KEEP the FAITH Obama Administration Seeks Help from Pope

The United States is reaching out to Rome again, seeking the pope’s help on climate change. After relying on Pope Francis to help broker the diplomatic deal between the U.S. and Cuba, the Obama administration sent Regina McCarthy, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to Rome to ask for help on climate change, one of Washington’s political and diplomatic priorities. The Obama administration wants to bolster its “moral” case for addressing climate change and has turned to the strongest “moral voice” on the planet for aid.

McCarthy said in an interview that she was “at the Vatican to let the pope know ‘that the president is aligned with him on this issue and that we’re taking action… Moving the ball on environmental protection is a moral obligation,” McCarthy said. “The U.S. and the President are providing the leadership that ‘one of the world’s largest economies, and one of the world’s largest polluters, needs to show.’”

Using words that parallel the Catholic Church’s own terminology, McCarthy told the Holy See that the U.S. government agrees with the Catholic Church that climate change isn’t simply an environmental issue, but a public health threat, and that poor communities are the most vulnerable to its impact.”

Claiming that climate change is a threat or an emergency, gives government leaders a reason to impose more restrictions and controls on the population, businesses and society at large, and push the nation further into socialism. Meanwhile, the church uses the climate change issue to promote its own globalist plans, including wealth re-distribution and even Sunday rest.

“We need to try to remind ourselves,” said McCarthy, “that this is about [the] protection [of] natural resources that men rely on. And it’s also about protecting the most vulnerable, something that the Church has always focused on.”

“Protecting the poor” is another way of saying “wealth-redistribution,” because to protect the poor, you have to take money from the rich and apply it through social programs, climate projects, social engineering, etc., to do so. “Public opinion on the matter has never been as positive as now,” McCarthy said, “arguing that people and companies understand that it’s imperative to take action.”

McCarthy hopes that Pope Francis will speak about climate change when he visits the U.S. in September. “There is no voice more credible than the church’s to speak to our moral obligation as stewards of our planet,” McCarthy said.

The immensely popular Pope Francis has become an emerging voice on climate change and has spoken about the protection of creation. For instance, in May of 2014 he said, that “Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude… if we destroy creation, in the end it will destroy us!”

And while in the Philippines during a tropical storm, the pope said, “man has gone too far damaging the environment.”

In the meantime, the Obama Administration and a cross-section of Catholic Church leaders are discussing climate change. “Catholic Relief Services and the US Bishops Conference have been amazing,” McCarthy said. “They are coming to the table, and it’s not just the Catholic community; way beyond that, it’s faith communities from all around.”

Note that the ecumenical movement is bringing many religions and faiths together with Rome and the United States to address the issue of climate change.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has heightened its profile on climate change.
The Vatican has announced that during the summer of 2015, the pope plans to release an encyclical on the environment and creation that will have a “particular emphasis” on the theme of “human ecology.”

An encyclical is a teaching document for the Catholic Church, but that is aimed at society at large. It instructs Catholic leaders and people how to relate to major social issues in their lives and in the political arena. But an encyclical goes way beyond Roman Catholics. It influences politicians and policymakers even if they aren’t Catholic.

“As anticipation builds for the encyclical, Catholic voices have become more prevalent on environmental topics in parallel with President Barack Obama’s ambitious plans to tackle climate change during his final two years in office.”

The papal encyclical “will help extend the discussions beyond the science of climate change and the need for alternative energy sources to include the moral questions about how climate change affects the world’s poorest people.”

And people are listening as local parishes and churches conduct special projects and programs for climate change, and as Catholic Church leaders speak out on the need to protect life by protecting the environment. For its part the Catholic Church focuses on the relationship between the environment and the sacredness of creation and the importance of protecting human life and dignity by protecting the environment.

Finding common cause with Rome is a distinctively American role in prophecy. While other nations also align themselves with Rome, it is the United States that is the leader and most influential voice at a global level. As it reaches across the gulf to clasp hands with Rome the U.S. is building the relationships and structures to trample personal rights including conscience and eventually enforce Rome’s ultimate goal – Sunday worship. U.S. collusion with Rome, therefore, is pointedly fulfilling a key issue in prophecy.

“The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.” The Great Controversy, page 588

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