The Vatican's dangerous embrace of climate-change theory

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 29, 2015

Imagine—just imagine, for the sake of the argument—that scientists in a future generation discover that the global-warming trend of recent years was not caused by human activity. If that happens, what will be the consequences for the Catholic Church, in light of the Vatican’s apparent embrace of the climate-change hypothesis?

This is not-- repeat, not another column about the scientific evidence for or against the reality human-induced climate change. If you are inclined to respond by denouncing either the proponents or the foes of that theory, please stop. My own personal opinion on that theory is of little or no value, since I am not qualified to speak on scientific questions. Nor, for that matter, are many of the reporters and columnists who form public opinion on this matter.

My point is a simple one. There is a scientific debate on this question, and the debate is unsettled. Yes, I realize that a majority of scientists have accepted the argument that human activity is causing climate change. But scientific debates are not resolved by majority vote. Some very distinguished scientists remain unconvinced. There is heavy pressure on them to embrace the climate-change theory, but that evidence is primarily political rather than scientific. To date no one has produced the conclusive evidence that would shut off further debate. Until that evidence appears, it is not unreasonable to speculate about what might ensue if the minority view is vindicated.

Let me add a second simple point. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has no expertise in science. If bishops and cardinals and even Roman Pontiffs throw their support behind one side of a scientific debate—in this case, if they ally themselves with the climate-change theorists—they might add to the political pressure on the skeptics. But that will not alter the scientific facts.

So let me return to my initial question. If the Catholic Church endorses the climate-change hypothesis, and later developments prove that hypothesis wrong, what will be the net result? The result, I fear, will be skepticism: not about climate issues, but about the authority of the Catholic Church. Critics of Catholicism will say that the Vatican had learned nothing from the Galileo affair, and had again exerted its moral authority improperly in a scientific debate.

Of course that unhappy outcome would occur only if the climate-change hypothesis is proven wrong. If the hypothesis is confirmed, then the Vatican’s support will seem justified. But since the debate is unsettled, is it prudent for the Vatican to gamble on the outcome?

Cui bono? Who profits from the Vatican’s involvement in the climate-change debate? Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the UN, has been delighted with the Vatican’s participation in the debate. He told this week’s conference in Rome that religious and scientific leaders should cooperate: “Together, we must clearly communicate that the science of climate change is deep, sound, and not in doubt.” In other words he welcomed the Vatican’s willingness to make a statement on a scientific question.

Speaking on climate change, Ban Ki-moon insisted: “It is a moral issue. It is an issue of social justice, human rights, and fundamental ethics.” Well, then, I hope the UN leadership will be equally willing to accept the Vatican’s guidance on moral issues, on issues of human rights and fundamental ethics.

In his own address to the same conference, Cardinal Peter Turkson also spoke about the “moral imperative” of action on climate change. But the cardinal’s perspective differed from that of the UN official in a few important respects. While Ban Ki-moon concentrated on climate change, Cardinal Turkson spoke about the “throwaway culture” and the need for moral conversion. These—unlike the measurements of global temperatures and plotting of climate models—are questions on which the Catholic Church can speak with some real authority.

Cardinal Turkson spoke about the scandal of hunger in a world in which there is sufficient food for everyone. It is a scandal, he observed, that roughly one-third of all the food produced goes to waste. How could anyone dispute that? The Vatican has frequently observed that the affluent societies of the West are furnishing impoverished countries with guns and contraceptives, but not with food and medicine. Surely something is profoundly wrong with the global economic system that forms those priorities.

Christians are called to be good stewards of natural resources, and by inference to oppose the rapacious exploitation of natural resources. There is a great deal that Church leaders could say—and have said, and should continue to say—about the need to develop resources rather than simply to harvest them; to cooperate with natural processes rather than defeat them by the use of chemical or mechanical might; to respect and nurture rather than to divide and conquer.

No doubt Pope Francis will sound all these themes in his forthcoming encyclical on the environment. But those important messages may be lost in translation, if the mass media see the papal document as nothing more than an endorsement of the climate-change theory.

Cardinal Turkson told the April 28 conference that “the Church must speak forcefully on the great challenge of our time: the challenge of sustainable development.” Fair enough; sustainable development—good stewardship—is a goal worthy of the Church’s support. But Ban Ki-moon had a different message: “climate change is the defining issue of our time.” In every report that I have read about the Rome conference in the secular media, without exception, that is the issue that has been in the forefront. Not sustainable development, the throwaway culture, not moral conversion, but climate change: the one issue on which the Church cannot speak with authority.