Pope issues urgent appeal to fight climate change

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Thursday threw the weight of the Catholic Church behind a new appeal to combat climate change, saying the future of humanity is at stake and dismissing those who deny the planet is getting warmer.

Francis unequivocally lined the Catholic Church up on the side of the environment with the release of church doctrine that condemned polluters and governments alike for failing to do enough to address the problem.

In the first encyclical written entirely under his papacy, Francis said humans have a moral obligation to protect the environment and that doing so is a key part of the challenge of lifting the world's least fortunate from poverty.

The pope's decree came as a new report showed May was the warmest on record worldwide. This spring — from March to May — was also the hottest, as were the first five months of 2015, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Francis said the poor stand to suffer the most from extreme weather events that are already regularly wreaking havoc across the planet.

"We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all," he said.

"Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest," he said.

An encyclical is a papal letter addressed to bishops of the Catholic Church, but whose intended audience is the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

The encyclical released Thursday is a sprawling 183-page document that covers topics ranging from the risks of poor environmental stewardship to specific prayers for "our earth" and "in union with creation."

It was published in English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Polish and Latin.

The document does allow that there is dissent on whether climate and the environment should be a priority, but it is mostly dismissive of views that inaction is a viable option.

"At one extreme (among dissenters) we find those who doggedly uphold the myth of progress and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application of new technology and without any need for ethical considerations or deep change," the encyclical says.

"At the other extreme are those who view men and women and all their interventions as no more than a threat, jeopardizing the global ecosystem, and consequently the presence of human beings on the planet should be reduced and all forms of intervention prohibited," it says.

The "Laudato Si" encyclical — which translates as "Praised Be," a reference to a prayer from the pope's namesake, St. Francis, seen by Catholics as the patron saint of ecology — is the most controversial since Pope Paul VI's 1968 "Humanae Vitae" (On Human Life) letter establishing the church's ban on contraception.

Four months into his papacy in 2013, Francis released the "Lumen Fidei" (The Light of Faith) encyclical, but that was mostly written by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

The encyclical on climate and the environment differs from most of more than 300 previous papal encyclicals not only because it is related to a scientific topic and controversial, but because of its accessibility.

"I can testify that everything in the encyclical is in line with the science," John Schellnhuber, a climate scientist, said at a Vatican news conference launching the document.

Leading up to the release of the "Laudato Si," Vatican officials warned not to expect a detailed analysis of the climate change debate but rather the pontiff's reflection on mankind's moral responsibility to act as custodians of the environment.

Even so, there is plenty of detail that illustrates the pope's grasp of the complex issues the encyclical addresses.

For example, the document addresses the concept of "the technocratic paradigm" — a reference to the need for technology to play a role in finding solutions for environmental problems but the tendency to place too much hope on future technological innovations to solve those problems.

Francis applauds the work of environmental groups and says that countries that are "more powerful and pollute the most" — industrialized countries such as the United States — should take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases with "honesty, courage and responsibility."

"The climate crisis is very depressing, but this encyclical is positive because it shows we still have the potential to confront this problem," said Carolyn Woo, a Hong Kong-born U.S. citizen who heads Catholic Relief Services, at the Vatican news conference. "The document is at once inspiring and pragmatic"

The encyclical closes with two prayers. In the first one, "A prayer for our earth," Francis implores that we "Bring healing to our lives / that we may protect the world and not prey on it / that we may sow beauty / not pollution and destruction."

U.S. bishops react

High-ranking representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a group largely appointed by Pope Francis' more conservative predecessors, offered a warm embrace of the encyclical in remarks at a press conference Thursday, but cautioned patience and time in digesting its message.

"The next step is the reading of the text and studying of the text and the engagement of the people in what the Holy Father calls us to do. Apply it to ourselves," said Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington. "This is going to take a lot of unpacking. There's a great amount of richness in the document. Let's do that over a period of time and at the end of the year, we'll be able to reflect on what did the document say."

Wuerl seemed to dodge a question on whether he would focus on the encyclical in one of his next sermons and mentioned instead disseminating talking points on the encyclical to priests. "We're starting right now with getting that word out. I hope we're doing a good job," he said.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., and president of the conference, described the document as not a blueprint on precisely how the world should respond to global warming, but rather "marching orders for advocacy" calling for self-reflection for what Pope Francis described as a "throwaway culture" of consumerism.

"I think what he has brought is the understanding you need to weigh not just what are the things you are able to do, but what are the things you ought to do," Kurtz said. "We need to move beyond self-interest. Let's face it, we live in an environment that is often driven by self-interest and sometimes extremely narrow self-interest."

Environmental groups across the United States and world were quick to praise the papal decree for raising the bar on addressing global warming.

"The pope's message brings moral clarity that the world's leaders must come together to address this urgent human challenge," said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute.

"This message adds to the global drumbeat of support for urgent climate action," he added. "Top scientists, economists, business leaders and the pope can't all be wrong."

Contributing: Gregg Zoroya and Doyle Rice in McLean, Va.