work built, like Dante's, around the ideal of love (in the English version, the word "love" appears sixty-seven times), "Laudato si' " is, at the same time, an unsparing indictment of just about every aspect of modern life.

And though its focus is on man's relationship to nature, it also has much to say about man's relationship to his fellow man and to himself—little of it laudatory.

The vision that Pope Francis offers in his encyclical is of a world spiralling toward disaster, in which people are too busy shopping and checking their cell phones to do, or even care, much about it. Continue reading

• Elizabeth Kolbert has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999.

Considering the author's global popularity, the high profile created by his office, and the politically polarizing topic - the environment, especially his insistence on action on climate change - the buzz is not surprising.

Also feeding interest is the fact that an early version of the encyclical appeared in the Italian press on Monday, which created a mini-drama about who leaked it and why, and cost the journalist who wrote the introduction his Vatican press credentials.

With the official release set for Thursday at 6 a.m. EDT, this is a good moment for a quick refresher on what an "encyclical" actually is, and why it matters that Francis is devoting one to this subject.

Making the rounds

An encyclical is, literally, a circular letter to be spread through a community. Etymologically, it comes from the Greek word egkyklios,which means "circle."

Encyclicals are usually addressed to all the bishops of the world, but there are exceptions: Some are addressed to a certain group of bishops (i.e., the bishops of Asia); others specifically to the clergy and all the Catholic faithful.

Still others, such as Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical "Pacem in Terris" ("Peace on Earth"), have been addressed to "all people of good will."

Beyond containing spelling mistakes and errors in footnotes, the draft version of Laudato Si leaked by the Italian magazine "l'Espresso" on Monday lacked the dedication page, so it's not yet clear to whom it's addressed, although in the early version of the text Francis appears to suggest it's intended for the whole world.

Leaks happen

Despite the frenzy generated by the leak, it's hardly the first time a news organization published a papal document before its due date.

Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, for example, was largely published before its release by the Italian paper Corriere della Sera. In July 1968, Time's bureau chief in Rome, Wilton Wynn, "gladly" paid $500 for a leaked copy of Pope Paul VI's encyclical on birth control, Humanae Vitae. Continue reading

Sources

• Crux
• Image: Parish of Haverford West

The upcoming encyclical, which is scheduled to be released on June 18, is the first by a pope to directly address an environmental issue.

Francis' only previous encyclical, Lumen Fidei ("The Light of Faith"), was issued on June 29, 2013, and concerned the nature of religious faith.

Encyclicals are papal letters - the word "encyclical" means "circular letter" - usually addressed to Catholic clergy and the laity and containing the pope's views on church teachings and doctrine in a particular area.

While encyclicals do not set down new church doctrine (the Roman Catholic Church's core beliefs), they are in essence official statements and are considered authoritative teaching, since popes speak for the church.

Popes have other ways to communicate, such as apostolic exhortations (which urge faithful Catholics to take certain actions) or homilies and sermons.

But encyclicals carry particular weight because they are formal documents.

Popes have written encyclicals on an array of topics, ranging from the nature of work to the virginity of Jesus' mother, Mary.

Some of the more famous encyclicals include Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae ("Of Human Life"), which reaffirms the church's teaching on birth control and premarital sex, and Pope John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor ("The Splendor of Truth"), which speaks to humanity's ability to understand and know moral truth.

While popes have been writing letters to the faithful since the early days of the church, the first pope to issue an encyclical (and call it such) was Benedict XIV, who released Ubi Primum ("On the Duty of Bishops") in 1740. Since then, nearly 300 "circular letters" have been issued. Continue reading

Source and Image

• Pew Research Centre

Earlier unconfirmed reports had put the release date two days earlier.

"To avoid confusion on the diffusion of non-confirmed information, it is communicated that the foreseen date of the Pope's encyclical is the next June 18, Thursday," the Vatican's press office announced.

The encyclical is reportedly to be given the title "Laudato Sii", a quotation from a popular prayer of St Francis of Assisi praising God for the creation of the different creatures and aspects of the Earth.

Continue reading

Veteran Vaticanista Sandro Magister claimed on his blog Settimo Cielo on May 11 that the Pope had "binned" the first draft of the encyclical in March.

Magister said the Pope feared the first draft would have been "demolished" by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "once it had gotten into his hands".

The draft had been ghost-written by the Pope's theologian friend Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández from Argentina, the National Catholic Register reported.

But Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said it is "normal and obvious" that, as with any encyclical, the CDF would check the document before publication.

Fr Lombardi said he was unaware of "any cause of delays or problems".

He called the speculation "totally unfounded" and said it "seems almost unbelievable that such things are written".

Fr Lombardi said it is "reasonable to expect the publication within a few weeks, probably in June".

A few days previously, Archbishop Fernández told Corriere della Sera that the Curia "is not an essential structure".

He added that a prefect of a dicastery was essentially not necessary to prevent the Church from "falling into ignominy".

Rather Christ granted the Pope and the bishops a special governance and enlightenment —not to a prefect or some other structure, Archbishop Fernández said.

The archbishop's comments come after Cardinal Müller stated in an interview in April that the CDF's role was to "provide the theological structure of a pontificate".

Archbishop Fernández is considered to be one of Pope Francis's inner circle.

The archbishop, who is rector of the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires, contributed to Evangelii Gaudium.

He was appointed by Pope Francis as vice president of the commission that drew up the final message of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family last October.

Sources

• National Catholic Register
• Image: John Thavis blog

Actually, Pope Francis himself is making them look more ridiculous and isolated than ever.

He's poised to put his moral imprimatur on the scientific consensus about man-made climate change, with a much-anticipated summer encyclical, and this is driving the conservative deniers batty.

It's also putting Republicans, most notably Catholic presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, in a very awkward position.

They've got to keep pandering to the anti-science nuts in The Base without appearing to diss the popular pro-science pontiff.

The pope has been discomfiting the deniers since last winter, when he cited human activity as a key factor in climate change:

"In great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face. We have in a sense taken over nature." Cardinal Peter Turkson, a top Vatican official, says the pope "is pointing to the ominous signs in nature that suggest that humanity may now have tilled too much and kept too little."

And yesterday, at a Vatican summit meeting, religious and science leaders (along with business and political leaders) released a joint statement. The key quote: "Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its decisive mitigation is a moral and religious imperative for humanity."

Best of all, Pope Francis is slated to address Congress in September (roughly 30 percent of its members are Catholic), at the express invitation of John Boehner. Buy your popcorn now.

As the Rev. Thomas Reese, an analyst at the National Catholic Reporter, told the press the other day, "I think Boehner was out of his mind to invite the pope....Can you imagine what the Republicans will do when he says, 'You've got to do something about global warming?'"

What they'll do, of course, is dismiss and deny. Yes, the pope has great moral power (and a grassroots global following, thanks to his social media savvy), and yes, he's helping to build momentum for a United Nations climate change accord in December. Continue reading

Image: EcoWatch

At an event at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr Gore said he thinks Francis is "quite an inspiring figure, really".

"I've been startled with the clarity of the moral force that he embodies," Mr Gore said.

"Well I've said publicly in the last year, I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, I could become a Catholic because of this Pope," he added.

"He is that inspiring to me. And I know the vast majority of my Catholic friends are just thrilled to the marrow of their bones that he is providing this kind of spiritual leadership."

The Pope is expected to issue an encyclical on the environment in the next few weeks.

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Vatican officials made this announcement on April 28 at a one-day Rome summit on climate change.

According to a report on the Crux website, the President of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, told the gathering: "The Pope said this morning that it's finished."

The encyclical will be divided into two parts, the bishop said.

Firstly , what Christianity calls "revelation", which he defined as the idea that man is the steward of creation.

Secondly, the natural sciences, combining faith and reason.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the summit the encyclical is one of three factors that could turn 2015 into a critical year in the fight against climate change and global warming.

The other two, he said, are the signing of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals this September, and an international summit in Paris in December designed to achieve a global climate agreement.

At the invitation of Mr Ban, Francis will open the UN Special General Assembly on September 25, with more than 193 heads of state scheduled to be in attendance.

"We have an unprecedented opportunity to articulate — and create — a more sustainable future and a life of dignity for all," Mr Ban said.

Titled "Protect the earth, protect humanity," Tuesday's one-day conference was designed to produce a joint statement on "the moral and religious imperative of dealing with climate change in the context of sustainable development".

The conference's final statement declared that: "Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its decisive mitigation is a moral and religious imperative for humanity."

During the conference, the Vatican's science academy challenged politicians to end their "infatuation" with a form of economic growth that is ruining the Earth.

The academy said that nations were measuring their wealth by Gross Domestic Product, taking no account of the harm caused by business practises.

Before the summit, a climate change contrarian group urged the Pope to listen to both sides of the debate and not to take sides in politics.

Sources

• Crux
• BBC
• National Catholic Reporter
• New York Times
• Image: Ecodaily

An encyclical on the environment, which will also address climate change, is expected from Francis next year.

Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said the encyclical would be produced in time to influence "next year's crucial decisions".

There is a meeting next September at the United Nations to draft the Sustainable Development Goals and another gathering on climate change in Paris in December.

On the planned papal meeting, the bishop said the Pope wanted to bring leaders of the main religions together "to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion".

Bishop Sorondo said the problems for the natural world have been exacerbated by the fact economic activity is only measured according to gross domestic product.

This "does not take into account the degradation of the earth" or "the unjust inequalities between countries and within countries".

Bishop Sorondo told The Tablet: "The Pope is very aware that the consequences of climate change affect all people, but especially the poor. This is the moral consequence, the moral imperative."

At a recent APEC meeting, the United States and China committed to climate change emissions reduction targets.

New Zealand expects to set a 2020 target for carbon emission reductions early next year, Prime Minister John Key said.

In September, an article in the journal Science argued that engaging religious leaders, rather than relying on politicians, could hold the key to mobilising billions of people around the world to change aspects of their lifestyles to help prevent catastrophic climate change.

The article singled out Pope Francis and the Catholic Church as the key, but called for religious leaders of every stripe to be recruited.

It argued that religion can provide a unique combination of "moral leadership" and global organisational structures required to bring about practical changes which could have an immediate effect.

One example suggested is providing millions of the world's poorest people with cleaner forms of fuel.

Sources

• The Tablet
• New Zealand Herald
• The Telegraph
• Image: Ecowatch