For papal standards, Francis is quite progressive.

Lol reminds me of the Louis ck classic

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LOojbp8ptWI

based pope

People tend to overlook the fact that the words of someone with this level of influence are vitally important and can have enormous effects on the world.

Whether you in particular care about a famous/rich person's comments or not, there are millions that do--and that is important. Important enough that even without respecting that person, we should always take what they say and do very seriously.

It’s fine you don’t care, but there’s something like 1.4 billion Catholics that probably do.

News about what the head of the Catholic church does is as important as news about what the head of USA, China or Russia does. It's hugely influencial even when it comes to lives of non-catholics, non-americans, non-chinese... because of the massive number of people that belong to the religion or state and the power that religion or state has. It's a good thing the pope talks against fossil fuel companies, because his influence is big.

Many times the victims of priest sexual abuse have approached the Vatican for a meeting and blessing from the pope. Every time the pope has turned them away and refused to even acknowledge their existence, or their plight. His lawyers tell him it's not a good idea. And of course the representative of god, flanked by lawyers and bankers, listens to his lawyers over god.

Or you had the power to publicly shame Catholic leaders and say "you can't get into heaven until you stop sucking so bad"

Exactly. US oil companies won't voluntarily "go green" unless it is more profitable to do so.

I was a production engineer at a US oil company for 5 years and each week I was instructed to calculate what the maximum amount of natural gas each well was allowed to flare while staying exactly below the legal limit. This is natural gas which cannot be sold so it is burned on-site which produces less greenhouse gases than just releasing it to the atmosphere.

Essentially, I was helping them pollute the maximum legal amount in order to maximize profit from the oil production. The gas pipelines hadn't been built yet but the oil company didn't want to wait for that since the oil is more valuable. This was A LOT of gas being burned. The fire balls were enormous and roared, sounding like a helicopter or jet engine at times.

Everything in the company worked this way. Old wells didn't get plugged and cleaned up until the local state government threatened fines. Leaks and spills were only monitored as closely as they were because the state had inspectors going around issuing hefty fines.

I think all the hate is justified. Pope has been quick to point fingers in various directions for a while now but he never moved a step to fix issues in his own yard making whole church extremely hypocritical.

Nah, I'm pretty sure he was feuding with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church over it, even called him an alter boy.

"POPE CALLS FOR NATIONS TO IMPOSE 1000% TAX ON CARBON, ACCELERATE TRANSITION TO RENEWABLES", said no pope ever, to anyone.

Because millions and millions of people care?

A lot of people live by what the pope says lol. Media obv just wants clicks and would give platform to anyone that does not hurt their interests.