{"id":16375,"date":"2015-06-18T21:17:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T21:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=16375"},"modified":"2015-06-18T21:19:26","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T21:19:26","slug":"16375","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=16375","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Admonishes Catholic Presidential Aspirants On Climate Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vatican To Jeb, Santorum on Climate Change: Politics Has ‘Moral Context’<\/h1>\n
\"SCOTTSDALE,<\/a>

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – MAY 14: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks at a dinner during the Republican National Committee Spring Meeting at The Phoenician May 14, 2015 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Bush, brother of former President George W. Bush and son of former President George H.W. Bush, is widely expected to run for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. (Photo by Laura Segall\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

NEWSMAX<\/p>\n

The Vatican called out Republican presidential hopefuls — including Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum — for their reluctance to heed Pope Francis\u2019s warning on climate change.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Peter Turkson, a papal adviser from Ghana who co- wrote the encyclical issued Thursday urging drastic cuts in fossil-fuel use, said politicians should think twice before telling religious leaders to keep out of the debate.<\/p>\n

Man\u2019s role in climate change remains a polarizing issue in U.S. politics. By joining scientists calling for action on climate change, the pope puts conservative politicians who traditionally cite their support for religion in the awkward position of explaining why they disagree with the leader of the Catholic church.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir decision not to listen to the pope is based on the fact they think the pope is talking about something the pope is not an expert in,\u201d Turkson said at a news conference in the Vatican Thursday where he presented the encyclical. \u201cWe talk about these subject matters not because we are experts on those matters, we talk about them because they concern the impact on our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservatives in the U.S. have sought to minimize the impact of the pope\u2019s message. Republicans, who opposed measures to cap greenhouse gases, have attempted to sidestep the debate on global warming, with many saying they lack the scientific background to comment.<\/p>\n

About 173 million people in the U.S. identified themselves as Christians in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.<\/p>\n

Bush Event<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI hope I\u2019m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don\u2019t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope,\u201d Bush said Tuesday at a campaign event in New Hampshire. \u201cI think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francis should \u201cleave science to the scientists,\u201d Santorum said this month.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, rejected the distinction between moral and political issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that politics and economics have a moral context,\u201d Kurtz said at a news conference in Washington. \u201cPolitics has at its base the common good.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz pushed back at the notion that the pope was unqualified to speak on science.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis is not just a powerful moral voice, he also graduated as a chemical engineer and understands the consensus of climate scientists that accumulating man-made pollution endangers our planet and people,\u201d Moniz said in a statement.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

UN Talks<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pope\u2019s aim is to spur governments around the world to reach an agreement reining in fossil-fuel emissions this year. The United Nations is spearheading talks involving more than 190 nations seeking to seal a deal in December in Paris.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama supports the talks and is outspoken in raising concerns about the climate. Many Republicans continue to deny man\u2019s role in global warming.<\/p>\n

Turkson said religion had a role to play in \u201cthe public sphere,\u201d adding that \u201cwe should encourage more dialog between faith and reason. That is what the pope is doing in the encyclical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how Catholic business leaders should respond, Kurtz said the encyclical reminds people that \u201ceconomic and financial decisions need to have a moral component.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francis called for an urgent, drastic reduction in fossil- fuel emissions to pull the planet out of a \u201cspiral of self- destruction\u201d that he blamed on rich nations and the global economy. He backed findings that climate change was man-made.<\/p>\n

Moral Framework<\/strong><\/p>\n

The encyclical was a \u201ccall to advocate\u201d for Catholics in the U.S. and around the world, Kurtz said. The conference will hold briefings on the message today in the U.S. House and Senate.<\/p>\n

Kurtz and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington D.C., said the encyclical doesn\u2019t mandate any particular response from politicians, Catholics or anyone else. The letter is intended to provide a \u201cmoral framework\u201d for the conversation, not to demand any particular policy, Wuerl said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who take it seriously,\u201d Kurtz said, \u201cwill find an invitation to dialog. But it\u2019s not a weak invitation — it\u2019s really an urgent call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Copyright 2015 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vatican To Jeb, Santorum on Climate Change: Politics Has ‘Moral Context’ NEWSMAX The Vatican called out Republican presidential hopefuls — including Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum — for their reluctance to heed Pope Francis\u2019s warning on climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}