Green Corner: Encyclical Preview from Cardinal Turukson
On March 5, Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and head of the committee helping draft Pope Francis’s encyclical on ecology, gave a lecture that many see as a possible preview of the encyclical.
Cardinal Turkson noted that the encyclical release date (June or July) is in part an attempt by Pope Francis to shape the deliberations leading up to the UN’s global climate treaty negotiations in December. Brian Roewe of the National Catholic Reporter explains that Cardinal Turkson outlined four themes of the pope’s teachings on integral ecology:
• The call to be protectors is integral and all-embracing
• Care for creation and humanity are virtues in their own right
• We will--we must--care for what we cherish and revere
• A need for dialogue and “a new global solidarity,” where all have a part to play