I wanna be like Raúl

Raúl Castro must have started praying already, as he's got Al Gore almost converted too;

US website The Daily Caller has reported that Al Gore is impressed with the Pope's stance on the environment.

Speaking at an event at the University of California, he said: "I think Pope Francis is quite an inspiring figure really."

"A phenomena. I've been startled with the clarity of the moral force that he embodies."

"Well I've said publicly in the last year, I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, I could become a Catholic because of this Pope. He is that inspiring to me.

We're sure the Church will accept his tithe. Though Gore has been shown to have little in the way of charitable instincts (at least as far as his released income tax statements show). And Al and Francis have an equally astute grasp of economics;

It has been reported that a document from a meeting Pope Francis had with academics and world leaders spoke of how fossil fuels have taken a toll on human life.

"Market forces alone, bereft of ethical values, cannot solve the intertwined crises of poverty, exclusion, and the environment," the Vatican document read.

To the extent that mankind has 'solved' the crisis of poverty that bedeviled its ancestors (say, the hunter-gatherers of yore), burning fossils fuels for the creation of electricity and for mobility and transport, played a large role. That's why we don't live in mud huts or caves in the developed world.

Just in the last few decades market forces have lifted a couple billion Asians out of abject poverty. Not to mention, how much scientific research would there be if we didn't burn fossil fuels?