Dearest Father Angelo, For some time, I have been following the issue of climate change with interest, trying to understand its evolution as best I can. I confess that, as a believer and a practicing member of Catholic Action, I felt a certain embarrassment while reading the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum.

In Chapter 1, “The Global Climate Crisis,” it seems to me that it adopts the positions of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), attributing the cause of climate change and the resulting disasters primarily to anthropogenic activities. Furthermore, it expresses negative and, in some respects, contemptuous judgments towards scientists who hold different positions, including Professor Franco Prodi, whom I follow with interest and whose lecture at the “Colloqui Domenicani” I greatly enjoyed.

I realize that the Holy Father himself could not have directly compiled all the data reported there, without taking into account even in the slightest the viewpoint of other scientists who are fully entitled to express an authoritative differing perspective. The fact remains that the Apostolic Exhortation is a document of the Magisterium and is signed by the Pope.

I am of a certain age, and until now, for me, documents of the Magisterium—even more so if signed by the Pope—were not to be questioned; they were to be read, meditated upon, and followed. This situation causes me unease because it is the Pope speaking through his Apostolic Exhortation, yet in conscience, while I appreciate the strong appeal for environmental protection, I cannot share the position expressed in Chapter 1 concerning the global climate crisis.

Thank you for your attention. I wish you every blessing and send my most cordial regards. Antonio

Dear Father Angelo, good morning. I have a question to ask you, also on behalf of many young men—now all grown, and some even priests—all of whom are your former students. Though our paths have diverged, we all share the values and dogmas of the faith, including the principle that “…the Pope is not to be touched!”

I cannot deny that at times we feel, to say the least, embarrassed. Unfortunately, in down-to-earth discussions, we find ourselves in difficulty. We lack convincing arguments. The hope for a better world is not always enough to satisfy the anxieties and hardships of fathers and mothers, including the elderly, who struggle to put food on the table for the entire month.

We often feel that the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum is misinterpreted and jars with the harsh realities of our day. The great themes of our time seem to be told only halfway, even by the Church. Certain things seem to be kept silent out of expediency, or almost as if due to blackmail or being vulnerable to it. Uncontrolled immigration—if not actually encouraged—is rarely, if ever, denounced. Climate change is shown as the sole responsibility of man…

What are we to say? What are we to do? I truly bless you and commend you to the Lord. Fraternally, Luca

The Priest’s answer

Dear Antonio and Luca,

1. Data of a scientific nature do not fall within the area of the Church’s Magisterium. The Pope does not intend to, nor can he, compel anyone to accept such data as having a guarantee from Our Lord. The scope of the Magisterium is that of faith and morals.

2. The climate and environmental issue undoubtedly is relevant on morals. From this perspective, the Pope is right to call everyone to attention and to their duty. The Second Vatican Council reminds us that the Church “goes forward together with humanity and experiences the same earthly lot which the world does. She serves as a leaven and as a kind of soul for human society as it is to be renewed in Christ and transformed into God’s family” (Gaudium et spes, 40).

Then it adds: “Christ, to be sure, gave His Church no proper mission in the political, economic or social order. The purpose which He set before her is a religious one. But out of this religious mission itself come a function, a light and an energy which can serve to structure and consolidate the human community according to the divine law” (GS 42). Previously, John XXIII had said: “Hence, though the Church’s first care must be for souls, how she can sanctify them and make them share in the gifts of heaven, she concerns herself too with the exigencies of man’s daily life, with his livelihood and education, and his general, temporal welfare and prosperity” (Mater et Magistra, 4).

3. What Holy Pope Paul VI stated—encapsulated in the principle that “the Church does not have technical solutions to offer” (as later summarized by Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate, 9, with reference to Populorum Progressio, 87)—also applies to the climate and environmental issue. He further noted that “In the face of such widely varying situations it is difficult for us to utter a unified message and to put forward a solution which has universal validity. Such is not our ambition, nor is it our mission” (Octogesima Adveniens 4).

4. Similarly, Saint Pope John Paul II expressed himself in the encyclical Laborem Exercens when he stated: “on the eve of new developments in technological, economic and political conditions… It is not for the Church to analyze scientifically the consequences that these changes may have (…). 
But the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide the above-mentioned changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society” (LE 1).

5. The Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reminds us that “The Church’s social teaching (…) concerns the ethical aspect of this life. It takes into account the technical aspects of problems but always in order to judge them from the moral point of view.” (no. 72).

6.  An important document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, entitled Guidelines for the study and teaching of the Church’s Social Doctrine in the formation of Priests, emphasizes that “An analysis of the documents points out that the social doctrine of the Church contains numerous judgments about concrete situations, structures, social systems, and ideologies” (no. 49). It adds that “Obviously, the formulation of moral judgments about social situations, structures and systems does not bear the same degree of authority, which is proper to the Magisterium of the Church, when pronouncements are made about fundamental principles” (Ib.).

7. And it points out that “the Church can make the use of all the help the sciences can offer when she makes a judgement, for example, of critically measurable empirical data, but being well aware that it is not her task to scientifically analyze reality and the possible consequences of social changes. This is true for the universal Church and for the local Churches” (Ib., 50).
And that “sociological analysis does not always offer an objective presentation of data and facts because it may be subject from the start to a particular ideological view or very precise political strategy” (Ib., 50).

I bless you.

Father Angelo

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