NO TO AIR CONDITIONERS (55)
People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive.
For a reference as to where this condemnation fits within the schema of “infallible” papal statements, please consult Pope Pius XII, “Humani Generis”:
20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.
“Pope Francis” does suggest (15) that this encyclical letter is now “added to the body of the [Roman Catholic] Church’s social teaching”, and he notes that he offers “some inspired guidelines” as to how to move forward – an indication of how seriously he takes this.
173. Enforceable international agreements are urgently needed, since local authorities are not always capable of effective intervention.
ReplyDelete“Sacramental Panentheism”:
ReplyDeleteVI. SACRAMENTAL SIGNS AND THE CELEBRATION OF REST
233. The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things. Saint Bonaventure teaches us that “contemplation deepens the more we feel the working of God’s grace within our hearts, and the better we learn to encounter God in creatures outside ourselves”.
234. Saint John of the Cross taught that all the goodness present in the realities and experiences of this world “is present in God eminently and infinitely, or more properly, in each of these sublime realities is God”. This is not because the finite things of this world are really divine, but because the mystic experiences the intimate connection between God and all beings, and thus feels that “all things are God”. Standing awestruck before a mountain, he or she cannot separate this experience from God, and perceives that the interior awe being lived has to be entrusted to the Lord: “Mountains have heights and they are plentiful, vast, beautiful, graceful, bright and fragrant. These mountains are what my Beloved is to me. Lonely valleys are quiet, pleasant, cool, shady and flowing with fresh water; in the variety of their groves and in the sweet song of the birds, they afford abundant recreation and delight to the senses, and in their solitude and silence, they refresh us and give rest. These valleys are what my Beloved is to me”.
235. The Sacraments are a privileged way in which nature is taken up by God to become a means of mediating supernatural life…
236. It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures. The Lord, in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter. He comes not from above, but from within, he comes that we might find him in this world of ours. In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved; it is the living centre of the universe, the overflowing core of love and of inexhaustible life. Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love: “Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world”. The Eucharist joins heaven and earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation. The world which came forth from God’s hands returns to him in blessed and undivided adoration: in the bread of the Eucharist, “creation is projected towards divinization, towards the holy wedding feast, towards unification with the Creator himself”.
Where can I find the whole encyclical John? Where did you find it?
ReplyDeletehttp://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
DeleteApparently, Pope Francis wants to kill people who live in the desert...
ReplyDeleteAnd the tropics...
DeleteJohn, first off my condolances on the passing of your wife, and second, I can't thank you enough for opening my eyes on the Catholic church. For every one thing that I liked about the church, there are 10 things to dislike and stuff like this is just baffling.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see them move the church to a place with an arid climate and preach this nonsense in the name of Christ.
Hi SG, thanks for your kind words. What things did you used to like about the Roman Catholic Church?
DeleteTo be honest, nothing deep and everything aesthetic within its tradition. I still like the mass and liked the confession but I'll admit that it's all based on emotion rather than intellect. Then learning how tradition and scripture are held in the same regard started a domino effect. Your writing about the papal tradition in particularl and the theological flip flopping turned me off what I would call an institution rather than church.
DeleteThe domino effect continues, now turned on my own church.. I'm actually Orthodox (Armenian), but was taught by Lebanese nuns during elementary school eons ago. Any good reading recommendations would be appreciated since I mostly run into Catholic sources arguing against Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy.
For information about Eastern Orthodoxy, check in with Jacob Aitken:
Deletehttp://realdialektik.blogspot.com/
He's got some broad subject matter there, but he's also got quite a bit of interaction there with EO sources.
Thank you.
DeleteDo you plan on leaving the Orthodox church SG? You said the domino effect is continuing on your own church.
ReplyDeleteI might. I've got a lot of reading to do but as it is now, the ethnocentricy of the few churches I've attended crept up into sermons quite often to the point of heresy. There were two priests who were learned and focused solely on the gospel but one was visting from NYC and the other sadly preferred to go back to a village due to internal politics. The latter particularly got to me.
DeleteHow is the whole scripture/tradition thing impacting your take on Orthodoxy?
ReplyDeleteNot well. For example, it may not be a big issue, but I'm not fond of mentioning current or past church leaders during service prayers.
DeleteFrom what I read, much of the Vatican isn't air-conditioned, but I know the library is climate-controlled, and it looks like they just put a new air system in the Sistine Chapel a couple of years ago. Going to Google Earth, you can locate several external HVAC units around buildings at the Vatican. So, I guess they have plans to shut all those down now? I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteJim, that's hard-core to be able to see HVAC units from satellite images.
DeleteAside from that, this is an Encyclical, so "Francis" intends to see that this gets done!
With the level of imagery these days, it's actually pretty easy. I do some snooping on my company's competitor's manufacturing plants so I'm used to being able to tell what equipment is what. We can count exhaust stacks, for example and know how many ovens they are using and how much liability they have with regards to the EPA. We can determine the size of the HVAC units, and estimate how many office personnel comprise their overhead. You can count cars in the parking lot and tell about how many people they employ altogether. I guarantee they're doing the same thing with us. So with the Vatican, you can see when the units went in as well as find articles confirming it. There is a monstrous unit they just installed last year over at what they call the "Palace of the Holy Office", whatever they use that for.
Delete... the "Palace of the Holy Office", whatever they use that for....
DeleteMust have something to do with torture.
In the same encyclical, Francis condemns cars.
ReplyDeleteHe's perhaps going to an acolyte-drawn bubble-top Popemobile?
DeleteIt would be a fitting punishment for the sex-abuse-bishops to have to go on popemobile-pulling duty. Of course, there are far too many of those bishops, so they'd have to think up some other energy-saving chores as well.
DeleteRome has already anathematized the Gospel. The other stuff is pretty secondary in my mind.
DeleteHi CR: When you say "anathematized the Gospel", that's true, but most Roman Catholics don't have a clue about that. In engaging Roman Catholics, I think it's very important to engage them in terms of "what's current" (whatever the "Magisterium du jour" brings up).
DeleteHi John,
DeleteIsn't such an approach akin to engaging "clueless" passengers about the proper arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic even as she's slipping beneath the icy waters of the North Atlantic?
Shouldn't they be urgently warned to head for lifeboats instead, because they're in extreme peril, even though the band plays on?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
CR, there are two different levels of things. What I'm saying is, you have to talk with every-day Roman Catholics at a level they understand. None of these folks have heard the word "justification" in centuries. Nor do most of them know what the Council of Trent said. So when Protestants bring up that Trent Anathematized the Gospel, we might as well be speaking a foreign language that they don't know. That particular sentiment is not a "warning for the lifeboats". (I'm not sure if there's an analogous thing to say to them at that point). It's not something that's going to prompt them to think about how bankrupt their "Church" is. It just doesn't register, it has no context.
DeleteI'll relate my own experience, but I know of others as well. It's not enough to say "the ship is sinking" without saying why. I literally had to investigate every single major doctrine, and discount it, before I could leave RCism. If you take it seriously, the pressure against leaving is immense.
So the Roman Catholic apologetic these days is to look at any given Protestant doctrine, and then say, "we're not so different from this, we just offer 'the fullness' of this doctrine". Keith Green had a line in his "Song from the Devil": "I mix a little truth with every lie, to tickle itching ears". Calvin also said that the papacy "pollutes every good doctrine". Roman Apologetics are like that -- it is a full-body-length leech -- it must be carefully separated out from what is true. And that requires a lengthy process of explanation, on whatever topic you are discussing at the moment.
Are every-day Roman Catholics familiar with Pope Pius XII and Humani Generis?
DeleteI guess I'm not following your concern with my initial comment. It looked to me like you were sounding off on the papal condemnation of A/C via an encyclical, which is unarguably insipid in my mind, and I thought to myself: "Yeah, that's pretty stupid and petty, but when Rome has already officially condemned the Gospel, and those who believe it...well...what do you expect?"
Then you seemed to sort of offer a corrective, and now we've exchanged messages a couple of times, and I still don't understand the intent of the apparent corrective.
I hope I'm not being obtuse.
DeleteCouple of things CR. Your first comment following the original article was:
Rome has already anathematized the Gospel. The other stuff is pretty secondary in my mind.
Of course that's true, and if your intention is to avoid all things Roman Catholic, I suppose you could do that. My intention in this OP was to make fun of this pope. He begs for it. He is ridiculous, and I try to say so. I say this to a Triablogue audience that is largely composed of well-educated Reformed believers. But the people who read my stuff and are interested in it are folks, I assume, who have some interaction with Roman Catholicism in their lives -- at a personal level (they are not people who by and large deal with "Rome" in its official capacity).
So I said,
Hi CR: When you say "anathematized the Gospel", that's true, but most Roman Catholics don't have a clue about that. In engaging Roman Catholics, I think it's very important to engage them in terms of "what's current" (whatever the "Magisterium du jour" brings up).
And here I have in mind that these well-educated Reformed believers are going to be discussing personal matters of Roman Catholicism with other persons that they may know involved with Roman Catholicism.
I don't go to talk to my mother and say, "Rome anathematized the Gospel". That just doesn't wash at a lot of levels. Now, if I say to her, "what do you think of this pope condemning air conditioning", then really makes her feel creepy about Roman Catholicism at a lot of levels. And that's what I want. Even though it is a "secondary" issue, as you put it.
To your most recent comment:
Are every-day Roman Catholics familiar with Pope Pius XII and Humani Generis?
No, but I'm sure that most Triablogue readers are familiar with what I'm talking about.
I guess I'm not following your concern with my initial comment. It looked to me like you were sounding off on the papal condemnation of A/C via an encyclical, which is unarguably insipid in my mind, and I thought to myself: "Yeah, that's pretty stupid and petty, but when Rome has already officially condemned the Gospel, and those who believe it...well...what do you expect?"
Yes, no kidding, it's stupid; sometimes there's not much more to do than to make fun of something.
Then you seemed to sort of offer a corrective, and now we've exchanged messages a couple of times, and I still don't understand the intent of the apparent corrective.
Just that it's a big world, and your initial comment was very, very narrow. If you want to avoid all things Roman Catholic, then there are better ways to do it than reading my blog posts making fun of this post.
But if you want to engage Roman Catholics at some (apologetic) level, then you really need to have more information at hand than simply "Rome anathematized the gospel".
I see. Thanks.
ReplyDelete