The Vatican’s financial chief, Cardinal George Pell, has taken the unusual step of criticizing Pope Francis’ groundbreaking environmental encyclical, arguing the Catholic Church has “no particular expertise in science.”
Nearly 18 months after Pell was brought to the Vatican by Pope Francis and given a mandate to reform the city-state’s banking affairs, the Australian cardinal gave an interview to the Financial Times, whacking his boss’ landmark document. “It’s got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful,” he said. “But the church has no particular expertise in science … the church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science,” Pell told the Financial Times on Thursday. --Rosie Scammell, Religion News Service, 17 July 2015
At a recent meeting of the priests’ council in Sydney one parish priest asked me why I was commenting publicly on the role of carbon dioxide in the climate, because in the past the Church had made a fool of herself on a number of occasions. I replied that I was well aware of at least some of these instances and that one reason why I was speaking out was to avoid having too many Christian leaders repeating these mistakes and to provide some balance to ecclesiastical offerings. –Cardinal George Pell, Annual GWPF Lecture, London 26 October 2011
