Cardinal Turkson calls for political action to influence Paris climate conference
November 04, 2015
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called for political action inspired by the papal encyclical Laudato Si’ in order to influence COP21, the upcoming UN climate-change conference in Paris.
“The 50,000 representatives – 25,000 official delegates and 25,000 other participants– who gather for the COP21 will need ethics and virtue, and more,” he wrote. “A successful COP21 will require the organized efforts of citizens who apply the Pope’s message in the halls of power and demand that leaders act courageously on behalf of the poor and the planet.”
“This is what, on 29 November, millions of men, women and children in the streets of Paris, London, Berlin, São Paulo and 3,000 other cities will be marching for,” he added.
Cardinal Turkson’s call to action appeared in the new issue of EuropeInfos, the newsletter of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU and the Jesuit European Office. The newsletter also contains tributes to the encyclical by European lawmakers and others, including the general secretary of COMECE, who predicted that Laudato Si’, like Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, “stands to be remembered by future generations of the Church, and to find an honored place in countless footnotes in academic journals, scientific publications and Church teaching documents down the road.”
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Posted by: brenda22890 -
Nov. 05, 2015 9:55 AM ET USA
How old is Cardinal Turkson? Can we expect a resignation any time soon?
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Posted by: Chestertonian -
Nov. 05, 2015 5:52 AM ET USA
With all due respect to the cardinal and the pope, http://minutemennews.com/nasa-debunks-global-warming-ice-sheets-growing/ A new analysis of satellite data shows a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001, according to ScienceDaily.com. The gain slowed to 82 billion tons per year between 2003 and 2008. Jay Zwally, who led the NASA study, said there’s been “ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island" regions, but gain elsewhere.
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Posted by: jalsardl5053 -
Nov. 05, 2015 2:01 AM ET USA
With all due respect to the Cardinal: poppycock. The motives of the marchers range all over the map but the chief one is failure of the respective governments to function properly; or, in many cases, to simply deny all aid to their populations. And no, Laudato Si will never, ever rise to the heights of Rerum Novarum.
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Posted by: filioque -
Nov. 04, 2015 11:05 PM ET USA
The Big Machine revs up. Never mind that there is no conclusive science to support the claim that humans are having a dangerous effect on climate. There is irrefutable evidence that there is no way out of poverty without access to reliable, affordable energy. That means fossil fuels. What is the Pope thinking?
