{"id":9516,"date":"2014-12-28T10:47:02","date_gmt":"2014-12-28T10:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=9516"},"modified":"2014-12-28T10:47:02","modified_gmt":"2014-12-28T10:47:02","slug":"coming-to-a-pulpit-near-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/coming-to-a-pulpit-near-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming to a Pulpit Near You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pope<\/a>Cross-posted on the Corner<\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/em>, excited<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[C]an Francis achieve a feat that has so far eluded secular powers and inspire decisive action on climate change?<\/p>\n

It looks as if he will give it a go. In 2015, the pope will issue a lengthy message on the subject to the world\u2019s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN general assembly and call a summit of the world\u2019s main religions.<\/p>\n

The reason for such frenetic activity, says Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican\u2019s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is the pope\u2019s wish to directly influence next year\u2019s crucial\u00a0UN climate meeting in Paris, when countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur academics supported the pope\u2019s initiative to influence next year\u2019s crucial decisions,\u201d Sorondo told\u00a0Cafod, the Catholic development agency, at a meeting in London. \u201cThe idea is to convene a meeting with leaders of the main religions to make all people aware of the state of our climate and the tragedy of social exclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by typhoon Haiyan, the pope will publish a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology. Urging all Catholics to take action on moral and scientific grounds, the document will be sent to the world\u2019s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to parishioners.<\/p>\n

According to Vatican insiders, Francis will meet other faith leaders and lobby politicians at the\u00a0general assembly in New York in September, when countries will sign up to new anti-poverty and environmental goals.<\/p>\n

In recent months, the pope has argued for a radical new financial and economic system to avoid human inequality and ecological devastation. In October he told a meeting of Latin American and Asian landless peasants and other social movements: \u201cAn economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it…\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We will, of course (!), have to see what the encyclical actually contains, but talk of \u201cthe god of money\u201d already suggests that both reason and reality may struggle to make themselves heard. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted on the Corner The Guardian, excited: [C]an Francis achieve a feat that has so far eluded secular powers and inspire decisive action on climate change? It looks as if he will give it a go. In 2015, the pope … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15,711],"tags":[397,998,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9517,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions\/9517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}