By Rick Fuentes, senior media relations specialist, Fresh Energy

When Pope Benedict XVI succeeded John Paul II, Catholics noted how the Vatican had swung towards the most conservative choice by selecting a faith leader who has embraced the most traditional of the church’s teachings. This was not a man who was going to allow women to be ordained. But, within those tightly held convictions, the Pope has started to sound positively progressive on the issue of global warming solutions.

His holiness has argued that care for creation is a sign of respect for God and an essential part of faith. In his first homily he has argued that the earth’s treasures have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. He has fought for equality for the poor and vulnerable populations who suffer the worst consequences due to climate change. Earlier this year, the pope declared that “time is short” and called for responsible collaboration and sacrifice among nations, urging them “to choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions.” Increased dialogue is especially needed over the “stewardship of the earth’s energy resources” he said, in clear admonishment of a failure to work collaboratively on furthering the Kyoto treaty.

Nor is the Pope alone in employing faith.

“What my religious faith teaches me is to take an intergenerational view, to recognize that we are borrowing this planet from our children and our grandchildren. I think religion can actually bolster our desire to make those sacrifices now. And that’s why, as president, I hope to be able to rally the entire world around the importance of us being good stewards of the land,” said Barack Obama in a debate last weekend.

“In preparation for the pope’s visit, I was reading that the Vatican is the first carbon-neutral state in the world now. Well, that shows leadership. And I don’t think it has impacted the work or the living. Americans of all faiths and no faith at all genuinely believe in compassion and want to apply that in addressing global poverty and climate change,” Hillary Clinton countered.

The Pope will visit the U.S. for the first time this week and visit Ground Zero and the United Nations. He will speak to world leaders on the 60^th anniversary of the declaration of human rights, and energy and the environment are expected to be part of that message. The Pope is also working on a new message for faith leaders called an encyclical, which will also employ the care for the environment message.

What’ll be interesting is what effect the leader of the world’s second largest religion will have on everyday living. Will Catholics begin to embrace energy efficiency as they do Lent? If so, then maybe it’s time to stop lobbying lawmakers and start persuading priests.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 9:40 am by Fresh Energy and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.