The Nov. 14 NPR article “Pope Francis Again Calls for Climate Action. US Bishops Have Been All But Silent” features recent study from Creighton University.
“Catholic bishops in the United States have generally been mum or misleading about climate change in their messaging to their congregations.
A study out last month by scholars from Creighton University in Nebraska analyzed more than 12,000 official, written communications sent to parishioners in nearly every U.S. diocese over five years beginning in June 2014.
The authors found that on the infrequent occasions that bishops mentioned climate change, they often “diminished and distanced themselves from Church teaching on this issue” and downplayed parts of Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ document that conflict with American conservative political ideology.”
