democracynow.org
Stories:
Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change, which will urge 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide to take action. The document will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests who will distribute it to their parishioners. Given the sheer number of people who identify as Catholics worldwide, the pope’s clarion call to tackle climate change could reach far more people than even the largest environmental groups. "The document will take a position in favor of the scientific consensus that climate change is real ... and link the deforestation and destruction of the natural environment to the particular economic model of which Pope Francis has been a critic," says our guest, Austen Ivereigh, author of a new biography called "The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope." The pope also plans to address the United Nations General Assembly and convene a summit of the world’s main religions in hopes of bolstering next year’s crucial U.N. climate meeting in Paris.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, for our last report of 2014.
Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change. In an effort to urge Catholics worldwide to take climate action, the pope will issue a rare papal letter, or encyclical, on climate change and human ecology, following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by Typhoon Haiyan. The document then will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to their parishioners.
Given the sheer number of people who identify as Catholics worldwide, the pope’s clarion call to tackle climate change could reach far more people than even the largest environmental groups. Globally, there are 1.2 billion Catholics, of which around 75 million live here in the United States. The pope also plans to address the United Nations General Assembly and convene a summit of the world’s main religions in hopes of bolstering next year’s crucial U.N. climate summit in Paris.
Last year, during his first Christmas mass as head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis called for protection of the environment from human greed.
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] Lord of heaven and Earth, look upon our planet, frequently exploited by human greed and rapacity. Help and protect all of the victims of natural disasters, especially the beloved people of the Philippines gravely affected by the recent typhoon.
AMY GOODMAN: This year, Pope Francis shocked cardinals, bishops and priests by using his annual Christmas remarks to deliver a scathing critique of the Vatican itself, the central governing body of the Catholic Church. He said the Vatican is plagued with "spiritual Alzheimer’s," "existential schizophrenia," "social exhibitionism" and a lust for power—all of which have resulted in an "orchestra that plays out of tune," he said. Pope Francis also lambasted the gossip, pettiness and rivalry he said were infecting the church. This is part of what he said.
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] There is also the sickness of the stony mind and spirit, of those who have a stone heart and a hard neck, of those who along the way lose their inner serenity, their vivacity and their audacity, and end up hiding behind papers, becoming machines for practices and not men of God. It is dangerous to lose the human sensitivity that we need to cry with those who cry and to rejoice with those who rejoice.
AMY GOODMAN: Pope Francis has also captured global attention for his criticism of capitalism, his softer tone on key social issues including abortion and homosexuality, and his calls to refocus the church toward the needs of the poor. In his personal life, the pope has chosen to live simply at the Vatican, residing in a guest house instead of the Apostolic Palace, forgoing a chauffeured Mercedes in favor a plain black sedan.
He’s also made headlines for his everyday acts of extraordinary compassion. He invited a teenager with Down syndrome, Alberto di Tullio, for a ride in the Popemobile. He embraced and kissed Vinicio Riva, a man severely scarred by a genetic disease. And he washed a dozen prisoners’ feet at a jail for juveniles in Rome. The pope also responded to a letter from a rape survivor by personally calling to console her, saying, "You are not alone."
Most recently, the pope has emerged as a star diplomat, a key player in the thawing of relations between the Cuba government and the United States. Cuban President Raúl Castro thanked him for his support.
PRESIDENT RAÚL CASTRO: [translated] This decision by President Obama deserves respect and recognition from our people. I would like to thank and recognize the support of the Vatican, and especially that of Pope Francis, in helping improve the relations between Cuba and the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, the pope offered to assist the United States with another diplomatic hurdle: its efforts to close Guantánamo prison. The Vatican has reportedly offered to help find adequate humanitarian solutions through its international contacts.
Meanwhile, the pope has rejected change in two other areas: the ordination of women to the priesthood and the church’s view on abortion.
Well, for more on Pope Francis, we go to Oxford, England, where we’re joined by his biographer, Austen Ivereigh, a British commentator, writer, co-founder of Catholic Voices. He’s the author of a new biography called The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope.
Austen Ivereigh, welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with this encyclical that he’s putting out on climate change. How rare and how important is this?
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Well, first of all, it’s an encyclical, which is the highest form of papal teaching. What that means is it’s a letter that’s sent to the bishops and clergy and indirectly to all the Catholics of the world. And it’s saying this is authoritative church teaching, this needs to be taken very seriously by Catholics. So that, in itself, is a major event.
The fact that it’s also on ecology, on climate change, is also deeply significant, because there has never been a major document on this subject from the church. So, there is a lot of anticipation about it. He’s about to go to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. That’s in mid-January. And then he’ll be issuing this encyclical, we think, in March or possibly April. And it’s going to take a position on the science of climate change. So, this is a case of the church, as it were, wading into a scientific matter and taking a position. As I understand, the document will take a position in favor, if you like, of the scientific consensus that climate change is real.
And then the document will also link the deforestation, the destruction of the natural environment, to the particular economic model of which Pope Francis has been a very stern critic ever since he became pope, and indeed beforehand, a system which creates too much inequality, which regards the unemployed and the elderly as, as it were, to be dispensed with, as leftovers, as he calls them—so, in other words, an economic system which is dysfunctional in its impact on the world’s population. But he’ll also show that excessive consumerism and indeed the pattern of that global economic model is—as it were, the price is being paid by the environment. So it’s going to be a clarion call, as I understand it, for the church to work for changing the system which produces deforestation and climate devastation.
It will also be laying out the basis for the Catholic Church’s thinking on this, prior to what I understand will be a meeting with other world religious leaders and, indeed, civic leaders. In other words, Pope Francis wants to build a global consensus to force—to bring about—help to bring about action later this year, prior to that very important summit, U.N. summit, in Paris on climate change. So it’s about building the momentum to bring about real, effective change in this area.
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, ahead of this year’s U.N. climate summit in Lima, Peru, Pope Francis wrote a letter to organizers noting that climate change will, quote, "affect all of humanity, especially the poorest and future generations. What’s more, it represents a serious ethical and moral responsibility." So, how do you expect the bishops, the cardinals, the more than one billion Catholics to respond? What does this mean when the pope focuses on an issue like climate change, Austen Ivereigh?
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Well, I think it will be, of course, problematic. It will be controversial, because there are some church leaders, but also some very prominent Catholics, who are, if not outright skeptics on climate change, are at least skeptical of some of the claims being made about climate change. And they will also be skeptical of his attempts to link that to a particular form of capitalism.
We’ve already seen this critique when he came out in November last year with his first major document—didn’t have the authority of this encyclical, but still a major teaching document—called "The Joy of the Gospel," in which he had some very harsh words, some very stern words for the—for, as it were, the liberal capitalist system, of which—and he was speaking very much from the point of view of the poor. He always does. This is one of the things that distinguishes Francis’s voice. He takes the position of the developing world, of the poor, of the people who, if you like, are normally ignored in these discussions, who aren’t present at the table. So he’s positioning himself—and the church indirectly—very definitely as the advocate of, in the profit for those people.
Now, in doing that, he’s naturally going to find that there is pushback from business interests, from prominent Catholics in the world of business and finance, who are going to probably attack, no doubt, the—some of the science behind the encyclical, but will also critique him as he was criticized last year. He’ll be criticized for naivety. He’ll be criticized for wading into an area over which they say the church has no direct understanding or direct knowledge.
The answer to that, of course, is the church has always taken a very, very clear position, very strong position in its moral teaching about capitalism. And this goes back to late 19th century, 1891, Pope Leo XIII, who issued his great encyclical, Rerum Novarum, "on new things," which was precisely an indictment of the way in which industrialization and contemporary capitalism had divided the world into the haves and the have-nots, and left the poor at the mercy of the rich. So, in fact, Pope Francis, even though it will be greeted, I think, as a great novelty, in fact is speaking out of a, if you like, radical prophetic tradition which has been consistent in the church throughout the popes of the 20th century, ever since the late 19th century.
But he’ll be doing so about, if you like, what he sees as the contemporary equivalent now of the debate about industrialization and the market in the 19th century—same kind of moral critique. Look at the devastation. Look at the impact that the economic model is having. If we have an economic system which produces, of course, tremendous wealth, tremendous growth in many parts of the world, but produces poverty, chronic long-term unemployment in other parts of the world, and results in devastation of the environment, he’s going to say this is not a system that works. We need to have a system where the human being comes first, where the needs of humanity—if you like, an economy at the service of the needs of humanity, rather than making human beings, particularly the poor, instruments of a machine which benefits the few.
That will be the kind of response, that will be the kind of critique, if you like, that Francis will be making in this encyclical. So it looks to generate, actually, an extraordinary amount of debate. My understanding, from the people who are involved in the preparation of this document in the Vatican, is that in fact it’s been very, very carefully thought through, particularly the scientific aspect of it, precisely because the church does not want to be, as it were, dismissed by having a naive position on the science.
AMY GOODMAN: Austen, even the pope’s name—he’s the first to take the papal name Francis after the reform figure Francis of Assisi. Last year, he explained why he chose the name, saying, quote, "For me, he is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation. These days we don’t have a very good relationship with creation, do we? ... He is the man who gives us this spirit of peace, the poor man," he said. Austen Ivereigh, if you could respond?
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Exactly right. I was there. I was there when he said those words to the 5,000 journalists shortly after his election. He was explaining why it was he took the name of Francis of Assisi. So he’s identifying himself with a figure who is really the icon, in the Catholic tradition, of poverty, of humility, of identification with the poor, but also of course a man who was famous for his love of creation, his love of the natural world, where he saw mankind—as it were, man fits into, human beings fit into God’s creation, and God’s creation is much more than just us. We are stewards of the planet. We have been entrusted with the responsibility for the planet, and we must not damage it. We must care for it. We must embrace it. We must support it. So, absolutely, by taking the name of Francis of Assisi, he was signaling from the very beginning that he was going to be doing this. And I understand that this ecology encyclical has been under preparation almost ever since, really, he was elected.
He’s also involved a number of theologians who have been, as it were, out of favor for some time, including the Brazilian Leonardo Boff and other Latin American liberation theologians, who have long critiqued capitalism from the point of view of its effect on the environment. So, all in all, Francis is absolutely positioning himself in that radical stream of the Catholic tradition stretching back to St. Francis of Assisi.
AMY GOODMAN: Austen Ivereigh, we’re going to continue the discussion of the pope this year, from capitalism and climate change to Cuba, war and peace. Austen Ivereigh’s new book is called The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope. We’ll continue with him in Oxford, England, in a moment.
|
"The Great Reformer": Pope Francis Biographer on How Pontiff Became Star Diplomat & Voice for Change
Pope Francis emerged this year as a star diplomat when he played a key role in the thawing of relations between the Cuba and the United States and presidents of both countries thanked him by name for his support. Earlier this month, the pope offered to assist the United States with another diplomatic hurdle: its efforts to close the Guantánamo prison. The Vatican has reportedly offered to help find adequate humanitarian solutions through its international contacts. We speak with Austen Ivereigh, whose new biography about the pope outlines these achievements, including the pontiff’s call for the Catholic Church "to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence" even as he has stopped short of embracing the ordination of women to the priesthood. Ivereigh also examines Pope Francis’ recent steps to recognize the significance of liberation theology in Latin America, which has faced a decades-long attack by the Vatican for its socialist orientation.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Patti Smith performing "People Have the Power" at this year’s Vatican Christmas Concert. Last night at her year-end concert in New York on her 68th birthday, she talked about the significance of performing at the Vatican. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, on this last Democracy Now! program of the year.
We continue our conversation on Pope Francis with Austen Ivereigh, British writer, commentator and co-founder of Catholic Voices. Ivereigh is the author of a new biography called The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope.
Earlier this month, President Obama thanked Pope Francis by name for his role in negotiating a more open policy on Cuba. The Vatican also released a statement noting the pontiff had hosted delegations from both countries in October to negotiate the deal after he had written to both leaders. Pope Francis also commented on the achievement.
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] Today we are all happy, because we have seen how two nations, who were separated for many years, yesterday took a step closer to each other. You see, this was brought about by ambassadors, by diplomacy. Your work is a noble one, very noble.
AMY GOODMAN: The announcement of the Vatican’s role in the beginning of normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations is also noteworthy because Pope Francis plans his first trip to the United States next September. The Vatican has not said he will also travel to Cuba then. Austen Ivereigh, talk about why the pope cares so much about this issue and what his role was in these negotiations.
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Well, when I wrote my biography, of course, I didn’t realize that this was going to happen, what just happened, the extraordinary breakthrough in the restoration of relations between U.S. and Cuba. But I did comment in one of the chapters about his visit to Cuba shortly after he became—he wasn’t quite archbishop of Buenos Aires, but he was, as it were, waiting in the wings to be made archbishop. And he was sent to Cuba as part of the delegation of Latin American bishops who were accompanying Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to the island. And he wrote afterwards a book called Dialogues between Pope John Paul II and Fidel Castro, and, of course, it’s a fascinating book now to look back on in retrospect, given what we now know about his involvement in bringing about this historic breakthrough.
And one of the things that comes across in the book is that he has a very powerful critique, very similar to that of the Cuban bishops, of communism as an ideological imposition, as a dead hand, as something which actually runs against Cuban traditions and values, but he’s also equally critical of the consumerist capitalism that, of course, that communism, that system, has rejected. So he positioned himself very clearly in that book in favor of a long-term democratization, of pluralism and democracy in Cuba, though in such a way that it would respect the country’s soul, as he calls it, its traditions. And he’s also—was a very strong critique back in '98 of the embargo, which he described as futile and pointless, given that the two countries were no longer in a state of war. So it was a classic situation where there's an ideological confrontation. This is, if you like, Pope Francis’s life mission, has been to bring together—to bring about reconciliation, to break through the impasses which exist when people erect ideological barriers. They see the world through a particular lens or a particular filter. They demonize the other, and they end up in a self-defeating, intractable kind of opposition, which of course benefits nobody. So, in a way, looking back now, I can see that this was really ripe, a classic topic for him.
What we understand about his role in this is that, from the very beginning, he was—he’s also very close to the cardinal archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. And it was Ortega, I think, who asked him to be involved very early on in this. So, what we understand is that even though it began in Canada, the meetings between the U.S. and Cuba, Pope Francis’s intervention was vital in building up trust, creating a space where both sides could come together in a neutral space within the auspices of the Catholic Church, which, as it were, has no financial or economic or political interest directly in the issue. And it was Francis’s own sort of patient interventions, his encouragement of both sides, I understand also his letters to both leaders at a particular moment that was crucial over the summer, is what paved the way for this extraordinary breakthrough.
And what it does is it opens the door now to change, and a change and an evolution, that Cuba is going to have to be, to some extent, a democracy. It’s going to have to be a free-market country. But on the other hand, you know, he’s a Latin American pope, and he knows that Latin America has to find its own model, a model of economic growth which is true to its own traditions and which locates itself—Cuba, after all, is, even though it isn’t necessarily a highly practicing Catholic country, nevertheless is a country of that Catholic humanist tradition, and therefore the church will play a very important role, I think, in bringing about, in bringing to birth, in nurturing the democratic transition in Cuba.
So, a wonderful example of Francis as bridge builder, as the man who creates spaces for the holy spirit to act—this is his whole spirituality. In many ways, this is his life’s work. He did it as a Jesuit provincial back in the 1970s, later as cardinal archbishop in Argentina, also as a leader in the Latin American church, and now as pope, building bridges of trust through which, as it were, the holy spirit can act, to create new possibilities, new creative possibilities, which have not been—which are humanly, as it were, unimaginable. This really is him.
AMY GOODMAN: And speaking of him as an Argentine leader, his fellow archbishop, Óscar Romero—talk about what his role is now in recognizing Archbishop Óscar Romero, who was murdered, gunned down, March 24th, 1980, I think it was, also Miguel d’Escoto, the former foreign minister of Nicaragua.
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: That’s right. So, Archbishop Óscar Romero, gunned down, as you say, at the altar in 1980, he was archbishop of San Salvador and, in many ways, an iconic case of the Latin America church standing with the poor and being willing to sacrifice itself, its own privileges, and in the case of Óscar Romero, indeed, the very lives of the priests who stand with the poor.
Now, Óscar Romero’s martyrdom—and it clearly was a martyrdom—should have enabled him to become a saint, to be canonized by the Catholic Church a long time ago. But the process of canonization was blocked in Rome from a very early stage, under John Paul II, by a group of Latin American conservative cardinals, particularly in the Vatican, who saw Óscar Romero as emblematic—believed that Óscar Romero was too political. This was, if you like, the political church, which they wanted to put a stop to. So his cause was really frozen. It was put on hold. And one of the first things that Pope Francis did—here he is a Latin American, a Jesuit, a man who himself has always stood with the poor and identified with that task of the church—one of the first things he did was to unblock the process, so that now there is nothing to stop Óscar Romero being declared a saint. However, there is still a process to be undergone. You know, nobody can become a saint without undergoing certain processes. There needs to be a miracle and so on. And, however, he, as pope, can, if he wants, accelerate that process.
Now, Pope Francis has talked about going to Latin America in 2015. He hasn’t said which countries. We’ve heard the Bolivians say that it’s likely to be Bolivia. We don’t know what other countries it will be. I think it’s actually a fair bet to say that it’s very likely to be El Salvador, because I think he would love to of course declare Óscar Romero a saint, or at least to beatify him, which is to declare him a blessed, which is the stage prior to canonization.
In doing that, he will be sending a very powerful signal that the Catholic Church is not, you know, on the side of the rich, but on the side of the poor. Obviously, the Catholic Church desires the salvation of everybody, the Catholic Church is interested in the welfare of everybody. But in situations of oppression, where, as it were, a very few control the political and economic system to the detriment of the poor majority, the church should be standing with the defenseless poor majority, because that’s where Jesus was, that’s where the church should be. So, a very, very powerful signal.
And I think, you know, unblocking the process of sainthood of Óscar Romero, together with this groundbreaking encyclical on ecology, will really reposition the Catholic Church in a way that hasn’t been seen for generations and really will be a very, very powerful turning point. And, of course, already through Cuba and through other initiatives like in the Middle East that Pope Francis took last year, he has returned the Catholic Church to the center of global politics, as in many ways it was under the first decade of John Paul II, but very clearly positioning himself and the church on behalf of the developing world and the poor in those acts.
AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of reinstating Father Miguel d’Escoto, who had been suspended from clerical activities when he became a political leader in Nicaragua? He was among the Sandinistas. This crippled a lot of liberation theology, the way the church had gone after religious leaders in Latin America at the time. Could you talk about Reverend d’Escoto?
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Well, I mean, it—yeah, d’Escoto. The d’Escoto case would be, again, the rehabilitation of d’Escoto, very important because it sends a message that actually what Francis values here is the person and his priesthood, his ministry, his witness. So, I suppose this is—what this is about is depoliticizing Christian witness. In many ways, you can argue that under John Paul II, when there was a clampdown on liberation theology and on Latin America, that what happened was that, if you like, if theology had been used at the service of a certain kind of left-wing politics—and there definitely was a danger of that in liberation theology—the risk was that in the clampdown, there would be the opposite. In other words, somebody would not be recognized for their virtues and their witness, precisely because of their political engagement.
So I think Francis is very interesting on this, because, actually, as I show in the book, he was totally committed to the basics of liberation theology, as expressed in the great meeting of the Latin American church in 1968 in Medellín, Colombia. That’s when you first had the phrase, "the option for the poor." That’s when the church identified itself with that stream of liberation, which was seeking the liberation of Latin America from colonial and postcolonial servitude. But then what happened with liberation theology was that in the 1970s, in particular, it became politicized. It became identified with certain socialist movements which were seeking to capture the state and then to use the state to redistribute wealth, much in the manner of the Cuban Revolution.
So, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis back then, as a young Jesuit, opposed this politicization. He opposed what he saw as the—as ideologies using the church for their own ends. So, even though he identified with, as it were, you know, the basic tenets of liberation theology, his own liberation theology was a particular branch of liberation theology, which was not much known about at the time, because we always associate liberation theology with what came out of Peru and Central America. But, in fact, what was happening in Argentina was a very important theology called teología del pueblo, theology of the people, which was actually all about respecting and understanding the values and the traditions, the spiritual traditions, and popular religiosity of ordinary people. And that was where Bergoglio situated himself.
So, now, this has been a source of contention, because people said that—he’s been described by some in Argentina—some of his fellow Jesuits saw him as a conservative, because he resisted the politicization of liberation theology. But, in fact, I think, as I show in my book, it’s much better—safer to see him, actually, as a defender of the traditions and the values of the ordinary people against elite ideologies. So, quite an important—
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think he is repenting—
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: —and subtle distinction, may seem subtle, but very important.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think, Austen, he’s repenting for what happened in Argentina with some liberation theology priests, the deaths of them, today as pope?
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Well, I mean, he’s never—he’s never identified with any kind of repression of liberation theology and was always critical of it. But I think what’s happening now in, for example, the—on freeing the cause of Óscar Romero and indeed d’Escoto and indeed his dialogues with Leonardo Boff, the Brazilian theologian, is that, you know, he—we’re now in a post-communist, post-socialist era. Liberation theology in Latin America is no longer identified with left-wing politics, and therefore it’s safe for him now to rescue, as it were, the really important gospel tenets of liberation theology, which are, you know, the option for the poor, the identification with ordinary people, and a critique of power and a critique of a certain form of capitalism which denigrates the poor. So I think that’s what’s going on. It’s the rehabilitation of the essence of liberation theology now in a post-left-wing period. That’s how I would describe what he’s doing.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have about a minute to go, and I wanted to go to the issue of women and nuns. The Vatican has praised the role of nuns in the United States following a controversial years-long probe into their adherence to Catholic doctrine. The report marks a shift in tone from a 2012 Vatican reprimand, which resulted in an all-male takeover of the largest group of U.S. nuns. The nuns were accused of promoting "radical feminist" ideas and challenging teachings on homosexuality and the all-male priesthood. Can you talk about what his position is now and end on the issue of abortion and homosexuality?
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: Right, well, just on that very report into women religious, indeed, the final report which came out on women religious is very, very positive, very praiseworthy. And Francis, I think, would be the first and has been consistently praising of women and of women religious. However, the report, the investigation into the leadership of one of the main groups of women religious in the United States is yet to come. And, actually, that is the report that is likely to contain some of the critiques that were first expressed in 2012. So we’ll have to wait to see on that.
But just on Francis and women, in general, as I show in my book, he’s had a number of women who have been very, very close to him, some of the most formative influences in his life, particularly his grandmother, but also certain very important people involved in politics and in human rights have been women. He now has, as pope, and as cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, a number of women who are very close to him. He respects women. He admires strong women. That’s a consistent thing which comes across.
On the issue of women priests, he has made clear that Catholic tradition is a male priesthood because of the Catholic understanding that the maleness of Jesus Christ is in some way represented by the priest. Now, you know, he’s not going to change that, because, actually, in many ways, Francis is a very conservative man. He believes in conserving the traditions of Catholicism. That’s what ordinary people—you know, that’s what they believe. And so, his reforms are taking place within the context of Catholic tradition.
He does, however, want to see more women in positions of leadership in Rome, and we’re going to see in the course of 2015 a very important Vatican reform being announced, a reform of the curia, in the structure and the governance of the curia. And there will be women who are put in positions—more women, I should say, put in positions of authority—
AMY GOODMAN: Austen—
AUSTEN IVEREIGH: —in the Vatican than we’ve seen up ’til now.
AMY GOODMAN: Austen Ivereigh, we have to leave it there, but I thank you so much for being with us. Austen Ivereigh, British writer, commentator, co-founder of Catholic Voices, a lay group that works to improve the church’s representation in the media. He’s the author of a new book; it’s called The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope. He’s speaking to us from Oxford, England.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll hear from Bill McKibben, major address he gave in the Swedish Parliament. Stay with us.
|
As the warmest year on record comes to a close, we end the last show of 2014 with climate activist and author Bill McKibben. He recently announced he is stepping down from the daily leadership of the climate action group 350.org, which he co-founded in 2007 and where he has been a leading voice warning of the dangers of not confronting global warming. He says he will remain a senior adviser and active member of the board, keeping 90 percent of his daily work the same. We play an excerpt of McKibben’s speech earlier this month in Stockholm, Sweden, where he received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative Nobel Prize.
Image Credit: rightlivelihood.org
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: "Step by Step," Jesse Winchester, the sing-songwriter who played a major role in the '60s antiwar movement when he moved to Canada to avoid the draft, was later pardoned by President Carter. He's one of many musicians we lost this year. He died April 11th. He was 69 years old.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, as we end today’s show with author and activist Bill McKibben, who recently announced he’s stepping down from the daily leadership of 350.org, which he co-founded, where he’s been a leading voice against climate change for years. This group gets its name from a comment by climate scientist Jim Hansen, who said the world must cut carbon dioxide emissions to 350 parts per million to avoid dangerous alterations in the climate. Current emission levels exceed that.
McKibben wrote in a statement earlier this month, quote, "I’m stepping down as chair of the board at 350.org to become what we’re calling a 'senior advisor.' ... I will stay on as an active member of the board, and 90 percent of my daily work will stay the same, since it’s always involved the external work of campaigning, not the internal work of budgets and flow charts." He said, "I’m not standing down from that work, or stepping back, or walking away."
Well, earlier this month, Bill McKibben was in Stockholm, Sweden, where he received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "alternative Nobel Prize." This is an excerpt of his address.
BILL McKIBBEN: As we meet here today, the world is almost done with what will be the hottest calendar year in all the years that we have measured temperatures. 2014 saw the warmest temperatures, by far, ever recorded in the northern Pacific. It was also the year when we learned, tragically, that the melt of the West Antarctic ice sheet is now irreversible.
Twenty-five years ago, when I wrote the first book-length account of this crisis, none of these wounds could have been predicted. But that’s because scientists are conservative—the damage has outpaced their forecasts. Every ocean, including the one outside these doors, is now 30 percent more acidic than a generation ago. Every continent now sees drought and flood on an unprecedented scale.
Every scientific body now urges upon us, with ever more desperate rhetoric, the need for action. You’ll find in your packet, as one concise reminder of the relevant points, a recent publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science outlining, once more, the grim and by now very plain facts of climate change.
And yet, so little action has come. The world will meet again a year from today in Paris to try and reach a treaty, a replay of the meeting that five years ago ended in fiasco in Copenhagen. So far, the fossil fuel industry has been powerful enough to block substantial action in most nations, especially the United States, historically the biggest source of carbon now overheating the Earth.
We in the climate movement have long since concluded that the fountain of fossil fuel money, which buys politicians and spreads disinformation, can only be met if we coin our own currency—in this case, the currency of movements: passion, spirit, creativity. Sometimes we need to spend the currency of our own bodies and head to jail.
And so, here is the good news to temper that bleak weather forecast: All over the world that movement is finally rising. In late September, 400,000 people filled the streets of New York to demand that the U.N. take action on climate. That was the largest demonstration about anything in the U.S. for some years and the largest demonstration about climate change in history. Those people were joined that day by protesters in 2,600 other cities around the world. The world’s first truly global problem is seeing the world’s first truly global movement.
And it is beginning to have an effect. The same night of that march in New York, the heirs to the Rockefeller fortune announced that they were divesting their holdings in fossil fuel companies. The first family of fossil fuel was selling its oil stock. In so doing—in so doing, they joined institutions, from Stanford University to the Church of Sweden—and hopefully soon the city of Stockholm and many others in this green-minded country. Just as 30 years ago, when the question was apartheid in South Africa, the world’s people are coming together to withdraw their money from the companies that simply refuse to change their practices.
Those companies—Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Gazprom, China Coal, BP, all the rest—have in their combined reserves five times more carbon than the world’s scientists say we can safely burn. And yet those companies have told their shareholders and their banks that they will dig up that coal and oil and gas, and burn it. If they carry out those business plans, then there is no mystery about how this story ends: The planet will simply break.
And so we must fight—peacefully, but firmly. We must build green cities. And like so many others, I’ve gotten to visit Stockholm’s green neighborhood, Hammarby Sjöstad. It’s a model of what the future could look like, as congenial as it is ecological.
But beautiful as that vision is, we can’t be taking one step forward and another back. This is the point at which I become the impolite dinner guest who criticizes the host. In this city, for instance, planning continues on a massive highway. Ask yourself whether in a decade or two that is the legacy this planet needs, or whether a sharp and dramatic move toward public transit and car sharing might not be better. My fellow—my fellow honorees last night had the rare privilege of getting to walk aboard the good ship Vasa, and it occurred to me that perhaps projects like that highway may represent the sort of grand and expensive ventures perhaps not perfectly suited for the world in which they must sail.
And ask yourself—ask yourself sharp questions about trying to make every possible penny off the current situation. If Vattenfall, for instance, simply sells its stake in German lignite mines, there is no question that the coal will eventually be dug up and burned. Is not the really responsible course, for a nation that grew wealthy in part by burning fossil fuel, to make the small economic sacrifice and keep that coal forever underground where it can do no harm? Is that any different than what, for instance, we’ve asked of the Brazilians when it comes to the Amazon, that they keep it standing?
And we very badly need Sweden’s cities and governments to follow the lead of the Church of Sweden and divest those fossil fuel holdings. We simply must defeat those forces that want to delay large-scale change so they can have a decade or two more of profit. There’s no ducking that fight. If you invest in fossil fuel companies, you profit from the destruction of the Earth. That’s the definition of "dirty money." Those who invest in fossil fuel companies are making a wager that the world will do nothing to combat climate change. That’s an immoral wager. And it’s an unwise wager, as well, because civil society really is rising up.
I am reminded of the iconic scene earlier this autumn, when our 350.org colleagues in 12 Pacific Island nations, nations that will be underwater on the current trajectory by the end of this century, they took their traditional canoes and transported them to the largest coal port in the world, Newcastle in Australia, and for a day used those tiny canoes to block some of the largest ships in the world, to keep them in port. Their slogan, a good slogan for the whole world, would be: "We’re not drowning. We’re fighting."
I’m reminded of the scenes in North America earlier this year, where cattle ranchers and Native Americans formed what they called the Cowboy-Indian Alliance, a CIA slightly different than the one Mr. Snowden used to work for, to block the Keystone Pipeline and its cargo of filthy oil from the tar sands of Canada.
We stand in solidarity with Andean activists losing the glaciers that supply their drinking water, and with Bangladeshi activists watching the seas rise in the Bay of Bengal. We learn from African leaders like Desmond Tutu, who recently called climate change the greatest human rights challenge of our time, and from Sámi leaders from the top of the world, who are watching berserk winter weather wreck time-honored ways of life. We struggle alongside residents of Delhi and Beijing and the other smog-choked metropolises of our planet, for we know that their children die from the same fossil fuel combustion that endangers the whole Earth. We look with great inspiration to the countries like Germany that are demonstrating daily that it is entirely possible to turn to renewable energy for the power that we need on this planet.
Global warming is a test for all of us, the test in our time on Earth. It’s a test in a sense of whether the big brain was a good adaptation after all. Clearly, that brain can get us in a good deal of trouble, but maybe, just maybe, it is attached to a big enough heart to get us out of some of that trouble. I cannot promise you that we will win this struggle. We have waited a very long time to get started, and the science is quite dark. But I can promise you that in every corner of the world we will fight and fight hard. Thank you so much for helping spread word of that struggle with this great honor.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, accepting the Right Livelihood Award in the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm earlier this month.
That does it for this year’s Democracy Now! By the way, a very special happy 70th birthday to our West Coast coordinator, Chuch Scurich. Tune in in 2015—that’s the rest of the week—for our holiday specials. On Friday, we’ll air our interview with comedian Russell Brand.
RUSSELL BRAND: I know that people are ready for change. I know that alternatives are possible and that you constantly see how hard the establishment has to work to maintain order. Look at all these institutions, the banks of the Thames lined with institutions to hold ordinary people down. Constantly through the media, they try to prevent different arguments emerging. That is because they know change is inevitable. Change is just a different story. We, people in the media, have an obligation to reframe this argument, to tell people that they can change the world, that we are connected to one another. We have more in common with each other. We have more in common with the people we’re bombing than the people we’re bombing them for. People that say the system works work for the system. We can change the world. The revolution can begin as soon as you decide it does in yourself, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Friday, Russell Brand on Democracy Now! We’ll also air our interview with Julian Assange talking about When Google Met WikiLeaks. Now, Thursday, we’ll speak with Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi and JPMorgan Chase whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann, "The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare."
|
Canada: 9 Dead in Mass Domestic Violence Killing
In Canada, nine people are dead including two children in what authorities are calling a mass episode of domestic violence. The murders of eight people followed by the apparent suicide of the suspect mark the worst mass murder to hit Alberta’s capital city of Edmonton. The victims were found in two separate homes, and the suspect, who had a lengthy criminal record, was later found dead in a restaurant. Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht spoke after the killings.
Rod Knecht: "This series of events are not believed to be random acts, and there is no risk to the broader public. And these events do not appear to be gang-related, but rather tragic incidents of domestic violence."
1st Remains of AirAsia Flight Victims Returned to Indonesia
Indonesian officials have confirmed bodies and debris found in the Java Sea off the coast of Borneo are from a passenger plane carrying 162 people which went missing en route to Singapore. Several bodies have been recovered, and at least two have arrived back in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, where the AirAsia flight departed from on Sunday.
Yemen: Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 33
In central Yemen, a suicide bomber has killed at least 33 people at a gathering of Shiite Houthi rebels. The governor of Ibb province, which is controlled by the Houthis, was reportedly among those injured in the attack.
Gambian President Returns Home After Apparent Coup Bid
The president of the West African nation of Gambia has returned home after an apparent coup plot while he was out of the country. President Yahya Jammeh says he remains in control of Gambia after a gun battle which reportedly threw the capital Banjul into chaos. The alleged plotters, including a former army commander, were killed. President Jammeh, who rose to power in a military coup in 1994 has faced at least two previous coup plots. He has also faced international criticism for his repression of LGBT people and political opponents. The failed coup has sparked fears of a crackdown.
Russia: Conviction of Opposition Leader Sparks Mass Protests
Russia has seen one of its largest anti-government demonstrations in years after a leading opponent of President Vladimir Putin was convicted of fraud. Alexei Navalny, a prominent blogger and lawyer, was given a suspended sentence, while his brother was sentenced to prison on what his supporters say are trumped-up charges. After his sentencing, Alexei Navalny broke house arrest to attend an anti-government rally, where he was detained and returned to his home. As many as 250 others were arrested. Earlier today 18 protesters, including members of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot, were detained after spending the night near Moscow’s Red Square. In Washington, State Department spokesperson Jeff Rathke condemned the sentencing of the Navalny brothers.
Jeff Rathke: "We are troubled by the guilty verdict handed down in the latest action against Alexei and Oleg Navalny. The decision is a disturbing development, in our view, and it appears to be designed to further punish and deter political activism. This appears to be another example of the Russian government’s growing crackdown on independent voices."
Bahrainis Protest Detention of Shiite Opposition Leader
Bahraini forces have fired tear gas on protesters who gathered outside the home of a detained opposition leader. Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the main Shiite group opposed to Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy, was arrested on Sunday after leading a rally. The United Nations and European Union have criticized Salman’s arrest, with the U.N. human rights chief calling for his immediate release. The Obama administration says it is looking into the charges against Salman and has called for him to be treated equally under the law. Bahrain is a close U.S. ally, home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
U.N. Rejects Palestinian Resolution After U.S., Israeli Maneuvering
The United Nations Security Council has rejected a resolution demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories within three years, following U.S. and Israeli pressure against it. The draft resolution also called for a peaceful solution between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state within 12 months. Of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, only the United States and Australia voted against the measure. But it needed nine votes to pass and only received eight after Nigeria decided at the last minute to abstain from voting. The Guardian reports both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, to ask him to oppose the measure. The United States was expected to veto the measure if it passed. The vote comes amidst widening support for Palestinian statehood, with an increasing number of European countries taking steps to recognize Palestine. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power explained why the U.S. objected.
Samantha Power: "Today’s staged confrontation in the U.N. Security Council will not bring the parties closer to achieving a two-state solution. We voted against this resolution not because we are indifferent to the daily hardships or the security threats endured by Palestinians and Israelis, but because we know that those hardships will not cease and those threats will not subside until the parties reach a comprehensive settlement achieved through negotiations."
U.S. Releases 5 Guantánamo Prisoners to Kazakhstan
The Obama administration has released five more prisoners from Guantánamo Bay. The prisoners include two men from Tunisia and three from Yemen who have been held for a dozen years without charge. They have all been sent to Kazakhstan for resettlement. Their release brings the total number of prisoners at Guantánamo to 127.
Somalia: Al-Shabab Intel Chief Confirmed Killed in U.S. Strike
Somali officials have confirmed a U.S. airstrike killed the intelligence chief of the militant group al-Shabab. The Pentagon had announced the strike, but did not identify the target. Somali officials say the leader, Abdishakur Tahlil, was killed along with two other senior al-Shabab members. An earlier U.S. strike in September killed the leader of al-Shabab, sparking a deadly revenge attack on an African Union base in the Somali capital Mogadishu last week.
NYPD Launches "Work Stoppage" to Protest Mayor Bill de Blasio
New York City police officers have reportedly launched a "virtual work stoppage" in protest of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s comments on racial profiling and police brutality. According to the New York Post, traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped 94 percent over the same period last year after the murder of two police officers earlier this month. Parking violations dropped 92 percent, and drug arrests dropped 84 percent. In response to the Post numbers, The New York Times issued its second editorial in two days criticizing the NYPD’s protests of de Blasio. The Times wrote: "What New Yorkers expect of the Police Department is simple: 1. Don’t violate the Constitution. 2. Don’t kill unarmed people. To that we can add: Do your jobs."
De Blasio Meets with NYC Police Union Leaders in Bid to Ease Ties
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio met with police union leaders on Tuesday in a bid to ease ties. Following the meeting, the head of the largest police union, Patrick Lynch, who has previously accused de Blasio of having "blood on his hands," said the meeting had failed to produce a resolution.
Patrick Lynch: "There were a number of discussions, especially about the safety issues that our members face. There was no resolve. And our thought here today is that actions speak louder than words, and time will tell."
While police have focused on the issue of officer safety, a new report finds the current fatality rate for police on the job is .014 percent. The number of officers killed by firearms rose 56 percent this year over 2013, but remains far below historic highs and has steadily dropped over time.
Prosecutor Who Failed to Indict Cop in Eric Garner Killing Mulls Run for Grimm’s House Seat
In New York, the Staten Island district attorney who failed to produce an indictment of a police officer for the chokehold killing of unarmed African American Eric Garner has said he is seriously considering a run for the House seat vacated by Rep. Michael Grimm. Just hours after Grimm announced he is stepping down after pleading guilty to felony tax evasion, District Attorney Daniel Donovan, a Republican, said his phone had been "ringing off the hook" with people urging him to run. Donovan was soundly criticized for failing to secure an indictment of Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who was caught on video wrestling Garner down in a banned chokehold. Garner died after repeatedly saying, "I can’t breathe."
Idaho: 2-Year-Old Kills Mother at Wal-Mart After Finding Gun in Purse
In Hayden, Idaho, a two-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his mother with a gun he found in her purse. The boy and his mother were shopping at Wal-Mart with family members when the accident took place. The woman, who was later identified as 29-year-old Veronica Rutledge, reportedly had a permit to carry the concealed gun.
Harvard Law School Found in Violation of Title IX for Mishandling Sexual Assault
The Obama administration has found Harvard Law School, President Obama’s alma mater, violated the federal statute Title IX by mishandling cases of sexual assault. The U.S. Department of Education announced Harvard Law School had agreed to reform its policies and procedures following a four-year probe, which marked one of the department’s longest-running investigations over sexual violence. In one case highlighted by the government, Harvard took over a year to make a final decision after a student issued a complaint, ultimately barring the alleged victim from participating in an appeal and then dismissing the case. Meanwhile, Harvard College remains under federal investigation for its response to sexual assault, as do scores of other colleges across the country.
Dr. Theo Colborn, Expert on Health Impacts of Fracking Chemicals, Dies at 87
The world-renowned scientist Dr. Theo Colborn, one of the leading experts on the health and environmental impacts of chemicals used to extract oil and gas, has died at the age of 87. In 2003, at the age of 76, Colborn founded the Endocrine Disruption Exchange to disseminate scientific evidence related to endocrine disruptors, chemicals that interfere with development. In 2010, Theo Colborn appeared on Democracy Now! and spoke about her research on endocrine disruptors and the chemicals used to extract natural gas through fracking.
Dr. Theo Colborn: "These are the chemicals that can get into the pregnant woman and enter the womb, while her baby is developing in her womb, and alter how those children are born. And this is our big concern today, because we’re facing major pandemics of endocrine-driven disorders — simple things like ADHD, autism, diabetes, obesity, early testicular cancer, endometriosis. These are all endocrine-driven disorders that we’re very concerned about. And these products are being injected underground, for centuries, maybe, to stay before they surface, and also coming back up."
Colborn died on December 14 at home in Paonia, Colorado.
Rabbi Leonard Beerman, Leading Voice for Peace, Dies at 93
Rabbi Leonard Beerman, a leading voice for social justice, peace and the rights of Palestinians for over six decades, has died at the age of 93. In 1947, just before the founding of Israel, Beerman lived in Jerusalem and joined the Haganah, the Jewish militia, an experience which helped transform him into a lifelong pacifist. He soon moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a rabbi and embarked on decades of activism, from opposing the Vietnam War in the 1960s to criticizing Israel’s recent assault on Gaza. In 2007, he presented The Nation Institute’s Ron Ridenhour Award to President Jimmy Carter. In his introduction, he spoke about striving for change.
Leonard Beerman: "In this endeavor, there is no guarantee of victory, but there is a choice: One either collaborates with the enemy, with whatever is, with whatever is miserable or inhumane, with whatever is unjust, with whatever demeans the life of any human being, even those we call our enemies, or one joins the resistance and insists upon being among those who strive to diminish the store of insult and agony in the world."
Beerman died last Wednesday in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure. He was 93 years old.
____________________________
207 W 25th Street, 11th Floor
New York, New York 10001 United States
____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment