Wow! The Guardian: Bernie Will Speak Against the Idolatry of Money, at Vatican Conference [View all]

[amborin]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/08/bernie-sanders-vatican-visit-pope-francis?CMP=twt_gu

Bernie Sanders plans to warn against “the idolatry of money” in a speech at the Vatican next week which the Democratic candidate hopes will align his insurgent presidential campaign with the moral preaching of Pope Francis.

“What the pope has been clear about is linking the issue of morality with the global economy and making the point that you can’t have a moral economy when so many people are living in poverty,” Sanders told the Guardian.

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The Vermont senator conceded it had “not yet been determined” if he will have a private audience with the pope during attendance at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences on social, economic and environmental issues.

A Vatican source also confirmed they would “not necessarily” be meeting privately. “It could happen, but very well could not,” the source told the Guardian on Friday.

The pope is usually reluctant to be seen as endorsing candidates or getting involved in national politics, but he caused a stir during his recent trip the US, when he called on Congress to tackle climate change and embrace immigration.

Sanders believes the pope’s unusually political visit in September helped lend legitimacy to his own message of “democratic socialism”, which he argues is much more in tune with the tradition of American political reformers like Franklin Roosevelt than is often appreciated.

The senator said he plans to talk “about the idolatry of money and the dangers to our culture of being seduced by the worship of money” during his visit to the Vatican on Friday.

He also said the evidence of offshore banking activity revealed by the Guardian and other news outlets this week in the Panama Papers underlined why it was important to reintroduce morality into financial regulation.

“It is not going to be a very long trip, I plan to be back on Saturday,” he added when asked if it would interfere with his campaign schedule in New York.

Sanders had been in fraught discussions with Clinton over the date of a televised debate between the two, which is scheduled the night before he leaves for Rome, and hastily added two rallies in his home borough of Brooklyn on Friday amid signs of he is closing a large gap between the two in opinion polls.

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