Pope Francis says he is strongly considering adding the category of "ecological sin" to the Roman Catholic Church's official teaching.
"We must introduce — we are thinking — into the Catechism of the Catholic Church the sin against ecology, the ecological sin against the common home, because it's a duty," the pope said at the Vatican Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported.
He said ecological sin would be defined as an "action or omission against God, against others, the community and the environment."
"It is a sin against future generations and is manifested in the acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the harmony of the environment," he said.
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The pope said current developments in politics and the world of commerce remind him of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
"It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism," Francis said.
"I must confess to you that when I hear a speech (by) someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936," he added.
The pope blamed global capitalism for "plundering the earth" at the expense of the poor and future generations, reported Summit News.
"Global financial capital is at the origin of serious crimes not only against property but also against people and the environment," Francis said.
Summit News noted that in June, the pope declared a global "climate emergency" due to "global heating," warning that a failure to act immediately to reduce greenhouse gases would be "a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations."
Francis endorsed the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "radical energy transition."
In September, claiming a "climate emergency," he urged governments around the world to take "drastic measures" to combat global warming and reduce the use of fossil fuels.
Such measures, many economists have concluded, would halt development and destroy the economies of many countries.
Pope denies bodily resurrection of Jesus?
Earlier this month, the pope's longtime friend and interviewer claimed Francis denies one of the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in bodily form.
Eugenio Scalfari, a left-wing atheist journalist, claims that the pope told him that Jesus Christ did not rise bodily from the dead but "in the semblance of a spirit."
"[Jesus] was a man until he was placed in the tomb by the women who recomposed his body. That night, in the tomb, the man [Jesus] disappeared and came forth from the grotto in the semblance of a spirit that met the women and the Apostles while still preserving the shadow of the person, and then he definitely disappeared," Francis said, according to Scalfari, who published the remarks in the periodical he founded, La Repubblica.
The independent Catholic news site Church Militant asked the Vatican press office to respond and was given a "non-denial denial."
"As already stated on other occasions, the words that Dr. Eugenio Scalfari attributes in quotation marks to the Holy Father during the interviews he had cannot be considered as a faithful account of what was actually said, but rather represent a personal and free interpretation of those who listened, as appears completely evident from what is written today regarding the divinity of Jesus Christ," the Holy See statement said.
The Vatican's response was similar when Scalfari reported Francis told him in 2018 there is no hell and, recently, when the journalist claimed the pope told him that once Jesus Christ became incarnate, he was a man, a "man of exceptional virtues" but "not at all a God."
In a report on Scalfari's latest claim, LifeSiteNews cited a tweet from Italian journalist Antonio Socci.
"Scalfari continues to attribute to Bergoglio quotes that contain unheard-of theological enormities and no one from the Vatican cares in the least of denying, nor do they tell Scalfari to stop. Catholics think: those who keep silent agree," he wrote according to a translation from Italian.
Nick Donnelly, a Catholic deacon, told Church Militant, "The Scalfari claims about Francis' heretical beliefs are so shocking, and the Pope's adamant silence so incomprehensible, we have to assume that this is an accurate account of their conversations."
Donnelly noted the bodily resurrection of Jesus is "de fide," meaning essential, doctrine.
"Every time we recite the Nicene and Apostles' Creed we proclaim the bodily resurrection of Jesus," he said. "In the past, an ecumenical council would have been convened to condemn Christological heresies."