The Catholic News Service has published details of a Wikileaks cable entitled “‘Green’ pope supports US path forward from Copenhagen.”His Grace always thought His Holiness preferred purples and crimsons.
But this ‘Green’ Pope has apparently approved a 'Vatican commitment to accord on climate change’.
The cable discloses that the Holy See was ‘committed to getting countries aligned with the Copenhagen Accord on climate change’:
The confidential cable claimed a Vatican official at the Secretariat of State would support U.S. government 'efforts to have countries associate themselves with the Copenhagen Accord by the January 31 deadline' as well as 'encourage other countries discreetly to associate themselves with the Accord as opportunities arise'.While His Grace agrees with His Holiness that it is incumbent upon us all to be good stewards of creation, it is interesting to hear that Pope Benedict shares with the US ‘the growing concern caused by economic and political resistance to combating the degradation of the environment’.
Economic and political resistance?
To a ‘comprehensive, binding accord on reducing global emissions’?
And for the US and the Vatican there can be no political or moral justification for such resistance?
What about the science, Your Holiness?
It is curious that in 2007 Pope Benedict was challenging the orthodoxy of the political aspects of the global warming movement around the world. He made a plea for the application of the scientific method to challenge the hysteria surrounding the half-baked theories of pseudo-scientists and ignoramuses like Al Gore. His Grace thought we had a pope who was prepared to confront head-on the climate change ‘prophets of doom’ with the warning that any solutions to global warming ‘must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology’.
The Pope unequivocally dismissed talk of man-made emissions melting the ice caps as ‘scare-mongering’. He clearly and forthrightly demanded that assessment ‘be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances’.
Yet now we read, according to this Wikileaks cable, that one Msgr. Reinert said: 'the profile of environmental issues in the Vatican is at an all-time high’.
And that the Copenhagen Accord was seen as the solution.
Is this just another case of minor bureaucrats having the temerity to contradict their supreme leader?
Do Vatican officials really have no more respect for Pope Benedict XVI than the FCO had for Gordon Brown?
A final comment by the cable's author said the Vatican's support must be treated discretely ‘because the Vatican is often reluctant to appear to compromise its independence and moral authority by associating itself with particular lobbying efforts.’
And then we get:
‘Even more important than the Vatican's lobbying assistance, however, is the influence the Pope's guidance can have on public opinion in countries with large Catholic majorities and beyond.’Right.
Apparently, sources in Rome have said that Wikileaks is in possession of 850 documents concerning communications between the US State Department and the US Embassy to the Vatican.
And they have chosen to lead with this one?
His Grace looks forward to Wikileaks confirming that the Pope is, in fact, Catholic.
