Exhorting, Apostolically

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATIONS are the third most important document a pope can write and distribute, exceeded in importance only by Apostolic Constitutions and Apostolic Encyclicals. Such "exhortations", as the name implies, are usually intended to encourage the faithful to engage in a certain type of behavior, or to embrace certain virtues. Whether the Pope uses a ghost writer or merely an editor,probably varies; suffice to say that all Papal utterances, proclamations, and writings are considered to be wholly of the pope, and by the pope, and are thus termed "magesterial". Just recently Pope Francis issued such an apostolic exhortation, in reality a bundle of several, perahps a dozen, different essays urging all good Catholics to adopt, embrace, or enhance certain attitudes and virtues. Pope Francis urges all people to be kinder, more compassionate, more devoted to the actual teachings of Christ, and so forth. His essay/letter about climate change is titled "To All People Of Good Faith On the Climate Crisis". By this he not only means good devout Christians, but, more importantly, intelligent, reasonably well educated people who are honest and open minded enough to give all points of view a fair chance, including the viewpoint that climate change is real, really is caused by human activity, and that we absolutely must do something about it, in order for our descendenats to exist and survive. People of "goodwill" are people who are willing to listen, and to arrive at honest, accurate conclusions. The Pope's essay is perhaps the best writing ever published assuring everyone that climate change is indeed very real, is caused by people, and can and must be stopped by people. He deals with climate change deniers straight up, very effectively, and very carefully, very convincingly shows them where they have gone wrong in their thinking, and how to change it. All reasonably intelligent climate change deniers should be encouraged to read the Pope's writing. Unless I am hallucinating, I have a strong memory of the fact that Pope Francis comes from an educated background, and that his education is centered upon chemistry. I seem to recall that he actually has an advanced degree in chemistry, which is certainly enough education to undertand precisely how and why climate change, also called "global warming", is very real. It has often occured to me that all that is needed for anyone to understand that climate change is real, and why, is to have taken a high school chemistry class. Even a junior high school class would probably suffice. The chemistry is blatantly simple. There is a patttern to climate change denial, ad it is education, specifically, a lack thereof. Almost invariably, those who deny the reality of human made clmate change have not taken a chemistry class, nor studied it on their own. If only they would. Ronald Reagan once famously said that if the Earth were threatened by invasion from an extrterrestrial species, humanity would unite to resist the invader. And so we surely would. It was a metaphor the former president was fond of making. The idea of a great, inexorable, external enemy, threatening all humankind, being the perfect impetus to unite the human race in a common enterprise, the idea being that perhaps we could similarly unite for many worthy enterprises, like feeding everybody. Climate change should have the same effect as an alien invasion. It would, if we would but allow it.