As a recovering Catholic, I watched Pope Francis's historic six-day visit to the U.S. with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was fantastic to see a leader who cannot be ignored bring his anti-capitalist message into the belly of the beast.

On the other hand, that the Pope – a figurehead for one of the most repressive institutions in the history of planet – was now somehow framed as being to the political left of both Republicans (who were apoplectic that Francis was talking about Climate Change at all) and Democrats like President Obama (who pay lip service to addressing the climate crisis while pursuing an all of the above energy policy that is literally pouring fuel on the fire) shows just how possessed we are with bad ideas.

To provide justice to those communities already suffering the negative impacts of human induced climate change, and to turn the tide and avoid bequeathing Armageddon-like conditions to our grandchildren, we will have to perform an exorcism of sorts.