Cardinal Neri’s COP30 Address: Naturalism Masquerading as Catholic Teaching
The VaticanNews portal (21 November 2025) reports on Cardinal Filipe Neri’s statements at COP30 in Brazil, where he demanded wealthier nations “pay their ecological debt” through fossil fuel phaseouts, climate finance grants, and debt cancellation. Neri, presented as “Archbishop of Goa” and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, endorsed a Global South Churches’ document framing climate action through “integral ecology,” indigenous land rights, and gender-focused adaptation. He praised antipope Leo XIV’s video message urging collective climate action and called interreligious dialogue “imperative” after a terrorist attack in New Delhi.
Subordination of Supernatural Mission to Earthly Utopianism
The cardinal’s fixation on “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” inverts the hierarchy of ends established by divine revelation. Nowhere does he mention the salvation of souls, the necessity of grace, or the Kingship of Christ—the only foundation for true justice (Pius XI, Quas Primas). This reduction of the Church’s mission to socio-political activism directly contradicts Pope Pius IX’s condemnation of those who claim “the Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics” (Syllabus of Errors, §63). By framing climate change as the paramount moral crisis, Neri implicitly denies the primacy of spiritual combat against sin and heresy—the very evils plunging nations into chaos.
Modernist Syncretism in “Integral Ecology”
The document’s appeal to “relationality between the Creator, creation, and human beings” disguises pantheistic tendencies. Authentic Catholic teaching distinguishes Creator from creation to prevent the idolatrous worship of nature condemned by Pius IX: “God is identical with the nature of things… spirit with matter, good with evil” (Syllabus, §1). True ecological stewardship flows from Dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28)—a mandate requiring submission to Christ’s reign, not UN sustainability goals. Neri’s demand for “indigenous knowledge” in climate strategies furthers religious relativism, implicitly equating pagan animism with Revelation. Pius X’s Lamentabili anathematized such syncretism: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (§20).
Economic Marxism Disguised as “Climate Justice”
Neri’s call for wealth redistribution—”grants, not loans,” “debt cancellation”—echoes socialist rhetoric condemned by Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. The assertion that “the North grew rich by exploiting the South” ignores Divine Providence’s role in national destinies and reduces history to class struggle. Pius XI’s Quas Primas clarifies: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men”—not a battleground for resource conflicts. Worse, Neri’s critique of “green capitalism” still operates within materialist parameters, never challenging the cult of unlimited growth that Pius XII identified as a root of modern apostasy.
Religious Indifferentism in the Guise of “Dialogue”
After the New Delhi attack, Neri declared interreligious dialogue “not an option; it is imperative.” This contradicts the dogmatic teaching extra Ecclesiam nulla salus and Pius IX’s condemnation of the idea that “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion” (Syllabus, §18). True peace comes only when nations submit to Christ the King, not through pluralist “coexistence.” By omitting calls for conversion, Neri reduces the Church to a NGO facilitator—precisely the error Pius X blasted as “the democratization of the Church” in Pascendi.
Omission of the Divine Judge and Eternal Consequences
The entire discourse lacks any reference to God’s justice, the Four Last Things, or the imperative to “seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). Climate catastrophes are presented as purely political problems, ignoring their dimension as divine chastisements for collective sin. This naturalistic worldview—where floods and heatwaves replace the threat of Hell—was forewarned in Pius X’s Lamentabili: “Dogmas… are a certain interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has worked out” (§22). The silence on repentance and grace exposes the bankruptcy of the conciliar sect’s “new evangelization.”
Source:
Cardinal Neri at COP30: Halt distractions, phase out Fossil Fuels (vaticannews.va)
Date: 21.11.2025