@HoolaHoopMan: There is a Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, their publications can be accessed at this webpage.

Spotify would need to get the musician's permission to be able to stream their music, so then it is not piracy. If a musician feels that the compensation is not enough, then they can sue if their musician is streamed without permission. Bmanva mentioned the example of Taylor Swift not allowing Spotify to stream her music, and she is in a good position to be able to do so. The question is would a small-time relatively unknown (perhaps beginner) musician be able to do so, they might not get much radio play and their albums may not sell so well (well practically nobody's albums sell as well as Taylor's do), so they may have to accept the low payment from Spotify in order to get exposure and some extra money.

Piracy sites in contrast would play the music without getting the musician's permission and probably without paying anything (maybe they'd buy a cd in order to upload the songs to their site).

@ferrari2001: My prediction was that this encyclical would be quite similar to Caritas in Veritate's segments on the environment and that seems to be the case, it seems like Caritas in Veritate is referenced a lot in Laudato Si. I heard that in this document Francis cites Benedict XVI and John Paul II eighty-something times.

So last thursday, Pope Francis released his second encyclical, Laudato Si which is officially dated on 24 May, the Solemnity of Pentecost (it is common for papal encyclicals to be officially dated on a date other than the date on which it is actually released, usually the date mentioned is a solemnity or a feast day), which is the first encyclical to be centered on environmental issues. Previous encyclicals have dealt with the environment - most recently Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which is cited often in Laudato Si - in the wider context of Catholic Social Teaching, but this is the first to be completely dedicated to the topic. While most encyclicals are officially entitled in Latin (another relatively recent encyclical that's entitled in a non-Latin language is Mit Brennder Sorge which was entitled in German and condemned many of the beliefs promoted by the Nazis, from what I understand the Church had that encyclical smuggled into Germany by priests on motorcycles), Laudato Si is an Italian title and there is no Latin translation of the encyclical up on the Vatican website (perhaps it was too difficult to translate some of the content into Latin, If I remember correctly there were some difficulties in figuring out how to say somethings in Latin in Caritas in Veritate).

The encyclical presents an "holistic" human ecology where man's relationship to God, to his fellow man, and to his home, the earth are all interrelated. A lot of attention has been given to how the encyclical deals with climate change, but it also mentions things like the loss of water and biodiversity. Like previous popes, Pope Francis states that there is a moral obligation to take good care of creation and says that technological advancements alone can not solve environmental issues, there is a need for people to change their lifestyles and be less consumeristic.

A lot of conservative Catholics - at least in the U.S. - had expressed concerns that some could use Pope Francis' encyclical as a way to promote population control in order to protect the environment but the Pope explicitly rejects population control and uses the encyclical to condemn abortion and embryonic stem cell research as being inconsistent with efforts to care for the environment and protect animals saying that "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance for concern for other vulnerable beings, however troubling and inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?" and "There is a tendency to justify transgressing all boundaries when experimentation is carried out on living human embryos....We forget that the inalienable worth of a human being transcends his or her degree of development.[W]hen technology disregards the great ethical principles, it ends up considering any practice whatsoever as licit.”

So last thursday, Pope Francis released his second encyclical, Laudato Si which is officially dated on 24 May, the Solemnity of Pentecost (it is common for papal encyclicals to be officially dated on a date other than the date on which it is actually released, usually the date mentioned is a solemnity or a feast day), which is the first encyclical to be centered on environmental issues. Previous encyclicals have dealt with the environment - most recently Benedict XVI's 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which is cited often in Laudato Si - in the wider context of Catholic Social Teaching, but this is the first to be completely dedicated to the topic. While most encyclicals are officially entitled in Latin (another relatively recent encyclical that's entitled in a non-Latin language is Mit Brennder Sorge which was entitled in German and condemned many of the beliefs promoted by the Nazis, from what I understand the Church had that encyclical smuggled into Germany by priests on motorcycles), Laudato Si is an Italian title and there is no Latin translation of the encyclical up on the Vatican website (perhaps it was too difficult to translate some of the content into Latin, If I remember correctly there were some difficulties in figuring out how to say somethings in Latin in Caritas in Veritate).

The encyclical presents an "holistic" human ecology where man's relationship to God, to his fellow man, and to his home, the earth are all interrelated. A lot of attention has been given to how the encyclical deals with climate change, but it also mentions things like the loss of water and biodiversity. Like previous popes, Pope Francis states that there is a moral obligation to take good care of creation and says that technological advancements alone can not solve environmental issues, there is a need for people to change their lifestyles and be less consumeristic.

A lot of conservative Catholics - at least in the U.S. - had expressed concerns that some could use Pope Francis' encyclical as a way to promote population control in order to protect the environment but the Pope explicitly rejects population control and uses the encyclical to condemn abortion and embryonic stem cell research as being inconsistent with efforts to care for the environment and protect animals saying that "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance for concern for other vulnerable beings when" and "There is a tendency to justify transgressing all boundaries when experimentation is carried out on living human embryos....We forget that the inalienable worth of a human being transcends his or her degree of development.[W]hen technology disregards the great ethical principles, it ends up considering any practice whatsoever as licit.”

The USCCB campaign, the Fortnight for Freedom, started on June 21 and continues on July 4. one of the goals of the campaign is to raise awareness of the importance of religious liberty (aka "freedom of religion") and to combat various threats to religious liberty at home and abroad, including policies by national and state governments as well as some policies by certain universities (namely "all-comer" policies where some universities have required all university-recognized student organizations, including religious organizations, to open the membership and leadership of the group to all students, meaning for example, that a Christian student group cannot even require its leaders to be Christians).

Perhaps the most high-proflie issue is the conflict over the HHS mandate, which has pitted the Obama Administration and their backers against a variety of religious organizations. The mandate requires all health-insurance plans to cover contraceptives, sterilization and some abortion-inducing drugs, and even when these things violate the beliefs of various individuals and organizations. The mandate is set to go into effect for religious groups (e.g. hospitals, dioceses, schools, charities) on August 1 (though of course there are numerous lawsuits against this mandate), and those organizations which don't comply would be fined the absurd amount of $100 per employee per day. Of course the Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, Southern Baptist Church and other religious groups that support them, may be gaining some momentum in their conflict with the Obama Administration, since Obama appears to be losing public support overall, in the aftermath of the IRS scandal and the NSA datamining issue, Obama's approval rating has fallen 8% over the past month and 17% among people under the age of 30.

find one and use this to make it 80x80MrPraline

Benedict is happy to return to the Vatican and says that the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery is " a welcoming house, and that Here one can work well.

Here is the picture of Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI meeting yesterday:

I hope he enjoys his new homeJML897