UK tabloid claim: "Pope to make climate action a moral obligation"

The UK Independent is making some big claims today and I'm going to attempt to give some clarification and context:

The Pope is expected to use his first address to the United Nations to deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a "moral" cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.

The New York speech is likely to contain an appeal for sustainable development, and it will follow an unprecedented Encyclical (a message to the wider church) on the subject, senior diplomatic sources have told The Independent.

It will act as the centrepiece of a US visit scheduled for next April – the first by Benedict XVI, and the first Papal visit since 1999 – and round off an environmental blitz at the Vatican, in which the Pope has personally led moves to emphasise green issues based on the belief that climate change is affecting the poorest people on the planet, and the principle that believers have a duty to "protect creation".

While Pope Benedict may speak about stewardship of creation, I highly doubt such an appeal would constitute the "centerpiece" of his entire US tour. It is also imprecise to say that Pope Benedict has the authority to "invent" new moral causes, strictly speaking. The Pope can, however, emphasize to the Church that stewardship of creation is an important duty, in line with previously revealed truth. In other words, don't expect to see Pope Benedict adding an eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt use only hybrid cars." He'd be the last person to do that.

More interesting is the UK Independent claim about an "unprecedented Encyclical" on the same topic. This claim contradicts all previous reporting as to the subject matter of his next encyclical, with the dominant strain of rumor proposing a topic involved with economics. [related: What do we know for sure about the Pope's next Encylical?] I'm sure they'd like an encyclical on climate change, but I'd like to see them hold their breaths for that.

The next claim that this UN address will follow an "environmental blitz at the Vatican" is similarly biased. Pope Benedict has been very active on many issues (issues, incidentally, that don't make it into popular reporting), stewardship of creation being one of them. As for climate change "affecting the poorest people on the planet", all he actually said was that scarsity of water is a problem in some areas: it is, but the cause of that problem is not global warming. [related: What Pope Benedict said about Creation at Loreto]. It is true that the Catholic Church teaches we have a duty to "protect creation" - that's nothing new. What constitutes protecting creation in today's world is what Pope Benedict would be addressing. And so far, it's a very different message than what the global warming lobby want to hear. But that doesn't seem to bother them.

Back to the text of the UK Independent article:

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Catholic Church in the UK, said last night: "This is a crucial issue both today and for all future generations. We are the stewards of creation and we need to take that responsibility seriously and co-operate to care for the created world."

I wonder if the Cardinal knew he was being interviewed for an article that seeks to reveal Pope Benedict's plans for his UN speech, and for the universal church, months prior to its delivery. I hope not.

Much of the rest of the article operates upon the principle that Pope Benedict's topic and message is already a done deal, and works through the implications (as the author sees it) of Pope Benedict getting firmly on the climate change bandwagon. Some of the author's history, however, is similarly incomplete:

News of the speech comes as Vatican City has become the first fully carbon-neutral state in the world, after announcing it is offsetting its carbon footprint by planting a forest in Hungary and installing solar panels on the roof of St Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Once again, the Vatican's Hungarian forest initiative provides eager reporters the "evidence" they need to claim that the Vatican is going green the way reporters want to see that happen. To clarify, the Vatican accepted the offer of a 3rd party company to plant a forest in Hungary. It's good to plant forests, and that's about all you can claim about the decision. I've blogged extensively on this (in my view, imprudent for several reasons) collaboration: "The Vatican and Planktos: strange bedfellows or sign of the times?" and again here: "Wait a minute, wasn't the selling of indulgences a bad thing?."

As for installing solar panels on the roof. Sure, that's true. I'm sure the Vatican also has low-flush toilets now (or again, maybe not). Electricity isn't cheap, and I'm not sure what more you can really claim about the choice to incorporate some solar energy.

Oddly enough, I think the last paragraph is more revealing that it might desire:

UK diplomats have held a number of behind-the-scenes meetings with Vatican officials on the environment. A Whitehall source said last night: "Benedict is the spiritual head of 19 per cent of the world's population and a highly respected figure. If the Pope's words are taken on board by his community that is one big constituency for change and could well turn the tide on climate change and environmental degradation."

Exactly, of course the global warming lobby wants the Catholic Church on its side. Once they can make the claim that global warming initiatives - as they see them - are a moral obligation (with sinfulness and culpability attached to ignoring it) as opposed to a simple act of prudence with two valid outcomes, they'll have successfully increased the size of their adherents. And here's the rub: even if they don't get the Catholic Church to say what they want, they can publish articles like these to convince people that the Catholic Church in fact does endorse their views.

What the Vatican must decide, and soon, is if it will continue to allow articles and reports such as this one to put words in Pope Benedict's mouth. If the Vatican doesn't speak, they will continue to speak for him.

Moreover, when he does speak, proposing a parallel track to their message isn't as effective. Unless he makes the distinctions and shows where Christian stewardship of creation is different than secular environmentalism, his audience might not be able to make the distinction. In this vacuum, the press accounts carry the day.

Of course, in general, when he does make the distinctions, the media is very good at chopping up his comments into sound bytes digestible for their purposes. In these situations, the Vatican press agency needs to be as pro-active on correcting these (often times intentional) errors in transmission as they have been on such issues as, for instance, Pope Benedict's comments on the Mexican legislators and whether they were excommunicated.