Climate Denier Group Likens Pope Climate Change Talk To Paganism

Pope Francis leaves at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2015. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
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A leader at the Heartland Institute, a conservative group on skepticism of climate change, on Thursday compared Pope Francis’ focus on the environment to elements of paganism present in Christianity in the Middle Ages.

Gene Koprowski, the director of marketing at the group, spoke at a press conference announcing the Heartland Institute’s plan to join a coalition “challenging the pope’s views on global warming and the nature of capitalism.”

“While we initially thought it was bad advisors, I think that something more may be afoot,” Koprowski said while discussing the pope’s encyclical on the environment, according to video recorded by the liberal American Bridge 21st Century PAC.

He then referenced the medieval Feast of Fools, festivals with pagan origins held by Christians, in which festival-goers would elect a mock pope. The Catholic church eventually put an end to the festivals.

“It was a medieval festival, where masqueraders with grotesque masks took over the church and elected what was called a ‘fool’s pope,'” Koprowski said on Thursday. “This is a pagan ritual, pagan remnants that were seeping into the church. One of them also was ‘nature worship.’ What is environmentalism but nature worship?”

He then suggested that Pope Francis’ focus on the environment shows that paganism is making its way back into the Catholic church.

“I’m wondering, as a scholar, if pagan forms are returning to the church this day,” he said. “I think that if we have a pope who doesn’t view things in the orthodox manner, we’re going to be having forms returning to religion that are not orthodox.”

“This is not communism that has entered the church, it’s rather paganism,” Koprowski added.

Later, Koprowski was asked if he was accusing Pope Francis of being a “false pope.”

“Oh no,” he responded, adding that religions, like Christianity, have “forms,” such as the savior.

“This is more of a minor form, and this form is a false church within the church. And a false election within the church. And so what I’m saying is, just as in the Middle Ages when they had sort of a false belief in paganism and naturalism they had to tamp down by the Vatican, that’s the same thing that’s happening today, except we don’t have anybody tamping it down at the time,” Koprowski said. “When you let orthodoxy slip, and you don’t protect orthodoxy, you get chaos.”

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Notable Replies

  1. I wonder if these attacks on the Pope will cause some kind of schism within the Catholic oligarchy. I get that money has become the all encompassing focus for them but I honestly wonder how far they can push this “meme” of a false Pope that doesn’t worship the alter of capitalism?

    Also, what is with the attacks on Pope Francis due to his understanding of climate change?

  2. Is the Heartland Institute a false church?

  3. Avatar for mantan mantan says:


    New mitre?

  4. how dare they criticize the Pope! ANTI-CATHOLIC BIGOTRY!

  5. christianists are NOT Christians!!!

    Matthew 6:24 English Standard Version (ESV)
    24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.[a]

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