U.S.

Pope Francis May Find Wariness Among U.S. Bishops on Climate Change

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A Mass at the spring meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in St. Louis.Chris Lee/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press 
ST. LOUIS — The church bulletin inserts are nearly ready to go. So are the emails to every Roman Catholic parish in the United States with preaching suggestions for the first Sunday after Pope Francis releases his encyclical on the environment.
A week after that, on June 28, churches worldwide are being asked to ring their bells at noon to commemorate a “Thank you, Pope Francis” march in Rome being held that day.
Never before, church leaders say, has a papal encyclical been anticipated so eagerly by so many. With Francis expected to make the case that climate change, unchecked development and overconsumption are exacerbating the suffering of the poor, advocates for the environment and the poor are thrilled.
But the leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States may be harder to win over. At the spring meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops here last week, bishops from around the country said they were withholding their enthusiasm until they saw the document on Thursday.
Some said they were wary about getting the church enmeshed in the debate over climate change, a contentious issue in the United States. They also expressed concern about allying with environmentalists, some of whom promote population control as a remedy, since the Church sees abortion and contraception as great evils.
Some bishops said they had received hate mail from Catholics skeptical of climate change. That has added to the bishops’ hesitation and confusion on the topic.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., said that at the meeting on Thursday, when the bishops discussed their top priorities for the coming years, “nobody mentioned the environment.”
“They don’t understand it. They don’t understand the complexities.” Cardinal McCarrick said of the bishops. He added, “When the encyclical comes out they’ll all get behind it, but they’re waiting to see what’s in it.”
Their wariness is one of many signs of the challenges Pope Francis faces with American Catholic leaders, who are more cautious and politically conservative than he seems to be on certain issues. Most in this current generation of bishops were appointed and shaped by Francis’ more conservative predecessors, Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II.
The bishops represent 51 million Catholics — constituting the country’s largest single church — and with their influential lobbying arm in Washington, they affect public opinion not just in the pews, but also in statehouses and Congress.
In recent years, they have devoted their time and resources to fighting against abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception and for religious exceptions, vouchers for religious schools and the rights of immigrants. They found common cause with Republican politicians and evangelicals, and attended conferences hosted by conservative and libertarian think-tanks — where the bishops became acquainted with those who argue against the evidence that climate change is caused by human activity.
The more liberal-leaning bishops who dominated the conference in the 1980s and the 1990s — taking on issues like economic injustice, workers’ rights, agriculture and the environment — have been outnumbered and overshadowed for years.
“The composition of the bishops conference changed, and their agenda moved to reproductive issues and issues of gender,” said the Rev. Drew Christiansen, distinguished professor of ethics and development at Georgetown University, who worked at the bishops’ conference in the 1990s. “The environment as an issue was still there. They were working on it, but it was a back-burner issue.”
With Francis as pope for the last two years, bishops say they can see how he is electrifying the public and infusing new energy in the church. Francis, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, is the first pope from the developing world and the first Jesuit. From the start of his papacy, he said he wanted “a poor church, for the poor.”
But the bishops conference, reflecting its own divisions and a broader split in the American church, has been slow to adopt his agenda. Only about 40 of the 250 bishops at the meeting attended a workshop on the encyclical.
When the chairmen of the committee on priorities and plans unveiled its priorities for 2017 to 2020, the list was essentially a replay of its pre-Francis agenda: family and marriage (including opposition to same-sex marriage); evangelization; religious freedom; human life and dignity (including abortion and euthanasia); and the promotion of vocations to the priesthood.
The only reference to the environment was the phrase “God’s creation,” which was included in a list of issues that fall under human life and dignity.
Some bishops rose to object that poverty was not made a top priority. “I want to express my disappointment,” said Bishop George L. Thomas of Helena, Mont., that there is not “more emphasis given to the plight of the poor.”
Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin of Indianapolis told the bishops that the priorities failed to reflect “the newness of Pope Francis” and the “dynamism” he brought to the church. He urged that the priorities be reworked “so it’s clear that we take him seriously and we’re accepting his pastoral guidance.”
When the conference president, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, asked the bishops to adopt the list as a “working draft” that would be revised over the next six months, the move passed 165 to 14.
Archbishop Tobin said later in an interview that the debate represented “the complexity of the conference.”
Catholic scholars said to watch in the coming weeks for whether bishops supportive of Francis’ climate change agenda find ways to sway the public conversation, and bring converts to the cause.
There clearly are pockets of enthusiasm for the coming encyclical, and signs of eager preparation among lay Catholics and some bishops.
Daniel Misleh, executive director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, the group sending the parish bulletin inserts and the homily suggestions, said he was also working with a handful of bishops on events to promote the encyclical.
The bishops of Des Moines and Davenport, Iowa, for example, plan to have a news conference at a wind turbine manufacturing plant.
Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, who as chairman of the committee on domestic justice and human development gave a presentation to the bishops on the climate change encyclical, said the pope’s message would ultimately “transcend” the divisions over the environment and climate change.
“The pope is not approaching this as a scientist, he’s not approaching this as a politician,” Archbishop Wenski said at a news conference. “I think he’s trying to approach the issue of creation care as a pastor and as a teacher.”
Bishop Oscar Cantú of Las Cruces, N.M., who is chairman of the committee on international justice and peace, said he would remind “so-called serious Catholics” who might want to dismiss the encyclical for political reasons that church teaching was not “Hints from Heloise.”
Francis “will challenge assumptions on both the left and the right,” Archbishop Cantú predicted. “He will call all of us to a wider vision, a global vision, to the globalization of solidarity.”
Mr. Misleh said that when the encyclical is released, he expects American bishops and church members to embrace it with urgency and vigor because it will tie in neatly with the church’s other priorities.
“I think a lot of bishops will realize that this issue of the environment is really appealing to young people,” he said. “This is a good hook for evangelization.”
A version of this article appears in print on June 14, 2015, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Francis May Find Wariness Among U.S. Bishops . Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe