At a time when Steve Bannon is "bonding" with Raymond Burke, who together may coordinate efforts to discredit Pope Francis among American Catholics, it's encouraging to see that there are many Catholics who understand their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ to include standing with Standing Rock, supporting the Mni Wiconi movement ("Water is life"), and comforting the water protectors.

As for Mark Schmidt, who sounds like a paid employee of the fossil fuels industries, we should prefer to hear from diocesan spokesmen a much more full-throated encouragement to Catholics to take good conscientious climate action. He should also be told that "low-income people" suffer out of proportion the ill effects of fossil-fuel-related enterprise.