Bruce Walker: On Charleston and Climate Change

In The Morning Sun, a Central Michigan newspaper, frequent PowerBlog contributor Bruce Walker discusses the connection between the Charleston shootings and the recent papal encyclical: The Charleston shooting rampage is a terrible reminder that very real evil manifests itself in this world, presumably performed in the name of all that is malevolent. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg: Pope Francis’ Overreach Plagues the Encyclical

Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, recently wrote for The Federalist that the overreach by the Pope into a wide range of environmental issues plagues the text of the encyclical: Neither the pope nor the teaching authority he exercises is required to comment on every imaginable subject discussed in the public square, whether it is air-conditioning’s environmental impact, contemporary threats to plankton, the effect of synthetic agrotoxins on birds, or how dams affect animal migration (and, yes, all four are discussed in “Laudato Si”). Continue Reading...

Patriarch, Pope and a Bishop’s ‘Radical Ecology’

At the Vatican press conference on Thursday for the launch of Pope Francis’ enviromental encyclical, a high ranking Greek Orthodox bishop, Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, said the document, titled Laudato Si in Latin or Praise be to You in English, comes at a “critical moment in human history” and will “undoubtedly have a worldwide effect on people’s consciousness.” Continue Reading...