'Laudato Si' Media Conference Live Stream

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, welcome Pope Francis' new encyclical "Laudato Si," Thursday, June 18, 8:30 a.m., at the National Press Club in Washington.

The event will also be streamed over Twitter via Periscope. Those on Twitter can watch by following the USCCB’s Twitter account. Shortly before the event begins, the Twitter.com/usccb will share a link via Periscope. Downloading the Periscope app via Apple and Android app stores will allow you to watch the app by following @USCCB there as well.

USCCB resources on the encyclical and environmental justice can be found at: www.usccb.org/environment

Support vs. Support

The USCCB has come under fire recently for its support of efforts to pass climate change legislation, with some of our policy people getting angry calls and e-mails. I don't mean the climate-change-isn't-real-it's-all-a-conspiracy kind of fire, although our policy people get those calls too. I'm talking about the but-that-bill-is-full-of-pork-and-all-sorts-of-wasteful-spending-how-could-you-ever-support-it kind of fire.

To get to the heart of what is really going on here, it might be good to draw a distinction between support and support, as far as the U.S. Bishops are concerned.

For instance, the only support from the U.S. bishops toward climate change legislation can be found in a June 22 joint letter with Catholic Relief Services to every member of Congress. In the letter, represenatives of the USCCB and CRS welcome the progress that has been made on the issue itself but state that they are "deeply disappointed" that the current legislation doesn't do enough to help poor people worldwide who contribute the least to climate change but suffer the most from its effects. The USCCB news release that accompanied this letter stressed this point.

So where, then, do the bishops stand on this legislation? The facts: we know the Catholic Church supports efforts to combat climate change. This has grown ever more apparent as Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out time and again, most recently in his new encyclical. The U.S. bishops have followed the pope's lead. And in the letter to Congress, they call the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) “groundbreaking legislation” that “begins a serious and overdue effort to face up to moral and environmental challenges and represents an important beginning.”

Yes, that sounds very supportive. But they go on to criticize the legislation heavily for not doing enough for the poor. Does this mean they've endorsed the legislation? Hardly. An endorsement looks more like this, with a bishop actually urging members of Congress to vote for a bill.

Another example of the bishops being supportive in one area but not in another came at the beginning of June when the bishops supported the Reuniting American Families Act (S. 1085) but refused to support similar legislation in the House of Representatives because it contained language that would have extended marriage-like rights to same-sex couples.

The picture that emerges is an encouraging one of bishops who are not willing to sacrifice their principles to achieve political goals, who exercise caution when engaging legislation, and who aren't afraid to throw a bill back and say, "We appreciate what you're trying to do overall, but this isn't good enough. This has pieces we can't support."

This approach should serve the bishops well as they seek to engage Congress on a particularly thorny issue, health care reform. In this case, the USCCB sent Congress a very broad letter, noting the bishops' decades-long support for the cause, outlining their priorities, and emphasizing two general areas -- respect for human life and access for all -- where they see the current legislative efforts needing work.

While far from an endorsement, the USCCB news release on this letter sparked an outraged tirade, on Twitter no less, in which an individual, convinced that health care reform meant a wholesale sellout to the abortion lobby, accused the bishops and myself of throwing the unborn and the taxpayers "to the wolves" in 140-character blasts.

First, I wondered if the person had even read the letter. But after that, it occurred that the guiding principles of the bishops -- cautious engagement, subtle discernment -- are a model for all of us. The bishops recognize that a proposed piece of legislation is a work in progress and that all Catholics, bishops included, are called to engage the political process and be the proverbial prophetic voice, not settling for the status quo when we know it can be better.

In a way, this approach echoes the methodology of a Church that is always calling on its people to do better, to eliminate their destructive behaviors and build on the good in their lives ... until that day when they hear the Lord say, "Well done, good and faithful Congressman--er--servant."

Going into G8 -- What the Bishops (and Pope) Had to Say

With the ongoing coverage of Michael Jackson's death, Sarah Palin's resignation, Al Franken's long-delayed arrival in the U.S. Senate and, of course, Pope Benedict's publication of his first social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, it's easy to forget that, starting tomorrow, the leaders of some of the world's wealthiest, most powerful nations are coming together in Italy for two days for the G8 Summit.

But they're definitely meeting, and leaders in the Catholic Church are not missing the opportunity to speak their minds in hopes of impacting what these world leaders discuss and accomplish in their time together.

The most obvious example of this is a June 22 letter from the presidents of the bishops' conferences of the G8 countries to their heads of state. The letter calls on the G8 leaders to protect the poor and assist developing countries. Specifically, it urged them not to let the economic crisis lead to cuts in foreign assistance programs. The bishops quoted Pope Benedict, saying:

The current crisis has raised the spectre of the cancellation or drastic reduction of external assistance programmes, especially for Africa and for less developed countries elsewhere. Development aid, including the commercial and financial conditions favourable to less developed countries and the cancellation of the external debt of the poorest and most indebted countries, has not been the cause of the crisis and, out of fundamental justice, must not be its victim.

The bishops went on to say:

Ironically poor people have contributed the least to the economic crisis facing our world, but their lives and livelihoods are likely to suffer the greatest devastation because they struggle at the margins in crushing poverty. In light of this fact, the G8 nations should meet their responsibility to promote dialogue with other powerful economies to help prevent further economic crises.

The bishops added that on the issue of climate change, similarly, the poor who have contributed the least are negatively impacted the most.

While it's easy to take this message as just another appeal from a group of religious leaders to a group of political leaders, there's a real value to stop and wrap one's mind around the ground covered by this letter.

First of all, its recipients are eight of the most powerful people in the world, representing eight nations.

Second, the Catholic Church being a place where jurisdiction and teaching authority count for so much, one has to take into account that, as presidents of their respective bishops' conferences, the nine bishops who signed this letter (Cardinal Francis George for the USCCB, along with the heads of conferences in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Scotland and England & Wales) are speaking on behalf of every bishop in every one of those countries. That's a lot of bishops and a lot of teaching authority.

But as long as we're looking at teaching authority that stretches across nations, fittingly enough, this letter wasn't the only high-level Catholic teaching to go out on the eve of the G8 Summit. Pope Benedict XVI's first social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, which arrived this morning, also touches on concerns such as climate change and the need for greater care and cooperation in the international community. Like the G8 bishops, the pope also calls for an ethical changes to the world's economy in light of the current crisis. He does so by outlining the need for human development and casting development in the highest possible terms, as a vocation from God that must involve care for the development of the entire human person, from basic physical needs to education to the spiritual/eternal.

It's a staggeringly tall order in the face of an economic crisis, but Pope Benedict draws a wise conclusion here too -- if anything positive is to come from an economic crisis, it will be that we learned from it and improved the human condition around the world in its wake.