On economic battleground, the pope finds ‘radical’ ally

Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein will be a featured speaker at a Vatican conference this week to follow up on Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment. In fact, Klein will join Cardinal Peter Turkson Wednesday at a press conference to launch the Vatican event.

I had heard the news a couple days ago, but almost didn’t believe it until I saw the notice posted on the Vatican press office bulletin board today.

For those unfamiliar with Klein, she is one of the most influential critics of corporate capitalism, and has argued – as the pope did in his encyclical – that many of the root causes of climate change are economic.

This is from the website of her latest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate:

“Forget everything you think you know about global warming. The really inconvenient truth is that it’s not about carbon—it’s about capitalism. The convenient truth is that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.”

The Vatican’s invitation to Klein confirms Pope Francis’ strategy of joining with secular allies on the issue of environmental protection. In April, the pope invited U.N. General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon and more than 100 political and scientific leaders to a similar Vatican summit.

Klein has been a much more vocal critic of globalized capitalism, challenging, as she puts it, the “unquestioned ideology that sees privatization as always good.” Her presence at the Vatican this week is bound to upset some conservative Catholics who are already alarmed about the economic direction of this pontificate.

Klein sees the conference as a sign of follow-through from the Vatican after the papal encyclical. She told The Guardian: “The fact that they invited me indicates they’re not backing down from the fight. A lot of people have patted the pope on the head, but said he’s wrong on the economics. I think he’s right on the economics.”