Pope Francis is certainly a mega-church pastor. As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, his flock numbers 1.4 billion souls worldwide.

This year marks his 10th year serving in that role.

Clearly, the primary task of every pastor is to feed, protect and grow Jesus’ flock. After all, Jesus’ clear and thrice-given command to Peter was “feed my sheep.”

Pope Francis has seriously stumbled in this regard. Some might say he has failed.

In his decade as the head of the Catholic Church, he has become famous for being publicly equivocal on important Christian teachings on sexuality and human anthropology.

Of course, the pontiff’s famously confusing “Who am I to judge?” statement led to great perplexity among the faithful and was wildly celebrated by the gay and mainstream press.

It earned Francis the title “Person of the Year” after all by leading gay publication The Advocate.

His widely reported equivocations have also led to major celebratory news articles, as in this recent piece from AP.

Under Francis, the Catholic Church is being lauded for welcoming things its own catechism clearly rejects as outside orthodox Christian belief and practice.

This all took a major leap this week when this pope approved a major official Declaration of the Catholic Church on the possibility of giving pastoral blessings to same-sex couples.

I am a young person who doesn’t identify with other young people.

That’s right, folks, we exist — and cringe at the same news you do.

I usually avoid reporting on my generation’s more misguided exploits because I’d never write anything else. But I would be negligent to ignore America’s best and brightests’ December foibles.

So, without further ado, I, Emily Washburn, self-appointed representative of all Gen. Z, apologize for:

• The White House and Congressional interns who sent not one, but two letters demanding the president enforce a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, criticizing their bosses, and repeatedly misusing the word “genocide.”
• The 24-year-old senate staffer who defiled a congressional building with public sex acts.
• The young people terrorizing Jewish students and citizens, hurling expletives and clogging public transportation in New York, Washington D.C., and other major cities in America.

These events expose an underlying attitude of arrogance and entitlement. I, and other young people like me, can’t imagine viewing my government job as a place to voice my opinions, or using a cause I’m passionate about to justify the verbal abuse and inconveniencing of strangers.

I certainly can’t imagine treating a storied senate building as a performance hall for my sexual desires.

Senators Tim Scott and James Lankford are set to bring forward legislation in the U.S. Senate to protect the rights of parents and families.

The soon-to-be-introduced 11-page “Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act” (the Act) says that Congress affirms that “the nature of the parent-child relationship endows parents with the primary responsibilities and obligation to care for their child.”

“From these responsibilities and obligations comes the pre-political, natural right of parents to care for their children,” the legislation states.

The Act notes that some Federal courts have failed to uphold the right of parents to direct the upbringing, education and health care of their children.

“The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children is a fundamental right,” the Act states. Therefore, the Act declares,

“Government shall not substantially burden the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children without demonstrating that the infringement is required by a compelling government interest of the highest order as applied to the parent and the child and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

The legislation is scheduled to be introduced early in the near year on January 10, 2024, with the support of numerous conservatives and pro-family organizations.

A climate study released this past week from the U.K. Center for Ecology and Hydrology found that human breathing is allegedly contributing to global warming. And no, this isn’t an excerpt from our friends at the Babylon Bee.

Researchers suggested that some of the blame in any increase can be attributed to “shifting diets” of the population.

Again, this is not parody.

“Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fiber vegetarian options to mitigate greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut, and an element of pollution swapping could occur,” cited the report.

In other words, veggie burgers aren’t just a poor substitute for a good old-fashioned hamburger — but a problematic one, at that.

We can be forgiven for growing weary of the endless litany of climate claims, finger-pointing, and downright dire predictions that the end is near unless we ditch our gas-powered cars and shutter our factories.

Back in 1970, Harvard biologist George Wald suggested, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

Paul Ehrlich, who wrote The Population Bomb, a woefully irresponsible scare book that warned we’d collapse as a civilization because of too many people, continues to be quoted despite the fact he’s been spectacularly wrong for over half a century.