Alan Keyes is quite displeased with Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on climate change. In fact, Keyes is so upset with it that he claims that the Pope’s call to combat climate change “amounts to perpetual imprisonment in a global penal colony under the totalitarian control of a government with unprecedented global powers” and a “crime against humanity.”

The pope, Keyes writes, “demands the imposition of a harsh sentence of perpetual deprivation and servitude upon the whole human race, with a view perhaps near unto genocide,” with the only survivors being “the elitist few and the people needed to cater to their whims.”

“Pope Francis’ reflections look more like Marx, Stalin or Mao Zedong,” Keyes said.

We are called to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to our care. About this there is no doubt. That it is we, rather than God, who are responsible for pervasive and massive changes in the condition of our little corner of the universe is, to say the least, an assertion freighted with controversy. That’s especially true given the fact that the issue of man-made climate change is being exploited as an excuse to advance a totalitarian agenda for the use or abuse of government power throughout the world. The massively life-destroying human catastrophes of the 20th century prove beyond doubt that it is an agenda fraught with evil consequence for the moral, spiritual and material life of the human race.

The “Richter Scale” that indicates the size of the 20th century’s government-centered catastrophes must be calibrated to measure scores of millions of murders perpetrated by governments or in wars that were the consequence of the totalitarian ambitions of the people in control of them. If the facts of humanity’s responsibility for global climate change were incontrovertibly established by dint of the most scrupulously conducted and verified scientific observation and analysis imaginable, the last century’s appalling record of government power abuse would caution against any policies that might spawn more such government-centered hurricanes of fear, oppression and mass murder.

But the facts have not been thus established. In fact much that has come to light supports the view that scientific data were purposely skewed to support a conclusion contrary to fact. But this would be that the human race stands falsely, or at least very dubiously, accused of a great crime, for which the pope is now standing with others to demand the harsh punishment of what amounts to perpetual imprisonment in a global penal colony under the totalitarian control of a government with unprecedented global powers.

More than that, John Schnellnhuber, one of the academics reportedly chosen by the Vatican to explain the pope’s recently released encyclical, has “previously said the planet is overpopulated by at least 6 billion people. Ted Turner, Warren Buffett, David Rockefeller and Bill Gates have envisaged similarly drastic goals for planned depopulation, along with the abuse of “vaccines” targeting vulnerable populations to achieve it. So the agenda Pope Francis seems willing to promote, at the risk of slandering humanity, encompasses punitive action near unto genocide against the human race. Those left will amount to the elitist few and the people needed to cater to their whims.

Last I heard, the intent to commit genocide is in one of the things prohibited by “Thou shalt not murder.” Another of the Ten Commandment proclaims “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” But if the climate change allegations against humanity are unproven, the whole push for totalitarian government remediation of the allegedly terrible damage we are inflicting on God’s creation is a slander against the human race, a sin against humanity being committed as a pretext for the rape of human life, human conscience and God-endowed human liberty. This looks awfully like a crime against humanity, perpetrated by way of unproven allegations and outright lies in order to subject the earth to a regime of government that demands that people live by lies.

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When it comes to a matter of obvious moral substance (sexual sin) Pope Francis humbly wonders “Who am I to judge?” When it comes to a matter of scientific fact and methodology, he not only judges, he demands the imposition of a harsh sentence of perpetual deprivation and servitude upon the whole human race, with a view perhaps near unto genocide. I doubt that I’m alone in seeing something dreadfully wrong with this picture.

Even if the facts “Laudato Si’” relies upon were scientifically verified (and at this point, God only knows), the harsh sentence demanded would be for Christ to impose upon the whole sinful human tribe, when he comes again in judgment. Yet when I look in the mirror of reason at the reflections Pope Francis offers in his encyclical, what I see looks unlike Jesus Christ (who as of now still comes to save and not harshly to penalize humanity). Pope Francis’ reflections look more like Marx, Stalin or Mao Zedong – materialistic ideologues who punished not for the sake of God or truth, but on account of resentful, self-idolizing human will and ideology.