(LifeSiteNews) — Jack Maxey returns on this week’s episode of Faith & Reason, featuring John-Henry Westen, Father James Altman, and Liz Yore, in which they discuss Pope Francis’ announcement of a new environmental encyclical, the latest with Bishop Joseph Strickland, the Hawaii fires, and the trial of pro-lifers in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, Pope Francis announced that he was writing another environmental encyclical as a follow-up of his previous Laudato Si’, also discussing environmentalism. In the previous encyclical, Francis did not limit himself to the Catholic understanding that man is a steward of the earth as God’s creation, but also touched upon the arguments for “climate change.” The “second part” of Laudato Si’, the Pope explained, is to touch upon “present problems.” 

Yore noted that Francis recently met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and George Soros’ son Alexander, who has recently taken charge of his father’s ultra-liberal Open Society Foundation, as well as former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Yore questioned whether Francis was getting “his marching orders” from Kerry, or Clinton and Soros, wondering if the latter two told the Holy Father to push “climate change because the people aren’t buying [it].” She also noted that the globalists were “predictable,” maintaining that they were “all talking from the same page.” 

Connected with the upcoming encyclical, the panel also discussed ultra-liberal Cardinal Blaise Cupich’s visit to the Parliament of the World Religions discussing climate change. Yore, considering the event in light of Francis’ push for “integral ecology” and the “dramatic urgency of global warming” at World Youth Day and the fearmongering of “climate change alarmists” such as Jeffrey Sachs, noted, “When you can’t use reason, then you use woke ideology, panic… to try and force the public to go along with your radical agenda.” 

Fr. Altman, commenting on the upcoming encyclical and Cupich’s remarks, said that the “true theology” on the matter is that “God created the heavens and the earth all for man,” yet what one hears is “woke ideology.”  

Warning that the pursuit of woke ideology “ultimately will destroy the faith of the many,” Altman stated that “the fact is that Holy Mother Church has handed down to us unchanged and unchangeable for 2,000 years the truth of the matter, which is that God created the universe.” He also opined that God does not need to send a cataclysm to destroy man, but that man will send himself cataclysms. 

Maxey connected the issue to the Maui fires, noting that an overreliance on solar and wind energy is not prudent. “We are putting the reliance of planet earth on technologies that are not reliable, that are easily undermined,” he stated. “At the same time, we’re creating this terror about a warming planet.” 

After a brief discussion on a letter from the laity of the Diocese of Tyler defending their bishop, Joseph Strickland, against what they perceive as an unjust apostolic visitation from the Vatican, which was something Yore noted was “what the faithful need to do,” the group returned to the Maui fires. 

When Westen asked why the mainstream media have not covered the fires after Yore noted the absence of “screaming headlines” over it, Maxey opined that it was because of the number of missing presumed dead, between 1,100 and 1,500 people, something that Yore put second to 9/11 in terms of deaths. 

Maxey further maintained that the governments of Canada and the United States do little whenever there is a wildfire, stating “it promotes their agenda.” 

“I hope people are just waking up that the enemy is sitting right there in… white, shiny buildings in Washington, D.C.,” Maxey exclaimed. “In Hawaii, they watched a whole town burn with the human beings in it because they’re dickering over water and how to turn the island of Maui into a 100 percent carbon-neutral green paradise. This is insane.” 

LifeSite has set up a LifeFunder for the Vulnerable People Project, which is helping those suffering in Lahaina, Maui, as a result of the fire.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the panel discussed the trial of several pro-life rescuers for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances (FACE) Act while trying to save babies at a D.C. late-term abortion mill.  

During the trial, a clinician at the clinic where the rescuers protested,argued that her Catholic faith allows her to perform abortions, and the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, rebuked one of the defense’s attorneys, Robert Dunn, for attempting to admonish the clinician for misrepresenting Catholicism, noting that Dunn was there to defend a client and not act as a theologian.

Also at the trial was Sister Deidre Byrne, whom the judge claimed engaged in an “intimidation tactic” by reciting the Hail Mary as the witness passed her in the courtroom.

Yore, a lawyer by trade, commented on the affair by calling for people to join Sister Byrne in prayer for “true justice to come out of this trial.” 

“It’s a very important trial,” she continued. “It’s similar to the charges that Mark Houck faced in Philadelphia, though, and he was acquitted, but he was facing 11 years. These defendants are also facing 10 or more years in a federal prison.” 

Altman, reacting to Kollar-Kotelly’s remarks to one of the rescuers’ attorneys, said that if the judge wanted a theologian, Bishop Strickland should be brought in to testify, and that Kollar-Kotelly herself was “intimidating anybody who actually speaks up for the Catholic faith or for life.”

For all this and more, tune in to this week’s episode of Faith & Reason.

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