US presidential candidate Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic has setup a dedicated page on his campaign website to issues related to catholics, specifically and what his presidency would be doing to address them.
“I’m a practicing Catholic. I believe faith is a gift. And the first obligation we all have is, ‘Love your God,’ the second one is, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ … ‘Treat people with dignity.’ Everyone’s entitled to dignity, that’s a basic tenet in my household.” – Vice President Joe Biden
Aside from a plan to “build an economy where everyone comes along and we protect the “least of these”, and to ‘Respect the dignity of work and give workers back the power to earn what they’re worth:”, Biden has grand plans to help implement the Pope’s environmental agenda.
The last paragraph of the page addresses his approach to the Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si. The encyclical addresses climate change and what should be done to protect the environment.
Joe’s plan will tackle climate change and pollution to protect our communities. He will ensure that communities harmed by climate change and pollution, particularly communities of color and low-income communities, are the first to benefit from his clean economy revolution. He will push the United States to achieve a 100 percent clean energy economy and reaches net zero emissions no later than 2050. Joe’s plan will create 10 million good-paying jobs in the United States, hold polluters accountable, and push other countries to go further on their climate action commitments. He will work to ensure that every American has access to clean drinking water, clean air, and an environment free from pollutants. And, every dollar spent towards rebuilding infrastructure will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand a changing climate.
Here is an indirect way that the Catholic church would find yet another route of co-operation with the government.
Catholicism is gaining ground upon every side. See the increasing number of her churches and chapels in Protestant countries. Look at the popularity of her colleges and seminaries in America, so widely patronized by Protestants … Protestants have tampered with and patronized popery; they have made compromises and concessions which papists themselves are surprised to see, and fail to understand” (Great Controversy, p. 566).
At the core of the Pope’s plan, is a dedication of a global day where everyone ceases from all work activity to protect the environment.
“As America, the land of religious liberty, shall unite with the papacy in forcing the conscience and compelling men to honor the false sabbath, the people of every country on the globe will be led to follow her example” (Testimonies, Vol. 6, p. 18).
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