In an audience with Pope Francis, Donald Trump received a copy of the Papal Encyclical, Laudato Si. This Encyclical powerfully states the moral case for actions to reduce Climate Change.
Trump would not have to read the whole Encyclical to identify the moral case. Quoting Patriarch Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Encyclical (Paragraph 9) tells us that we must replace
“ . . consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism which entails learning to give, and not simply to give up.”
Trump has many times claimed that his actions would make America great again. We wonder what meaning Trump – or his Evangelical Christian supporters – would give to this verse from the Gospel of St. Matthew:
“He that would be greatest among you, let him be servant of you all.”
From the beginning years of our commentary, 4RG has emphasized that morality is fundamental to any judgement on climate change. We have a responsibility to leave a safe planet to our grandchildren, and not one that has been devastated by our wantonness.
As our colleague Walter Pitman said some years ago:
“. . . we must take communal responsibility for a situation that will damage ‘others’, make ‘them’ refugees with little to live for!”
