Pope Francis In America

Pope Francis has been taking stands on everything from the environment to Wall Street. How will he preach to America when he comes next week?

The Pope is coming next week to America. Pope Francis has never been to America before. Never in his life. And Americans – Catholic and non-Catholic – have never seen a pope quite like this. The first pope from the global South – Argentina. A fierce advocate of the poor and marginalized. He smiles and talks of mercy. But he is a fierce critic of what he calls “savage capitalism.” Of consumerism – the great American way. Of climate change – responsibility for which he pins squarely on us, humans. This hour On Point, we preview the visit of Pope Francis with a top cardinal in the Vatican, and more.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Elizabeth Dias, religion and politics correspondent for TIME Magazine. (@elizabethjdias)
Cardinal Peter Kodwo Apppiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. (@CardinalTurkson)

Tiziana Dearing, co-director of Boston College's Center for Social Innovation and associate professor at the Boston College School of Social Work. (@tiziana_dearing)

TIME: Pope Francis and the New Roman Empire — "Francis, 78, rose to prominence as a church leader in the unruly world of Latin American politics of the 1960s and 1970s, and his life and outlook are the products of the developing world. He has never been to the U.S., and his only papal trip to a developed Western country so far was a four-hour stopover in France, the shortest ever by a Pope. Instead he has focused on his spiritual base, traveling almost exclusively to so-called Global South nations, including Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bolivia and Brazil."

The Guardian: Peter Turkson: the public face of Pope Francis's war on global warming — "Any lingering questions over Turkson’s role – or the confidence Pope Francis apparently has in him – have long since diminished. The cardinal has become the public face of what is now seen as the pope’s most pressing agenda: raising awareness about the dangers of global warming and pushing leaders to act."

WBUR Cognoscenti: Pope Francis On The Immorality Of Environmental Degradation -- "We are living in a world without a sufficient common framework for addressing the challenges of poverty, most specifically how it is constructed, the severity of its impact, and the moral obligations of those building it. With regard to this, Pope Francis has been particularly strong, condemning 'unbridled consumerism.'"