At its best, the Catholic Church has an unparalleled capacity to do good.

Unfortunately, under the two most recent popes, the church has hardly shown itself at its best.

For all intents and purposes, Pope Leo XIV’s legitimacy as pope ended on Wednesday at the Raising Hope for Climate Justice Conference in Italy, where the pontiff participated in strange, nature-worshiping ceremony that included blessing a block of ice.

“Lord of life, bless this water,” the pope said in a clip posted to the social media platform X.

Incredibly, the entire bizarre scene mimicked the solemnity of a Catholic mass. Climate activists offered pledges in the form of prayers. Conference attendees, acting the part of congregants, sang a refrain after each pledge.

“We will raise hope by demanding that leaders act with courage, not delay,” one activist pledged. “Will you join with us?”

Then came the church choir-like refrain.

Meanwhile, the cringe-worthy ceremony also included the unfurling and waving of a blue tarp that symbolized a “river of hope.”

To heighten the sense of the ludicrous, the line of self-righteous tarp-wavers featured former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. Those who have not forgotten the COVID-era tyranny will remember the former governor as Arnold “Screw Your Freedom” Schwarzenegger.

NEW: Pope Leo XIV blesses a block of ice before a blue tarp is rolled out and waved by people, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the Raising Hope for Climate Justice conference.

“We will raise hope by demanding that leaders act with courage, not delay.”

“Will you join with… pic.twitter.com/PSVVwTB79V

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 1, 2025

Until this week, one could not tell for sure whether Pope Leo XIV would follow in his predecessor’s globalist footsteps. Perhaps, one hoped, the new pope would prove more milquetoast than destructive.

Wednesday’s spectacle, however, removed all doubt, particularly on the heels of the pontiff’s reprehensible comments earlier this week, when he intimated that those who oppose the death penalty and support open borders have as strong a claim to a pro-life position as those who oppose abortion.

Moreover, by joining climate cultists (as opposed to conservationists, who do noble work), the pope betrayed a key Christian teaching.

“[B]ecause they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever …  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” (Romans 1:25-26)

And to think that Catholics could have had Cardinal Robert Sarah as our pope.

“You are invaded, still, by other cultures, other peoples, which will progressively dominate you by their numbers and completely change your culture, your convictions, your values,” the conservative Cardinal Sarah from the west African nation of Guinea once warned Westerners in a French-language interview.

Above all, however, Pope Leo XIV seems destined to fail because he appears to have forgotten his purpose.

In short, the Catholic Church exists for no other reason than to bring people to Jesus. Everything else carries little or no importance by comparison.

And that is why his legitimacy as pope ended on Wednesday, for a climate-worshiping ceremony complete with pseudo-Catholic rituals performed in order to gratify elites’ sense of self-importance will repel rather than invite ordinary people across the world who might otherwise have discovered that the church brings them closer to their Lord and Savior.

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