Cathal BarryHumans primarily responsible for climate change, draft warns
The Vatican’s press office has suspended the journalist who published a leaked copy of Pope Francis’ highly anticipated encyclical on the environment.
The leaked document has revealed papal backing for the idea that human beings are primarily responsible for climate change.
A 192-page version of the encyclical in Italian was leaked on Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso – three days before the official launch on Thursday.
The Vatican, however, said the published document was only a draft and condemned the leak as a “heinous” act. It also stripped Sandro Magister, the Italian journalist who published the draft, of his credentials.
Strong language
The leaked version features strong language on global warming and climate change.
“There is a very consistent scientific consensus indicating we’re in the presence of an alarming warming of the climactic system,” the leaked version reads.
“Humanity is called to consciousness of the need for changes in styles of life, of production and consumption, to combat this warming, or, at least, the human causes that produce and exacerbate it,” the draft says.
The leaked document, which is divided into six chapters, calls climate change “one of the principal challenges now facing humanity” and laments that “the heaviest impact in the coming decades will probably fall on developing countries”.
Ecological crisis
Laudato si (Praised be), the name of the encyclical, is said to address the Gospel of creation, human roots of the ecological crisis, integral approaches to ecology and suggestions for action.
In the leaked version, the Pope calls for changes in how human beings use the Earth’s resources and identifies clean water and water shortages, loss of biodiversity and general planetary pollution as serious problems.
For comprehensive coverage of the Pope’s encyclical, see next week’s The Irish Catholic.