Global warmer Michael Milillo replies to skeptic Joseph Bast

I put up yesterday Joe Bast's comment on the the ramble about  global warming by apparent Catholic Michael Milillo.  Rather surprisingly, Milillo has replied to Bast  -- see below.  But he does not quote a single fact or statistic about climate. If there was any room for doubt, Milillo now makes clear that for him it is all about authority. Papal authority and global warming authority are his guiding lights.  Blind respect for authority gave us the armies of Nazism and Communism so Milillo is a disturbing phenomenon.  Respect for authority is indeed very Catholic but,  after the Protestant revolt against that, the church seems to have lost most of its authority.

It now asserts authority only for pronouncements made by the Pope speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals.  But the Pope has made no such pronouncements about climate change, though he has offered vague pastoral guidance. An encyclical is said to be forthcoming but nobody yet knows what will be in it. From De rerum novarum to Centesimus annus (Yes. I have read both) encyclicals have always trod a middle path on the political controversies of the day.  Even Mit brennender Sorge was very cautious and limited in its aims. So the best bet is that any future encyclical will do the same, with nothing specific offered. So Milillo imagines Papal authority where none has been claimed.

So Milillo is not a modern Catholic.  He is a throwback to the sort of authoritarian Catholic who provoked the Protestant reformation.  Not much good can come of that -- but one wonders whether it is really defence of Papal authority that calls forth his energies. His trust in the authority of the global warmers is certainly trust in a very secular creed.  I think it is he who has put his trust in Mammon.  It is the church of global warming to which he owes his primary loyalty, not the Pope

The ill manners of his greeting to his bishop is also revelatory.  Even I address a bishop as "Your Grace"


My email to Bishop Baker regarding the "Climate Change Debate" hosted by The EWTN Global Catholic Network that aired on "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" on May 15, 2015 has more to with EWTN's disobedience to Pope Francis rather than with the lies, inaccuracies, and corruption promoted by The Heartland Institute as documented in referenced items [1] [2] [3].  If this contempt and insubordination that was displayed toward The Holy See by EWTN in general and Raymond Arroyo in particular had occurred 500 years ago, Arroyo would have been excommunicated at best or executed at worst.  As The Heartland Institute is NOT a Catholic institution -- and most likely doesn't believe in God either -- due to its worship of Mammon, God would in do time punish The Heartland Institute for its sins.

Until the Papacy of Pope Francis, EWTN has repeatedly told its Catholic audience to obey the Pope without question.  Neither did EWTN televised any debates concerning either abortion or homosexuality in which those who disagree with Pope John Paul II on these moral issues can have their opinions heard.  Without any precedent established by EWTN's past actions under Pope John Paul II, there exist NO justification for EWTN's scornful behavior now in which EWTN has openly proclaimed that Pope Francis' "Encyclical on the Environment" is wrong.  As EWTN did NOT debate the moral pronouncements of either Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI, EWTN should NOT do so now with Pope Francis.  What Arroyo has done in defying Pope Francis is worthy of excommunication by The Catholic Church.  But in my letter to Bishop Baker, I did NOT urge excommunication.  However, I did exhort the Roman Catholic Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama to sever all connections with, support for, and ties to EWTN.

Although The Heartland Institute believes it can openly debate a moral issue with Pope Francis, Catholics have learned from both Pope John Paul II and EWTN that there is absolutely NO room for debating a moral issue with the Pontiff once the Pope has reached a decision.  Pope Francis has declared that the "Protecting the Environment" is a moral issue of the utmost importance which includes the issue of Global Warming.  The Heartland Institute has publicly attack Pope Francis for declaring Global Warming a moral issue.  When having a choice between the Pope and The Heartland Institute on matters of morality, I will defer to the Pope.

As you wrote that The Heartland Institute "mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic issue", this does NOT provide "moral" solutions to social and economic issues.  Nevertheless, "free-market solutions" do NOT have as its goal the moral obligation which humans owe to God.  With this lack of morality as stated in its mission, The Heartland Institute is -- as I have written -- a lover of Mammon.  By putting profits and wealth ahead of one's love of God, The Heartland Institute is the very essence of an "abomination in the sight of God" [4].

This "love of Mammon" is best illustrated by The Heartland Institute refusal to accept the fact that man-made Greenhouse Gases is the root cause of "Global Warming".  This induces me to ask you if you believe in Dick Cheney's "One Percent Doctrine" which was the basis for the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003?  The Cheney doctrine states that "if there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction — and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time — the United States must now act as if it were a certainty" [5].

With stakes so high from the consequences of Global Warming, should NOT a reduction in "CO2 emissions" be called for even if there was only a 1% probability --  Dick Cheney's "One Percent Doctrine" -- that man-made Greenhouse Gases were responsible for Global Warming?  For "CO2 emissions" made by human activity is the only variable that Mankind can control.  What does Humanity have to lose in reducing man-made "CO2 emissions"?  You will argue profits, wealth, and GDP.  But when weight against the lost of lives and the human suffering that are the consequences of Global Warming, profits, wealth, and GDP are a small price to pay with the knowledge that Jesus paid a much higher price on being nailed to the Cross.  This is the moral rationale behind limiting man-made Greenhouse Gases that The Heartland Institute has repudiated.

I would rather trust the overwhelming number of Climate scientists -- as well as the overwhelming number of non-Climate scientists -- who say that Greenhouse Gases are the root cause for Global Warming more than I will trust the pitiful small number scientists that The Heartland Institute uses to deny Greenhouse Gases as the root cause for Global Warming.  With so many lives at risk and the possibility of the extinction of Humanity as a result of Global Warming, the number of scientists do matter.  By purposely ignoring this moral rationale, the only reason for The Heartland Institute to deny that man-made Greenhouse Gases are responsible for Global Warming makes suspect that The Heartland Institute is indeed receiving its funding from the toxic polluters of the environment.

You claimed that this is NOT the case.  if you are being honest and sincere about NOT loving Mammon, open the books of The Heartland Institute for inspection by the Environmental Defense Fund and the other environmental groups to ascertain if you are telling the truth.  For contributions from the Koch Brothers and other toxic polluters are being funnel to The Heartland Institute by way of "Donors Trust, the shadow operation that has laundered $146 million in climate-denial funding" [6].  All I can say to you, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matthew 16:23).

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