In a highly anticipated visit, Pope Francis spoke yesterday at a joint meeting of Congress and urged them to cast aside their bitter partisan divides and step up to address the world’s most urgent priorities. Using his moral authority, the Pope spoke widely about the pressing need to address the very real threat of climate change, our obligation to show more compassion towards immigrants, and the goal to strive towards world peace.
Earlier in the year, Pope Francis issued a 184-page encyclical entitled Laudato Si,” or “Praise Be to You” to highlight the crisis posed by climate change. Pointing to the exploitation and destruction of the environment, the pursuit of profits above all else, and a lack of leadership, the document is an indictment of global consumerism and reckless development. He argued that the poorest and the most vulnerable in the world are the true victims of the world’s disregard of the environment; they are dislocated and rendered voiceless in the pursuit of materialism. The Pope’s radical writing called for new kinds of leadership, a change in our collective lifestyles, and a transformation of the nature of the global economy.
Whether in his United Nations General Assembly speech or to our elected representatives in Washington, the Pope’s message is clear: combating inequality and injustice and taking care of our planet are the key issues that must be addressed by world leaders.
Is the Pope our best steward for environmental and social justice? Can his challenge to Congress and the United Nations have an impact on our dependency on fossil fuels and the breakdown of safety nets all over the world? Is the current pope’s version of Liberation Theology finally an opportunity for the world to pay more attention to the question of a larger public good?
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Shyama Venkateswar is Director of the Public Policy Program at Roosevelt House and Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College. In this capacity, she leads the Public Policy Program’s undergraduate curriculum, teaches the senior Capstone Seminar, co-manages faculty initiatives, works closely with city & state agencies for student internships, manages adjuncts, and directs a scholars program funded by the Jewish Foundation for Education of Women. She is a regular columnist for Roosevelt House’s website on a variety of national and global policy issues on conflict resolution, food security, women’s leadership, criminal justice reform, among others. She has almost twenty years of experience in research, policy and advocacy focusing on social justice issues, both in the U.S. and globally. Before coming to Hunter College, she worked at the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW), where she served as Director of Research & Programs, and helped provide the vision and strategic direction for the Council’s policy agenda on economic security for low-income women, diversity in higher education and the corporate arena, women’s leadership, and ending global violence against women. She is co-author of two NCRW reports, Caring for Our Nation’s Future; and The Challenge and the Charge: Strategies for Retaining and Advancing Women of Color in addition to numerous commentary and opinion pieces on poverty, job creation, peace-building, and immigrant rights published in The Miami Herald, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Asia Times, The Indian Express, and the Chicago Sun-Times. She has given Congressional briefings, and presented her research findings to academic, policy, advocacy and corporate audiences. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and is a graduate of Smith College.
