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Photographer: Franco Origlia/Getty Images Photographer: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

Pope Francis has endorsed the science behind global warming and denounced the world’s political leaders for putting national self-interest ahead of action. Now, Catholic priests are gearing up to spread the word.

The 192-page leaked draft of a papal encyclical, published Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, is an attempt to influence the debate before United Nations climate talks scheduled for the end of the year in Paris. Father Federico Lombardi, the pope’s spokesman, said the text was not the final one, which will be officially released midday local time Thursday by the Vatican.

The encyclical, entitled “Laudato si (Praised Be) on the care of our common home,” is a call to action in the form of a letter to the church’s bishops. With fossil-fuel emissions and temperatures at record levels, the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics is adding his voice to calls to rein in greenhouse gases.

“International negotiations cannot progress in a significant way because of the positions of the countries which privilege their own national interests rather than the global common good,” the pope wrote. “Those who will suffer the consequences which we are trying to hide will remember this lack of conscience and responsibility.”

Francis squarely put the blame on humans, writing that many scientific studies show “the greater part of global warming in the last decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) emitted above all due to human activity.”

‘Honesty, Courage’

Reducing emissions, he wrote, demands “honesty, courage and responsibility, above all by the most powerful and most polluting countries.”

In the U.S., where public opinion has been split on climate change, the Conference of Catholic Bishops has been holding workshops to discuss the encyclical with its members. A coalition of church groups, the Catholic Climate Covenant, will provide inserts on Francis’ message to go in church bulletins around the U.S. and is e-mailing suggested homilies to priests.

The International Energy Agency says cleaner forms of energy will dominate power generation by 2030 Photographer: Jochen Eckel/Getty Images

Ultimately, priests -- and individual Catholics -- will decide how to respond, said Stephen Colecchi, director of the U.S. bishops’ International Justice and Peace office in Washington. Nonetheless, he said he expects “a lot of enthusiasm.”

‘Document of Faith’

“Whenever the Holy Father teaches, Catholics need to be open, they need to be prayerful, they need to be reflective,” Colecchi said in a telephone interview. “I hope that Catholics will look at this first as a document of faith and not allow ideological perspectives to get in the way of this message.”

For months, the pontiff and his advisers have met dozens of scientists and economists to guide the church’s views on the topic.

The pope’s intervention already is rattling climate skeptics in the U.S. and giving environmentalists hope that the weight of his opinion could energize the agonizingly slow UN discussions.

“Francis has become the moral leader of our age, and he can do what scientists and national leaders cannot do,” Veerabhadran Ramanathan, professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at the University of California in San Diego, said in a phone interview.

“He can ask people, and not just Catholics, to change their behavior,” said Ramanathan, a senior member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that advises Francis.

Renewables Investments

A shift in the energy industry, which produces the majority of greenhouse gases, is already under way. Investment in renewable energy ballooned to $310 billion last year from $60 billion a decade ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The International Energy Agency says cleaner forms of energy will dominate power generation by 2030.

Investment in renewable energy ballooned to $310 billion last year from $60 billion a decade ago Denis Doyle/Bloomberg

To help drive his message home, Francis has requested that bishops around the globe “accompany the publication with appropriate explanations and comments,” the Vatican said in a statement last week.

Francis himself will press his views on a visit to the U.S. in September. He will meet President Barack Obama and address Congress -- the first pope to do so -- and the UN General Assembly.

Rumblings about the encyclical already have drawn fire from critics in the U.S. -- where the Republican chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, James Inhofe, wrote a book on climate change titled “The Greatest Hoax.” Francis should “leave science to the scientists,” Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said this month.

Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the Washington-based American Petroleum Institute, said the oil-industry group was reviewing the encyclical.

St. Francis

“There are a significant number of devout Catholics who are Republicans, and those people will have to think very hard about his message,” said Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute in Washington, who took part in a seminar on climate with Francis and several cardinals in May.

The title of the encyclical recalls the opening phrase of the “Canticle of the Creatures” by St. Francis of Assisi, who is the patron saint of animals and the environment. The pope chose to become Francis on his election in March 2013.

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