(2018-09-02) — On the heels of a boldly urgent sermon decrying plastic waste in the world’s oceans, Pope Francis I today announced “zero tolerance for priests who drink through plastic straws, and those in the church hierarchy who cover up these filthy acts.”

“The Lord sees and will judge those in His church who take advantage of the helpless little ones — the baby fishes, precious anemones and even the tiny plankton — by defiling marine habitat with their plastic straws,” the Pontiff wrote in an official decree from the Vatican.

The Vicar of Christ made clear that the Roman Catholic Church is complicit if it shields such sinners from consequences.

“Be assured,” Francis wrote, “that if a Bishop or a Cardinal, or even the Holy Father himself, knows that a fellow priest has committed this mortal sin, and he conceals the matter, he is no better than a man who personally casts a straw into the sea.”