Network of Dissident Groups Launch ‘Laudato Si’ Website

DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - An organization calling itself the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) has launched a website on the anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change, Laudato Si. The website, LiveLaudatoSi.org, features a pledge to "Pray for and with creation, Live more simply, Advocate to protect our common home."

On the site, Catholics are encouraged to participate in an interfaith "Fast for Climate Justice" and to give up meat on Fridays "for the sin of environmental destruction and in faith and hope for change." Catholics are also directed to advocate for the environmentalist cause by signing a petition to President Trump, voicing support for the Paris Climate Accords from which the Trump administration withdrew on June 1. The page for the petition reads, "But now a single man, Donald Trump, is playing with our futures by threatening to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. To make it worse, he already nominated dangerous climate deniers for his cabinet. Exactly the contrary of what Pope Francis is asking."

The website's resources page features videos hosted by dissident clerics such as homosexualist Fr. James Martin, S.J. and Fr. Dan Horan, O.F.M. who hosts a series of videos on the encyclical. Church Militant reported on Fr. Horan's vocal support of the anti-Trump, pro-abortion, so-called "Women's March" in January. Fr. Horan tweeted out regarding critics of the March, "The #Trolls are out in force today against #WomensMarch — like the demons in the Gospel, they can't stand inclusion, Justice, Peace of Christ!"

The GCCM itself is comprised of hundreds of member organizations from around the world, including but not limited to the following:

• Catholic Climate Covenant, which is affiliated with the USCCB, whose former director of programs was a member of a pro-abortion group online
• Catholic Charities USA, which Church Militant reported in 2015 was connected to organizations pushing homosexuality, abortion, and contraception
• The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which was under investigation by the Vatican from 2012–2015 for a "grave doctrinal crisis" within the organization
• Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which was revealed during the 2016 Presidential election to be a front organization of John Podesta in an effort to create a "Catholic spring" to push liberal causes
• The Office of Life, Justice and Peace, diocese of Orange, whose bishop, Kevin Vann, told his parishes and schools in his diocese to not comply with ICE officers
• The Office For Catholic Social Justice Ministry of the archdiocese of Hartford, an archdiocese which is currently undergoing severe downsizing

The GCCM is currently a sponsored project of the Franciscan Action Network (FAN). "FAN's mission statement on their website reads as follows: Inspired by the Gospel of Jesus, and the example of Sts. Francis and Clare, the Franciscan Action Network is a collective Franciscan voice, seeking to transform U. S. public policy related to peace-making, care for creation, poverty and human rights." A blog post on the interest group's website regarding the Black Lives Matter movement, following the police shootings in Dallas in July of 2016 read, "We are horrified," FAN said, "by the shooting of five police officers in Dallas, and the fact that someone took advantage of a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest to cause chaos and violence."

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