LIFESITE NEWS—The Pope told a Spanish journalist Sunday that the coronavirus pandemic is nature throwing a tantrum 'so that we will take care of nature'.
The interviewer asked, “Is it possible that this is nature’s hour of reckoning with us?”
Pope Francis answered:
“There’s a saying that you surely know: God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, [but] nature never forgives.” Fires, earthquakes . . . that is, nature is having a fit, so that we will take care of nature.”
The expression “having a fit” is a translation of the Spanish word used by Francis, “patalear,” which means to kick or stomp one’s feet, and is often used to refer to outbursts of rage or frustration, sometimes by children having a tantrum.
Pope Francis’ comments were made during an internet video interview with the Spanish journalist and comedian Jordi Évole on the coronavirus pandemic, in which Pope Francis made scant references to God, except to admit that he has sometimes doubted the existence of God in the past. (However, the video is edited, and parts may have been removed.)
“Pardon the question, but in a situation like this one, is it possible to have a crisis of faith?” asked Évole. “Can even a pope doubt the existence of God?”
“Clearly so,” responded Francis. “No one is exempt from existential temptations.”
“You have doubted the existence of God?” asked Évole.
“During my life, yes,” responded Francis. “At this moment no, but during my life, yes, a few times. I recall that in my life I have had my doubts regarding the faith, my crises of faith, but they have been resolved by the grace of God.”
However, Francis added cryptically: “No one is saved from the common path of the people, which is the best road, the most sure, concrete. And that makes everyone well.” That was exceedingly vague..
Francis declined the offer to make a statement to those who are suffering the loss of loved ones, instead saying he wants them to feel his “closeness.”
“These days there have been many people that are suffering, especially the people who are losing their loved ones. What would you tell them?” he was asked.
“The last thing I would do is tell them something,” the pontiff responded. “What I try to do is help them to feel my closeness. Today what is more important is the language of gestures than words. It’s necessary to tell them something, but closeness, gestures, saying hello . . .” His voice trailed off, and Évole continued with another question.
Asked if he was an “optimist” regarding the situation, Francis answered that he had “hope” in people. Hope in God was conspicuously missing.
“I have hope in humanity, in men and women, I have hope in the nations. I have much hope. Nations are going to be taught by this crisis to re-think their lives. We are going to come out better – fewer, of course. Many remain on the road and it is hard. But I have faith that we are going to come out better.”
The Pope’s attribution of the coronavirus pandemic to environmental damage is in keeping with the strongly environmentalist “eco-theology” he has been promoting during his pontificate since the publication of his encyclical “Laudato si” in 2015, and particularly at the recent Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, which tended to displace spiritual concerns with environmental ones.
Last November, the Pope said that he hoped to add the “‘ecological sin’ against our common home” to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "We have to introduce―we are thinking about it―to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the 'ecological sin' against our common home, because a duty is at stake," the Pope said.
The Pope has called on Catholics to have an “ecological conversion,” urging them, at one point, to go to confession for sins of not being respectful of creation, giving examples of examination of conscience such as “avoiding the use of plastic and paper,” “separating refuse” and “turning off unnecessary lights.”
The Pope’s opinion of the origin of natural disasters as nature lashing out against man’s environmental sins is echoed by Leonardo Boff, a dissenting “liberation” theologian who abandoned the Franciscan order and entered into a union with a woman after being censured by the Vatican for attacks on Catholic doctrine. Boff is a strong supporter of Pope Francis and has known him since the 1970s.
In a recent article for a Brazilian magazine, Boff opined that the coronavirus pandemic is the revenge of “Gaia,” a personified planet earth who has become outraged over environmental offenses, and which he also calls the “Great Mother.” He continues,
“I believe that current diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, zika virus, SARS, ebola, measles, the current coronavirus, and the widespread degradation of human relations, marked by deep inequality/social injustice and a lack of minimal solidarity, are a reprisal for Gaia for the offenses we inflict on her without interruption.”
This Pope’s devotion to ‘mother earth’ as a subtext of social justice has been a centerpiece of his papal leadership since 2013. He rightly sees global warming/climate change as a vehicle to transport the Papacy to world dominance.
Forced to cancel the May 14 Global Pact meeting at the Vatican, his goal apparently is to use coronavirus as an opportunity to ignite fear over an offended Gaia.
A much more biblical approach is this,
“Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (Revelation 14:6).
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