News from the Natural World: Pope Francis has declared that the Catholic Church will no longer build any new churches and start planting trees to create “forests of worship” instead.
The shocking announcement comes after the Papacy had come under intense scrutiny and criticism over the Catholic church’s negative impact on the natural world. They received particular criticism for the fact that the Catholic theology of sexuality prohibits the use of artificial contraception. This ban on condoms was seen as a terrible mistake. Because condoms are one of the most effective methods for keeping the human population at a sustainable level. Pope Francis admitted that the Catholic church hadn’t been planting enough trees. Certainly, it hadn’t been a positive force in curbing the ever-growing population of humans on planet earth.
Pope to start planting more trees
Further criticism was aimed at the church’s past activity of mercilessly burning heretics at the stake. Pope Francis admitted that the practice was a somewhat carbon-emission-heavy activity that did not reflect good stewardship of mother nature. Undoubtedly this was true.
The Pope has taken this positive step in order to radically change people’s perceptions of the church. Moving forward no new churches will be constructed anywhere in the world. Instead, they will plant bio-diverse forests of worship. These will be places where people can appreciate the wonder of nature, set amongst ancient oaks and bask in the shade of the canopy. When interviewed about the initiative Pope Francis said;
“God can be worshipped everywhere so it didn’t make sense to keep building churches and destroying the nature for the sake of a shell to herd humans into to preach about the beauty of gods creations whilst simultaneously actively destroying everything he created”.