Michael Moore Steals Pope’s Slogan

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ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Climate alarmist and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is borrowing Pope Francis' much-publicized sound bites to predict an apocalyptic environmental scenario for the planet that will dwarf the Wuhan virus crisis.

"If you think COVID-19 has been a bummer," Moore warned in Tuesday's episode of his Rumble podcast, "well, trust me, you literally can't imagine just how awful Earth's revenge is going to be against us for trying to choke it to f***king death."

"This planet can remove us all in a snap of its fingers. Thank God it doesn't have fingers," Moore elaborated in a Facebook post, calling the Wuhan virus "earth's slap in our collective face."

"Viruses are part of nature. This is their planet, too. They are a form of life. And like another species I know well, they are killers," Moore wrote, comparing human beings to killer viruses.

"We need these young people to do what we haven't had the guts to do — slam the door shut on the 'green capitalism' that funds and poisons the movement. The youth will refuse to participate in the eco-industrial complex. Let them lead!" he exclaimed.

In March, asked by a Spanish journalist if the Wuhan virus was "nature's revenge," Pope Francis replied: "There is a saying, that you know. God always forgives. We forgive from time to time. Nature never forgives. Fires, earthquakes ... nature is kicking us so we take care of nature."

Last month, the pontiff told The Tablet he didn't know if natural catastrophes are "the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature's responses."

"God always forgives, we men forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives. If you give her a slap, she will give you one," Francis told the media on board his flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines in 2015.

"I don't know if it (human activity) is the only cause, but mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face," he added. "We have in a sense taken over nature."

National Geographic listed the pope's "nature never forgives" adage as among Francis' seven "greenest quotes."

Moore Advances Faux Catholicism

Moore has often touted his Irish Catholic roots to promote his left-wing and anti-capitalist agenda, interviewing several Catholic priests in his 2009 documentary Capitalism: A Love Story

In the movie, the priests explain their belief that capitalism and the free market, by emphasizing greed and the self over community, go against the Bible's basic tenets. Father Dick Preston tells Moore: "Capitalism is evil, immoral and contrary to the teachings of Jesus."

According to Britain's left-wing The Guardian, "Moore is a practicing Catholic" who, as a child, considered going to a seminary to study to become a priest because he had been so impressed by the nuns who taught him at school.

Moore has also flaunted his support for Pope Francis, especially after speaking to the pontiff during the weekly audience in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 17, 2018.

"I wanted to ask him a question, and his advice, and it was very profound what he said to me," Moore said on a visit to Rome. He was there to promote his recently released documentary Fahrenheit 11/9, which deals with President Trump's election and his first year in office.

Moore told Newsweek he asked if Pope Francis believed that "capitalism, the kind of — the capitalism we have now is a sin?" The pope replied: "Yes, it is. The poor must always come first."

Moore described Pope Francis as a humorous figure:

He grabbed my hand and he said, "Please, pray for me." And I said, "I will, and please pray for me." And he said, "No, you have to make more movies." And I'm like, "I just wanted a prayer." He's like, "No, you go back to — you go back work." He has a sense of humor.

"Today Pope Francis blasted capitalism as 'the new tyranny' that 'kills' people. A stunning manifesto — his first as pope," Moore tweeted in 2013.

Capitalism and the 'Common Good'

Catholic teaching does not reject capitalism but "recognizes that market forces, when properly regulated in the name of the common good, can be an efficient mechanism for matching resources to needs in a developed society," according to The Common Good and the Catholic Church's Social Teaching.

"No other system has so far shown itself superior in encouraging wealth creation and hence in advancing the prosperity of the community and enabling poverty and hardship to be more generously relieved," the document states.

In 2016, Moore wrote supporting the pontiff's call to abolish the death penalty: "Pope Francis has asked the United States, North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia to take one year off from killing people via execution."

Moore's recent documentary Planet of the Humans has outraged the environmental movement for arguing that renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are unreliable and rely upon fossil fuels to function.

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