The Pope's encyclical on climate change: Translated for 'The Donald'

James Murray
clock • 2 min read

The Pope gave the US President his thoughts on climate change, but they are going to need some notes in the margins

In a truly epic piece of trolling the Pope reportedly today handed US President Donald Trump a signed copy of his historic encyclical on climate change.

However, if there is to be any hope of it informing the President's climate change policy it is going to need a translation. BusinessGreen takes a look at the annotations the White House team should add before slipping it into the President's briefing notes:

"'LAUDATO SI', mi' Signore - Praise be to you, my Lord.' In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us."

The planet is like a beautiful woman, a really hot broad.

"Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs."

The woman keeps us alive and gives us nice, shiny things. The greatest things.

"This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will."

But bad dudes have been grabbing her by the...

"The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life."

She's not looking so hot anymore. She used to be, like a total nine, nine and a half, and now she's a three.

"This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she 'groans in travail' (Rom 8:22)."

She is even more depressing than a Trump casino bar. Sad face, bigly.

"We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters. Nothing in this world is indifferent to us."

Sorry, can't help. You'll never understand this bit.

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