Here's a little more info:Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday that Pope Francis agrees with him that climate change is a “moral issue.”“The Pope and all people of faith understand that climate change is a moral issue, and that we are called to respond to this personal and planetary challenge,” Markey said after meeting with the Pope and other high-level Vatican leaders in Rome to talk about climate change.
Markey said he and other lawmakers from around the world discussed the health and economic consequences of not addressing climate change.
“It was an honor and a privilege to meet with Pope Francis and other Vatican leaders to share our common concern about the challenge of our time, climate change,” Markey said. - The Hill, 5/29/14
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More below the fold.Markey said the pope nodded and thanked him, but did not otherwise comment.The Vatican confirmed in January that Pope Francis is preparing an encyclical letter on the environment, considered the most developed form of papal teaching. Markey said the legislators were asked by Turkson to contribute recommendations for that encyclical, and he focused on what he described as the disproportionately negative impact of global warming on the poor and on the working class.
Assuming it appears, this will be the first encyclical issued by a pope entirely devoted to the environment.
Markey said he used a Massachusetts example with Turkson to drive home the real-world cost of climate change, saying that warming ocean temperatures in the Atlantic are driving cod further north and having an adverse impact on the local fishing industry.
Markey has long been an outspoken advocate of environmental protection, even suggesting in 2010 that those who deny climate change should be exiled to a massive iceberg to “start their own country.”
At least on ecological matters, the pontiff is of like mind. During a speech to diplomats in January, for instance, Francis said that, “God always forgives, we sometimes forgive, but when nature – creation – is mistreated, she never forgives.”
He returned to the theme during a general audience on May 21.
“Custody of Creation is custody of God’s gift to us and it is also a way of saying thank you to God,” the pope said. “If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”
Markey, a graduate of both Boston College and Boston College Law School, both institutions run by the Jesuit religious order, said meeting history’s first Jesuit pope had special meaning.
“It was one of the most important moments I will ever have,” he said, “not just as a senator but as a Catholic and a human being.” - Boston Globe, 5/29/14
