When Pope Francis was elevated to lead the Catholic Church, I had high hopes for him. He eschewed the regal trappings of the role, opting for more modest dress and living quarters. He immediately began to signal that he wished to de-emphasize sexuality as a centerpiece of church doctrine. He halted the hostile takeover of the Leadership Conference by Women Religious (organization of American nuns) by bishops from the Vatican. He took steps to clean up the Vatican bank. These steps were even noted at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in an article by Italian Catholic professor Luigi Zingales, praising his management skills (http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/magazine/winter-2014/is-the-pope-a-good-manager). As a fairly recent returning Catholic, I viewed a Pope that could turn the Church into a modern institution that understood the realities of the real world as a welcome development that could steer the Church away from the rigid, imperious, hierarchical, doctrinaire church I left so long ago.
The Pope's encyclical on climate change and economics smashed all that. The Pope could have and should have said we need to be good stewards of the environment and that the wealthy have a moral obligation to find ways to help those less fortunate. That's it. But that is NOT what he said. Instead, he launched into a diatribe against a "perverted economic system" and condemned the "short-term consumerist patterns" and that people allowed technological and economic paradigms to tell us what our values ought to be." Richer nations should hand over "superfluous wealth" to poorer ones. "Those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms," he asserts. As a result of the consumer oriented West, the poor of the world are being exploited and the environment is being turned into "an immense pile of filth". This view, in essence, is pure Obamunism--the notion that the West has exploited the poorer nations for their labor and resources. Not content with making statements on helping the poor or taking care of the environment, he launches a frontal attack on capitalism.
The Pope inveighs against our "perverted economic system." What system does the Pope think will be an improvement? Communism? Feudalism? Monarchy? Military juntas? We have tried all those. It is only when capitalism begins to take hold that we see poverty lifted. One need only look at poverty levels in all of Asia to see what liberalization has done. All other systems in which the State controlled production have ended in disaster, misery and, often, mass murder. Is that what the Pope wants? Does he want to replicate his homeland? Argentina should be a wealthy country. Instead, it is a basket case, in constant turmoil and economic crisis caused by its redistributive policies.
Moreover, how are we supposed to transfer "superfluous wealth" to poorer countries? Who seizes the wealth? Who decides what is superfluous? Why is that a better use that using that wealth to invest in companies, people and technologies that have promise? Are we, in the West, supposed to hand it over to corrupt and authoritarian regimes that have impoverished these people? Or distribute it directly? Isn't it better that these people rise up and rid themselves of the thugs that rule them? Has he not seen that these very regimes are much more devastating to the environment than liberal democracies?
The Pope also took issue with technology and progress. What part doesn't he like? The amazing medical breakthroughs that have eased the suffering of so many? The drugs that have conquered devastating illnesses? Does he not like the technology that has revolutionized agriculture, permitting us to feed millions more cheaply and on less land and control pests? Or the advances in methods of distribution that permit us to deliver more and better food to more people more efficiently? Or does he not like the technology that permits me to respond to my daughter instantaneously even when she is half a continent away? Or, perhaps it is the technology that developed fracking and permitted the U.S. to move away from coal as an energy source?
He asserts that, "some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system." As a counterfactual, I offer Robert Lucas's observation that, "the poor in China, i.e., those subsisting on less than $1 a day, look very different today than they did 35 years ago." Are we to exclude these millions, along with the millions in India and elsewhere in the Far East and now, increasingly in Africa, from the Pope's calculations?
The Pope's encyclical echoes of Paul Ehrlich's work of 45 years ago (which I have read) and whose predictions were wildly wrong. The advocates of "limits to growth" rely on extrapolation of data, i.e., "if present trends continue," blah, blah, blah. But present trends never continue. Things change. Technologies emerge. This is the same crowd that talked about a new ice age 40 years ago, "peak oil" (we are now drowning in the stuff), and Ehrlich predicted worldwide mass starvation by the 1980's (actually, we have an obesity problem).
Finally, does he not see that his "limits to growth" position directly contradicts the Church's position on abortion and birth control? More people, less innovation, elimination of economic incentives will lead inexorably to something that looks more much more like North Korea or Cuba than the relatively prosperous, educated, healthy, and happy societies we have in the West.
Yes, I am skeptical of the climate change hysteria. The Pope's encyclical, like Al Gore's book, is riddled with errors and massive errors in logic. But most insidiously, it is a condemnation of a form of government and economic system that has alleviated more poverty, brought more justice and respect for individuals and individual rights, eased more suffering and has evidenced more respect for the environment than any other. The Pope has joined in the chorus of people that wish to use climate change to advance their own agenda for a much larger role of government that will ultimately dictate how we should live.
There are many (and I among them) give as much credit Pope John Paul II as Ronald Reagan for the collapse of Communism. He saw the devastation that system wrought on the human condition, and he rejected it entirely and helped to hasten its downfall. Francis, in contrast, is using the climate change boogeyman to embrace and promote the redistributive policies of HIS native land, which have sent that country into a tailspin (http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21596582-one-hundred-years-ago-argentina-was-future-what-went-wrong-century-decline).
The Pope has strayed far afield from his span of knowledge and waded directly into science and economics and has mixed them in a way that has proven itself time and time again to be toxic and deadly to the human condition and has pitched rocks at the system that has by far the best track record of elevating humanity. I am shocked and dismayed by his hubris and overreach. I can't help but conclude that he is not much better than the left wing populist politicians that have so ruined the economies of Latin America and South America and is merely pandering to his constituency.
For the second time in my life, I am in a crisis over my religion and am contemplating leaving the Catholic Church. Several years ago, I answered the "Catholics Come Home" initiative, which attempted to bring back Catholics that had fallen away and attempted earnestly to practice my faith again. After a promising start, Pope Francis has shaken my relationship with the Catholicism in a significant way. I will have to think hard about whether I remain with this institution. If I do, it will certainly be with much less enthusiasm.
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