PopeWatch: Bupkis to do With Catholicism

Sandro Magister notes that the Vatican celebration of Laudato Si  is notable for its lack of reference to Someone:

The final triduum will be gladdened with the voices and sounds of the “Living Chapel” created by Julian Revie in partnership with the United Nations and the Global Catholic Climate Movement, with a choir of children from disadvantaged areas of the world, with the songs of birds recorded in forests devastated by man, with sounds from oil barrels and other recycled materials, and with texts by Saint Francis and by the pope who took his name.

Not only that. The Vatican has announced that it will support the goal of the “Living Chapel” to “create natural gardens and sacred spaces” inspired by “Laudato Si’”; will promote the creation of a documentary film and an “immersive show” on the encyclical; will join the battle against polluting plastic materials; will support the organization “Laudato Tree” in planting one million new trees every year in the arid regions of Africa; and will launch on social media the first worldwide competition on reinterpreting the Bible in the light of “Laudato Si’.”

In addition, the Holy See will put to work a number of volunteer dioceses, parishes, families, schools, farms, etc in “a 7-year journey of integral ecology in the spirit of Laudato Si’,” with the aim of doubling the number of those engaged in it every year and so mobilizing “a critical mass needed for radical societal transformation invoked by Pope Francis.”

To individuals who distinguish themselves through their efforts in the various areas of activity, starting in 2021 the Vatican will assign a dozen “Laudato Si’” awards.

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But it’s not finished. On the agenda of the celebratory year announced a few days ago, two separate appointments were initially scheduled for this spring but then postponed until the autumn due to the coronavirus pandemic.

They are two events in which Pope Francis has invested a great deal, but which also reveal the most vulnerable point of his pontificate.

The first will be held on October 15 at the Vatican and is entitled “Reinventing the Educational Global Compact.”

It comes as no surprise that a pope like Jorge Mario Bergoglio would take so much to heart the education and training of the new generations, he who is part of the Society of Jesus, for centuries a great educator of ruling classes.

But what is striking is the total absence in his educational project of any Christian specificity.

In the video message with which Francis launched the initiative there is not the slightest verbal trace of God, Jesus, or the Church. The dominant formula is “new humanism,” with its accessories of “common home,” “universal solidarity,” “fraternity,” “convergence,” “welcome”… And the religions? These too lumped together and neutralized in an indistinct dialogue.

The novelty of this initiative of Francis consists precisely in the fact that it is the first time – in the history of the Church – that a pope has made his own and placed himself at the helm of a worldwide educational pact so radically secularized.

The second appointment is convened for November 21 in Assisi, has the title “The Economy of Francesco” (the saint, not the pope who bears his name) and has as its objective nothing less than “a pact to change the current economy of world.”

It will be “a festival of the economy of young people with the pope, a middle way between Greta Thunberg and the powerful of the earth,” according to the announcement by the main organizer, economist Luigino Bruni, a member of the Focolare movement and a consultant for the Vatican dicastery for the laity, family and life.

Among the figures who have already confirmed their presence will be the Malthusian economist Jeffrey Sachs, in this pontificate an inevitable guest of every Vatican event concerning the economy and ecology, Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food and formerly Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s personal guest at the synod for the Amazon, and the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, as highly praised among the “popular movements” dear to the pope (she participated in their third world gathering) as she has been discredited by the scientific community worthy of the name.

Go here to read the rest.  The Pope is interested in spreading the word, but his word has nothing to do with The Word.