Cardinal George Pell has publicly criticised Pope Francis' decision to place climate change at the top of the Catholic Church's agenda.
Cardinal Pell, a well-known climate change skeptic, told the Financial Times the church had "no particular expertise in science".
"The church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters," he said,
"We believe in the autonomy of science."
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"We do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur," he wrote.
His comments come a month after Pope Francis released an historic encyclical calling on humanity to fight global warming.
"The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change."
The 192-page document is titled Praise Be to You: On Care for Our Common Home, and calls on humanity to be more motivated and to improve education to save the environment.
"The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," Pope Francis wrote.
"The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all.
"At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life.
"A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system."
Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell to reform the Vatican's finances nearly 18 months ago.
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