The Pope's most recent encyclical (Laudato Si) excoriating Man's treatment of the planet, together with his withering attack on consumer capitalism, is a long overdue riposte from the oldest Christian Church. But it is, nevertheless, most welcome. At a time when such concerns are deliberately marginalized by the very interests they critique, a still powerful and widely influential voice like the Pope's is much needed to add balance.

Since the public space is so often hijacked nowadays by the trivial and the acutely temporary (iPhones, Kardashians blah blah blah), or is subject to the extremes of the oft-mentioned omnipresent newscycle, we truly need a place where serious things can be said by people who will be taken seriously. And we need to talk about them over an extended period of time.

I sway between an optimistic and a pessimistic position for the most part. I am happy to be an activist even if the odds are heavily stacked against me, but I despair of the ignorance and willful stupidity that seems so much a part of the human condition.

But Pope Francis offers hope, and that is good.