Pope to Speak on Climate Change at UN?


Chris Suellentrop is reporting at the Opinionater blog at The New York Times online that the Pope will likely speak on climate change at the United Nations next year, and that he will sound more like Al Gore that George Bush:



Last week the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI would accept Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon’s invitation to address the United Nations, likely next year. As for what subject he will stress, Rocco Palma of Whispers in the Loggia thinks we can get some foresight from the Vatican’s point man at the U.N., Archbishop Celestino Migliore. Migliore may dress in black but he thinks green. In a recent speech, Palma tells us, the archbishop “cited the ‘inescapable reality’ of the ‘degradation’ of the cosmos and offered some tips on how to combat climate change.” While many feel the pope himself is a reactionary, on global warming he seems to be an open door for Al Gore. “The world is not something indifferent, raw material to be utilized simply as we see fit,” Benedict said in an Earth Day address. “Rather, it is part of God’s good plan, in which all of us are called to be sons and daughters in the one Son of God, Jesus Christ.”

Comments

Anonymous said…
No matter how concerned the pope is about environmental degradation, I cannot take either the pope or the Roman Catholic Church seriously on this issue as long as they refuse to address the issue of population growth, and give up their reactionary stance on contraception.
May 14, 2007 at 12:53 PM
Chuck Blanchard said…
a macharthur:

Your points are well taken, but many doubters that we need to take climate change seriously will listen to the Pope, and that makes the fact that the Pope may focus on climate change at the UN potentially very important.
May 14, 2007 at 1:42 PM
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