Friday at her weekly press briefing, Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement was a “dishonor ” to God.

Pelosi said, “This is a matter of environmental justice. Lower income and minority families are disproportionately vulnerable to the ravages of the climate crisis. It’s civil rights issue. Environmental justice is. And we have a moral responsibility in addition to the national security, the economy and the health of our children. We have a moral responsibility. We must leave future generations with a healthy, sustainable planet. Faith leaders, starting with the Holiness Pope Francis, to the evangelical community, have urged us to be responsible stewards of the beauty of God’s creation. They believe as you live that this planet is God’s creation and we have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of it.”

“When we work with evangelical communities, we put together our climate legislation ten years ago, nine years ago,” she continued. “They had their literature which said that we had a moral responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, and in doing so, we must pay special attention to the needs of the poor. I saw it as an environmental justice issue as well in the evangelical community. When the pope went to the White House, he talked about the dangers of air pollution when he was here. Just last week, the pope met with President Trump and gave him a copy of his encyclical, which made the strong case to halt the climate crisis. The pope wrote the climate is a common good belonging to all and meant for all. The Bible tells us to minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us and that is what we are doing by walking away from this accord.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN