Cardinal criticizes presidential candidate’s remarks on encyclical
June 19, 2015
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, criticized comments made by presidential contender Jeb Bush as he discussed Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’.
“I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals, or from my Pope,” said Bush, a Catholic. “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people, and less about things that end up getting into the political realm.”
“Morality has to do with the decisions and choices we make in certain concrete situations, including economic situations,” Cardinal Turkson told CNN. “I would wish that we stop making this artificial separation between moral issues, theological issues, and business issues.”
At the press conference at which the encyclical was presented, Cardinal Turkson said that “we 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.”
“The Republicans and presidential figures who say they will not listen to the Pope, it is their freedom, freedom of choice that they can exercise,” he added, according to a Bloomberg report. “Their 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.”
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Further information:
- Cardinal hits back at Jeb Bush on climate change (CNN)
- Top cardinal says Jeb Bush is wrong about the link between faith and politics (Washington Post)
- Vatican to Jeb: Listen to the pope on climate change (Bloomberg)
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Jun. 21, 2015 7:43 PM ET USA
Jeb's comments sound like JFK's. JFK on 12 Sept. 1960 said: "Whatever issue may come before me as president--on birth control, divorce...or any other subject--I will make my decision...in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates." Jeb sounds like the typical "it's just business" sort of guy. For these sorts, religion is a strictly private affair. Separation of morality from business is a bad idea.
