One of Pope Francis’s closest collaborators in the Vatican’s fight against climate change has called President Donald Trump’s reported plan to pull out of the Paris accord a “disaster” and a “slap in the face for the Vatican.”

Argentine Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, said that if Trump takes the United States out of the Paris deal, signed in Dec. 2015, “it would be a disaster for everyone. There’s little else to comment on.”

Sorondo is quoted by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica coming back from a summit at the United Nations devoted to climate change.

“I don’t know what Trump spoke about with the pope,” Sorondo said. “I don’t believe, however, that the conversation was very detailed on climate. I know, however, that the President of the United States spoke about this in the conversation he had with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.”

In that sense, the bishop said, Trump pulling out of the accords would be “a slap in the face also for us,” referring to the Vatican.

The U.S. President has long spoken about pulling out from Paris, and, according to Sorondo, this is motivated by the “oil lobby.”

Refusing to acknowledge that it is neither necessary nor indispensable to rely on carbon and oil “is like saying that the earth is not round,” he said.

“It’s an absurdity, motivated solely by the need to make money,” Sorondo said.

Trump is expected to reveal his decision on the Paris deal at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, having signaled the announcement on social media.

Pope Francis openly supported the Paris deal, acknowledging that he’d wanted to make sure his document on the environment, Laudato Si’, was released with enough time to influence the outcome.

Full story at Crux.