New Cambridge University Study Implies Vatican II Caused Global Warming

(Jerusalem Post) A new study out of the U.K.’s prestigious Cambridge University believes that if the Catholic Church were to abolish the leniency introduced by Vatican II toward meatless Fridays, a billion Catholics worldwide could have a huge impact on reducing their carbon footprint and therefore “global warming”:

The Catholic Church has the power to significantly reduce global carbon emissions in its institution of meat-free Fridays, according to new research from the University of Cambridge

“The Catholic Church is very well placed to help mitigate climate change, with more than one billion followers around the world,” said lead author Professor Shaun Larcom from Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy. “Pope Francis has already highlighted the moral imperative for action on the climate emergency, and the important role of civil society in achieving sustainability through lifestyle change.”

The Pope has stood unequivocally on the side of climate action for years. In July 2022, Vatican-based news outlet Vatican News quoted Pope Francis as saying, “The phenomenon of climate change has become an emergency that no longer remains at the margins of society. Instead, it has assumed a central place, reshaping not only industrial and agricultural systems but also adversely affecting the global human family, especially the poor and those living on the economic peripheries of our world.”

The practice dates back to the first century CE, when Pope Nicholas I declared that Catholics were required to abstain from eating meat on Fridays in memory of the death and crucifixion of Christ. This practice was the norm in the UK until 1985 when the Catholic Church in England and Wales announced that it was permissible to substitute another form of penance in place of meatless Fridays.

[CFT note: Pope Nicholas I was a Ninth century Pope, not “first century” as the article claims]

Catholics’ practice of not eating meat on Fridays resulted in a boom in the fish market. This has had (at least) two famous culinary consequences — one was the introduction of the Filet-O-Fish to the MacDonald’s menu by Cincinnati franchise owner Lou Groen, whose hamburger sales were suffering on Fridays. The second is the ubiquity of fish and chips across England and the rest of the United Kingdom. The dish was brought to the British Isles by Sephardic Jews who came over from Spain and Portugal via the Netherlands, and in later centuries became a staple of the British Catholic weekly diet.

However, the environmental consequences are arguably more important that the cultural ones. In 2011, the Catholic Church of England and Wales re-instated the practice, although, predictably, they did not reach 100% compliance among all congregants. Only around 25% of UK Catholics changed their dietary habits – yet this still saved over 55,000 tons of carbon a year, according to the study.

The positive environmental impact of meatless Fridays is not necessarily limited to Catholics; religious leaders have the power to move large groups of people toward climate action. Co-author Dr. Luca Panzone from Newcastle University explained that, “many religions have dietary proscriptions that are likely to have large natural resource impacts. Other religious leaders could also drive changes in behavior to further encourage sustainability and mitigate climate change.”

“Our results highlight how a change in diet among a group of people, even if they are a minority in society, can have very large consumption and sustainability implications,” concluded study co-author Dr. Po-Wen She, a fellow of Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy.

As we reported back in 2019 — when it became apparent to everyone that Pope Francis had all but abandoned the Catholic faith to become a Social Justice Warrior — a like-minded bishop claimed that “climate change” was more “deadly” than abortion.

Of course, nothing would fight “global warming” better than population reduction through abortion — and if the Church would just start promoting abortion among its billion Catholic followers, climate change could become a thing of the past.

That said, this new study appears to be tone deaf to its own implications — if the Catholic re-institutes meatless Fridays, it could significantly reduce global warming.

Therefore, we should have seen an obvious and steady increase in global warming post Vatican II when the Church removed the meatless Friday rule.

But the study failed to mention any such post-Vatican II increase, of course — because there was none — just like there will be no decrease in global warming if every Catholic on the planet eats fish on Fridays again.

Previous studies have claimed that over-fishing can affect global warming, so if a billion Catholics start demanding fish every Friday again, it could have a huge negative effect, allegedly, on global warming.

So it would seem that whether Catholics eat fish or meat on Fridays, the earth is doomed to heat up and die — thus, the only logical course for Catholics to take is either fast on Fridays or have abortions on Fridays.

And abortion is the gift that keeps on giving to environmental alarmists — women who have had abortions are six times more likely to commit suicide — so potentially with each abortion, we get a two-for-one in population reduction.

What we do know about Vatican II — according to Maurice Pinay’s exposé, The Plot Against the Church — is that it greatly increased the influence and power of Jewry over the Church.

And we do know that in 2020 a group of 500 rabbis claimed that obeying kosher dietary laws will reduce global warming.

So it would appear that if the Catholic Church were truly interested in fighting global warming, it would demand that all Catholics worldwide go kosher — after all, when the Vatican approved the judaizing changes of Vatican II, they all-but went kosher anyway.