Could the recent decision by Pope Benedict XVI to call for a comprehensive agreement on climate change deepen the centuries-old rift between Catholics and Protestants? Yes, I’m kidding…but humor me.
In a January 11, 2010 address to foreign ambassadors to the Holy See, the Pope said he regretted that “economic and political resistance to combating the degradation of the environment” prevented what he called “an ambitious agreement” at December’s UN climate change summit in Copenhagen. Benedict said political leaders should take action to stem climate change as part of a “solemn duty” to protect the Earth.
By contrast, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is fond of saying that the threat of global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Indeed, in his January 4, 2005 remarks to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Sen. Inhofe stated that for "environmental extremists and their elitist organizations" the notion of man-induced climate change is "article of religious faith." Moreover, these extremists consider those who challenge "the central tenets of climate change" to be guilty of "heresy of the most despicable kind."
If I’m not mistaken, Sen. Inhofe is a Presbyterian. So, connecting the dots leads me to conclude that Sen. Inhofe must now regard the Pope (and presumably the pontiff’s "elitist organization" the Catholic Church) as no better than the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — just another environmental extremist, a "climate alarmist," as he likes to call them. But it would be wrong for Sen. Inhofe to dismiss the Pope’s perspective on climate change as an "article of religious faith." As the Pope noted in his January 11, 2010 address, the "causes" of climate change are "evident to everyone."