Pope Francis made his strongest statements yet about climate change Wednesday, rebuking fossil fuel companies and urging countries to make an immediate transition to renewable energy.
In a new document titled “Laudate Deum,” or “Praise God,” the pope criticizes oil and gas companies for greenwashing new fossil fuel projects and calls for more ambitious efforts in the West to tackle the climate crisis. In the landmark apostolic exhortation, a form of papal writing, Francis says that “avoiding an increase of a tenth of a degree in the global temperature would already suffice to alleviate some suffering for many people.”
“Laudate Deum” is a follow-up to the pope’s 2015 encyclical on climate change, known as “Laudato Si’,” which lamented the exploitation of the planet and cast the protection of the environment as a moral imperative. When it was released, “Laudato Si’” was viewed as an extraordinary move by the head of the Catholic Church to address global warming and its consequences.
Nearly a decade later, the pope’s message has taken on new urgency.
The pope influences opinions of millions of catholic voters.
Distributed across many countries, limiting the impact of their vote outside of countries that are state- or majority -catholic.
There are lots of countries with significant catholic population or even majority.
There are significantly more that don’t.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. If you were to ask me, "are there a lot of Catholics in the world?” my answer would be: yes. Because there are. About 15% of the population of the planet is technically* Catholic. That’s a lot of the population of the earth comparative to almost anything that isn’t a birth-given attribute.
However, in the biggest countries in the world, and for the majority of countries in the world, they are not a majority. Even less so for countries that play a significant part on the world stage in a political way.
I’m happy to ask the same question again as I’m awaiting an answer and, as a scientist, I will change my view in line with the evidence that is presented: in the last 30 years, outside of Vatican City, and in states where Catholicism is not the state or most widely recognized religion or denomination, what meaningful and significant political decisions or stances has the pope influenced?
* The methodology of this is questionable but I’m happy to take it on face value for the purposes of this discussion.
E: it’s easier to accuse someone of trying to impersonate you than it is to actually win an argument, see below for a demo.
E2: Oh so they always resort to childish ad hominems, how embarrassing for them! https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=3261234
Is Latin America not important enough? How about Poland or Italy? There are even 20% of catholics in the USA. According to Wiki, there is 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide - that’s important enough to me. Do you really think major religions play no role on the political stage?
15% of the world’s population is ~1.3b people. You don’t need to quote the same stats back at me.
Where did I say anything about SA not being important? Equally, why fixate on SA if the pope has influenced so much politically in the rest of the world?
Also we’re talking about Catholicism and the Pope, not other major religions. Stop moving the goalposts.
I’m still waiting for the answer to my question.
You say as they address your issue and name several Catholic majority countries where the opinions of the pope sway politics far more than you’re accepting.
You’re the one moving goalposts on them lol
Evidenced examples of that sway?
I’m still waiting.
Ok, abortion ban in Poland. Also the fight against lgbt in Poland - which is one reason why this news is really interesting. It can cause a divide among catholics, which can be desirable.
Politicians fight dirty over smaller voting demographics, Im pretty sure its a big enough percent to make a difference
E: the user I responded to attempted to impersonate me after losing this argument.
“pretty sure” is a very weak stance, especially with the continuing absence of evidence to support this conjecture
I realise that I’ve made myself sound like a childish fool throughout this thread. Accept my most humble of apologies.
The IP of this account matches https://lemmy.myserv.one/u/[email protected] and will be banned. (Both accounts).
Oh, my bad, I was trying to be polite. Ill rephrase.
You are wrong. The professional demographics manipulators know better than you do. Which is why you are asking a question you know cannot be answered in the way you posed it without a 5 year study on catholic peoples opinions on a broad range of topics before and after a public vatican statement involving those topics.
The people whose jobs rely on the ability to read and understand demographics attribute weight to smaller demographics, and apply even greater weight to the catholic population. You are just openly incorrect.
The cuban vote is considered a huge swing population. Thats at 2.4 million cuban descent americans. Catholic americans top off just under 62 million. I am pretty damn sure that 18% of americans is a very relevant percent of americans. And, more importantly, every single career politician is pretty damn sure too, and this is the one topic you can be confident that a politician actually knows what they are talking about.
Do you think being snarky and running a gish gallop of nonsense assertions is useful? I thought politeness was a virtue but you’ve explicitly dropped yours so willingly. How revealing.
I am not wrong. I’ve laid my case, and you’ve laid a bunch of self imposed obstacles in your path to avoid answering the question. You’ve been disappointing but unsurprising, which I expect is rather thematic of your life given you’d rather be edgy than provide evidence to back your claims. Very sad.
I can always trust the religious to lose their cool before they back their own claims; an area of true consistency where no other lies.
E: the user I am talking with here attempted to impersonate me, and got banned.
Politeness is a courtesy, not a virtue, and one you made clear you werent interested in returning.
You havent laid a case, you posed a question you know cant be answered. “Show me proof of the popes words changing catholic opinion in 3 decades” is nebulous nonsense and you know that. Its why you asked it. You would need a depth of polling data to “”“prove”“” that statement, which is often not public if anyone has even done that polling.
Now, you know fallacies as well as virtues, since I provided a single arguement. The professionals who know better than you know this demographic matters. I guess backing that up with the size of the demographic confused you? But the point stands firm, which is why youre blindly guessing Im religious (Im not, poor luck) instead of addressing it.
If youre really in a STEM field like you claim, you must not be great at your job. Most science professions require a better reading comprehension level than this.