Pope Francis: Fractivist

His Holiness posed with anti-fracking T-shirts after meeting with environmental activists

Published November 13, 2013 7:58PM (EST)

His Holiness Pope Francis may have revealed himself to be a fracktivist.

While the first Jesuit leader of the Roman Catholic Church has yet to officially denounce the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas, he was caught in some compromising photographs that are now circulating on Twitter:

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According to elEconomista, the pope met Monday with Argentine filmmaker Fernando "Pino" Solanas, who seized the opportunity to get some papal endorsement for his cause. The two T-shirts he posed with say "No to fracking" and "Water is more precious than gold" (the latter refers to the contaminated groundwater caused by fracking).

Getting the Holy Father to actually put the T-shirts on -- or at least look a bit less skeptical -- would have been the major coup. But according to Solanas, the pope said he's working on an encyclical that will address environmental issues, so this may not be the last we hear from him on the topic.

h/t Grist


By Lindsay Abrams

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Anti-fracking Environmentalism Pope Francis I Roman Catholic Church