UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reproter
Ken Briggs | Jun. 21, 2015
Pope Francis is a pungent preacher. His blunt rhetoric has electrified the world and effectively changed the church’s image from moribund to rejuvenated just as I suspect he was elected to do. The narrative has been extensively revamped.
But preaching doesn’t go as far as it once did without something to back it up. Not that long ago, a pope’s admonitions were enough. If Pius XII had decided to add a fishless Tuesday to the discipline in 1949, chances are that his word alone would have won overwhelming compliance. No more. Catholics like their fellow citizens are far less willing to obey authority on its face.
To win over audiences, preachers of reform are much more likely to succeed by admitting that their own houses have contributed to the crisis and that they are determined to do something about it.
Francis’ diagnosis and prescriptions, compelling as they are, need persuasive confession that the church itself has been a polluter and a profiteer in the building of the fossil fuel empire. So far as I can tell, the church’s implicit collusion in damaging the climate never enters into the pope’s encyclical. Neither does any indication that the Vatican will back up his eloquent alarm by divesting the portion of its estimated $8 billion bank account that’s tied up in global oil.
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