The Washington Post has a great article by Chris Mooney. It is titled:
Pope Francis has given the climate
movement just what it needed —
faith
Mooney starts off with:
"This week — and it still feels strange to write this — the major climate change news story came out of the Vatican.
There, at the center of global Catholicism, church leaders joined with politicians, scientists and economists to draft a statement declaring not only that climate change is a “scientific reality” but also that there’s a moral and religious responsibility to do something about it. And an even more powerful statement is expected soon from Pope Francis himself, who is slated to release a major papal encyclical on the environment this summer."
This new Pope is a breath of fresh air on many fronts. For example, as reported by The New York Times in July of 2013:
“If
someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I
to judge?” Francis told reporters, speaking in Italian but using the
English word “gay.”
Francis’s words could not have been more different from those of Benedict XVI, who in 2005 wrote that homosexuality
was “a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil,” and an
“objective disorder.” The church document said men with “deep-seated
homosexual tendencies” should not become priests."
