Pope Brings Call for Action on Climate, Critique of Capitalism to White House

The Pope came to the White House, and the driving purpose of the visit was clear: To call for action on climate change.

Pope Francis dedicated the majority of his brief, widely broadcast speech—in which he made overtures to both Martin Luther King's legacy and Barack Obama's policies—to global warming, and offered a short but pointed rebuke of capitalism.

In a move that surprised many observers, Pope Francis directly praised Obama's proposed greenhouse gas regulations (popes don't usually do politics).

"Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution," he said. "Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation. When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history."

"We still have time to make the changes needed to bring about 'a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change,'" he said, quoting Laudato Si, his recent encyclical on the environment.

"Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them," the Pope continued (read: capitalism). "Our common home has been part of this group of the excluded which cries out to heaven and which today powerfully strikes our homes, our cities and our societies."

Next, he nodded to America's most famous civil rights leader: "To use a telling phrase of the Rev. Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it."

It was fairly extraordinary. There is probably no other human alive who could land a speaking gig at the White House, then use it to call for global action on climate change, critique capitalism outright, and endorse a particular regulatory framework to reduce pollution, all in the course of a single ten-minute speech. And there has probably been no other pope who would have done so.

The Pope was announcing, from the White House lawn, that capitalism is causing millions of people to suffer, and that it is a driving force behind climate change. Whether or not that message is getting through to the Christians he's seeking to motivate remains an open question—as it's not a new message for the Pope—but it's one you probably are unlikely to hear delivered from the White House ever again.