Climate change deniers never needed to know exactly what Pope Francis would say in his highly anticipated encyclical on the environment and climate change, which isn't released officially until Thursday. It was never about the content of Francis’ document, which were a mystery until a near-final, 192-page version leaked on Monday. They had prepped all along to discredit the Vatican's message using whatever means possible.

While the leaked document surprised the Vatican and English-speaking reporters, who scrambled to translate the Italian version, conservatives have had their response ready for months. This could be why some, like Steve Milloy of the climate-denier website Junk Science, were so triumphant to catch the Vatican so off-guard:

Leaked climate encyclical a stumbling, bumbling PR disaster for Red Pope. Check out the embarrassing excerpts. https://goo.gl/EQJKi5 — junkscience

The leaked version, titled “Laudato Si” or “Be Praised,” comes out strongly on the science and moral nature of climate change. “Numerous scientific studies indicate that most of the global warming of the past decades is due to the concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others), emitted especially because of human activities,” it says, according to a translated version. “We are not god,” it says in another section, urging action to avoid grave consequences for the world’s poor.

For all the buildup to the encyclical’s release, the conservative backlash was hardly ever a mystery. We've had hints of it over the past few months, and now, in the days leading up to the official publication of the encyclical, it's clear conservatives intend to repackage their familiar arguments against climate change. Their response has fallen into two camps: The first camp insists that Pope Francis is wrong on the science, and is misguided to enter the debate as a religious figurehead. The second suggests he knows what he is doing, but the solutions to climate change—action that prioritizes adaptation and mitigation—hurt the same people Francis speaks for, the world’s poor.

“I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,” former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said on Tuesday, his second day as an official presidential candidate. “And I’d like to see what he says as it relates to climate change and how that connects to these broader, deeper issues before I pass judgment. But I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.”