Religion now becoming inconvenient for Jeb Bush

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush thinks the pope should keep the church out of politics. That’s rich from a guy who says we should base secular laws on his Catholic beliefs.

Florida’s former governor has an issue with Pope Francis weighing in on the climate change debate. In an encyclical on the environment released last week, the pontiff sided with scientists who say global warming is a serious threat to the planet exacerbated by human activity.

“Humanity is called to take note of the need for changes in lifestyle and changes in methods of production and consumption,” Pope Francis wrote, “to combat this warming, or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.”

He added “if present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.”

There’s an unwritten rule that requires Republicans elected to or running for office to either deny climate change is a reality or that humans are mostly responsible.

Bush and the other Catholics seeking the GOP nomination — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum — would undoubtedly have welcomed the encyclical had Pope Francis chosen to deny science.

Bush and Rubio acknowledge climate change but aren’t convinced that man is primarily responsible, despite overwhelming scientific evidence.

“I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home,” Bush said at a town hall event in New Hampshire, according to Reuters. “But I don’t get my economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope.”

Perhaps that’s because he’s getting his economic policies from the owners and executives of coal mining companies he met with earlier this month that have spent millions on campaigns and lobbying.

Bush said religion “ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting into the political realm.”

Politicians make science political. And politicians bring religion into politics. Like Bush did when he said gays shouldn’t have the right to marry because it goes against Catholic doctrine.

How does denying civil rights to fellow beings make us better as people? It doesn’t. Saving the environment for future generations does.

Santorum told a radio station earlier this month the church shouldn’t weigh in on scientific matters.

“The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science,” he said, “and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality.”

Francis sees climate change as a moral issue.

“Authentic human development has a moral character,” Francis wrote. “It presumes full respect for the human person, but it must also be concerned for the world around us.”

The National Climate Assessment written by a panel of 60 scientists and released last year concluded that climate change is not a distant threat but something we need to address right now. Especially in Florida, which is among the areas most at risk because of sea-level rise.

If anyone should be leading on climate change it should be Florida sons Bush and Rubio.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami is joining bishops in California, Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico who, according to The New York Times, will spread the pope’s message on the environment in sermons and press events this summer. Wenski hopes Bush and Rubio will pay attention.

The pope “wants to get people to understand that our religious commitment is about our commitment to God,” Wenski told NPR, “but is also about our commitment to our fellow man.”

Funny how when the church takes a position that makes sense — one that would benefit humankind — politicians like Bush and Santorum say the church is overstepping its bounds. Yet when it comes to private, personal matters, like homosexuality, they give the church more deference than the U.S. Constitution.

They can’t have it both ways. If they want the church out of politics they should stop using religious dogma to justify political positions. Rhonda Swan is a freelance journalist and life coach. She can be reached at rswan@evolutionslifecoaching.com