Pope Francis has warned “the powerful of the Earth” they will answer to God if they fail to protect the environment to ensure the world can feed its population.
He's
not kidding, either:
"We must do what we can so that everyone has something to eat. But we must also remind the powerful of the Earth that God will call them to judgment one day," he said. "And there it will be revealed if they really tried to provide for him in every person, and if they did what they could to preserve the environment so that it could produce this food."
The Pope's closest advisors concur:
On Tuesday, one of Francis' key advisers, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, said he was stunned by the complaints he had heard during a trip to the United States over a papal document that hasn't even been published yet. He accused those fueling it of an ideology "that is very strongly linked to a vision of capitalism that doesn't want to renounce damaging the environment for the sake of profits."
Francis has said global warming is "mostly" man-made and that humanity has a moral duty to stop it.
The
Pope's comments precede the eagerly anticipated
papal encyclical on Climate Change which many believe will anger Climate Change "Deniers" (as well as certain U.S. churches that operate as de facto PACs for the Republican Party).
An encyclical is a statement of fundamental principles designed to guide Catholic teaching on a subject. It is issued in the form of a letter from the pope to bishops around the world...[.]
The pope is due to address the UN Special Summit on Sustainable Development in September and the international community will seek to reach a universal agreement on climate change at a summit in Paris in December.
Climate change sceptics have warned Francis not to take sides in the debate but all the signs so far are that he sees the problem as man-made and as one which can be alleviated by political action.
Here is a small list of those whom Pope Francis implies risk being cast into Hell at the time of the Last Judgment:
Charles and David Koch
James Inhofe
Marco Rubio
The entire Fox News organization
Rick Scott
Rick Perry
Rick Santorum
Mike Pence
Ted Cruz
Some Groups who risk eternal damnation include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heartland Institute, and a whole host of Exxon-funded climate skeptics.
Recent research on Hell suggests that it is not a particularly pleasant place:
Punishment in Hell typically corresponds to sins committed during life. Sometimes these distinctions are specific, with damned souls suffering for each sin committed (see for example Plato's myth of Er or Dante's The Divine Comedy), but sometimes they are general, with condemned sinners relegated to one or more chamber of Hell or to a level of suffering.
In many religious cultures, including Christianity and Islam, Hell is traditionally depicted as fiery and painful, inflicting guilt and suffering.[4][specify] Despite these common depictions of Hell as a place of fire, some other traditions portray Hell as cold. Buddhist - and particularly Tibetan Buddhist - descriptions of hell feature an equal number of hot and cold hells. Among Christian descriptions Dante's Inferno portrays the innermost (9th) circle of Hell as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.
* *
For future planning purposes, Deniers should understand that the basic layout of Hell is multi-tiered, according to several sources. Islam, for example, suggests Hell resembles a condominium complex of sorts, which might appeal to the more affluent of those condemned:
Heaven and Hell are each divided into seven different levels, with occupants assigned to each depending on their actions—good or bad—perpetrated during their lifetimes. The gate of Hell is guarded by Maalik who is the leader of the angels assigned as the guards of hell also known as Zabaaniyah. While hell is usually described as hot, there is one pit (Zamhareer) characterized in Islamic tradition as unbearably cold, with blizzards, ice, and snow.[65]
Hypocrisy, shirk (polytheism) are particularly grievous sins and the lowest pit of Hell (Hawiyah), is intended for hypocrites.
Hinduism explains that Hell is divided by degrees of punishment:
It is believed that people who commit sins go to Hell and have to go through punishments in accordance with the sins they committed. The god Yamarāja, who is also the god of death, presides over Hell. Detailed accounts of all the sins committed by an individual are kept by Chitragupta, who is the record keeper in Yama's court. Chitragupta reads out the sins committed and Yama orders appropriate punishments to be given to individuals. These punishments include dipping in boiling oil, burning in fire, torture using various weapons, etc. in various Hells.
The Christian tradition is in general agreement that Hell is not a favored vacation spot:
According to Theodore Stylianopoulos, "many Orthodox saints and writers assume the general view of hell as a place of punishment, even by means of material instruments such as fire, whether of the soul after death or both soul and body after the resurrection".[50] Saint John Chrysostom pictured hell as associated with "unquenchable" fire and "various kinds of torments and torrents of punishment".[51]
Denialists who claim to be Christians can't say they weren't
warned about this:
Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. ...whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
—Matthew 25:41–43 (NIV)
Clearly, the information has been out there for quite some time.