Has there ever been so much attention paid to a papal encyclical before its publication? At least we now know it will be entitled Laudato Sii. Phil Lawler is right to say that all the speculation is over the top; we pundits just canâ??t help ourselves. I must, however, plead guilty to the lesser (or is it greater?) charge of iconoclasm.
The main reason there is so much buzz about the encyclical is that itâ??s about the secular religion of our time, the environment. Pope Benedict generated quite a bit of excitement as the first â??greenâ? pope but he pales in comparison to Pope Francis, who has said he would like the encyclical to influence a United Nations climate change meeting later this year. Those of us who have tried to tone down the hype are accused of â??criticizingâ? the pope and generally being mean-spirited. Lawler helpfully recalls how much the environmentalists have done to spin the encyclical in their preferred direction. For example, Yale University hosted a wide-ranging discussion this spring and no one has accused it of being prejudicial, probably due to the shock of an Ivy-League institution saying nice things about the pope.
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