Pope Francis and the Church of Scientism

Dr. Jaap C. Hanekamp is a chemist by trade and received his first PhD in 1992. In 2015, he defended his second dissertation. He is a professor at University College Roosevelt in Middelburg, The Netherlands.  Dr. William M. Briggs holds a PhD in Mathematical Sciences and an MS in Atmospheric Physics, and has served in various roles including professor, consultant, and statistician.. The two joined forces to write an essay entitled, “Pope Francis’ Climate Crusade or the erosion of faith in God”. The paper is published in Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL).

They write a comprehensive assessment and critique of  the Pope’s two papal encyclicals, Laudato Si’ (2015) and Laudate Deum (2023) which outlines his belief in anthropogenic climate change via scientism gained mainly from consensus and “expertocracy”.   

In his second encyclical, Laudate Deum, Pope Francis writes “Eight years have passed since I published the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc.”

Hanekamp and Briggs delve into that oft-used and incorrect statistics that claim, storms of every type are increasing, both in number and intensity, that wildfires are increasing, sea levels are rising at an accelerated rate, both droughts, floods are on the rise and every horrific weather event is the responsibility of a changing climate. Pope Francis writes about these as if these weather-related tragedies were “gospel” and as the essay cites, the Pope’s “desire to “ridicule” is what leads skeptical scientists to show, and publicize, the errors in leading theories.

Regarding those scientists that endeavor to generate the deception of climate change, the Pope adds further that their evidence has tendencies that contain, “certain dismissive and scarcely reasonable opinions”.

Further, Pope Francis eludes to his desire for one world government stating, “It is not helpful to confuse multilateralism with a world authority concentrated in one person or in an elite with excessive power: ‘When we talk about the possibility of some form of world authority regulated by law, we need not necessarily think of a personal authority’. We are speaking above all of ‘more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure defense of fundamental human rights’. … The issue is that they must be endowed with real authority, in such a way as to ‘provide for’ the attainment of certain essential goals. In this way, there could come about a multilateralism that is not dependent on changing political conditions or the interests of a certain few, and possesses a stable efficacy. … It is a matter of establishing global and effective rules that can permit ‘providing for’ this global safeguarding. All this presupposes the development of a new procedure for decision-making and legitimizing those decisions, since the one put in place several decades ago is not sufficient nor does it appear effective.”

These are political views taken directly out of the playbooks of the United Nations hierarchy and the World Economic Forum.

A major principle underpinnings of science the Pope refuses to accept is any critique of the advocate science in climate change. As the esteemed Dr. Karl Popper said, “a theory in the empirical can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinized with decisive experiments.” The Pope essentially condemns those scientists rebuking or questioning climate change.

The essay concludes that Pope Francis must worship scientism which appears takes to precedence over faith in God.

I have written about the atypical progressively political activities of Pope Francis in the articles Climate Change - The Religion of Gaia, The Christian Climate Thorn, Virtue-signaling Utopians, and Dual Loyalites.