In light of Pope Francis’ coming declaration regarding climate change, Pewsitter reports that a Catholic environmentalist group named Faithful America is trying to force the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) to stop inviting climate skeptics onto the channel’s programs. It is almost reminiscent of the Inquisition when the Church went to great lengths to persecute people who held beliefs different than Catholic declarations related to science, such as then Galileo Galilei was arrested, tried and jailed for reporting in a book he wrote stating the fact that the Earth revolved around the sun.

Now, a new kind of Inquisition is taking place where Catholic climate alarmists are attempting to halt debate on the issue of climate science. Faithful America has posted an online petition a network that has been the voice of the Catholic church literally on behalf of the Pope. EWTN allegedly has been broadcasting blistering critiques of the Pope due to his acceptance of human-induced global warming and Faithful America is trying to stop it.

This not only gives a window into church politics but highlights the conflict Christians (in this case Catholics) must face. Like environmentalism, Christianity (if not religion in general) relies on the morality of self sacrifice (altruism) as part of its ethic. Yet in this case we have a network (EWTN) who is bucking their church leader and a group attempting to shut down dissent and debate about a particular issue on behalf of their church’s head. On a certain level I can appreciate dissent and support EWTN’s right to speak out against Pope Francis. But even if the network is successful it will still be a mouthpiece for an institution totally geared to the sacrifice of the individual to the collective will. Francis and his supporters (like Faithful America) are the most consistent in their beliefs since embracing human induced global warming allow the Francis and his allies to argue against capitalism which enables people to live and prosper. It will not surprise me one bit if EWTN caves because network heads know that their leader governs on revelation from God like an environmentalist can act based on his or her reverence for nature.