Jeb Bush knocks pope’s climate change push

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Wednesday that Pope Francis will not be informing his policies on climate change.

Bush, who converted to Roman Catholicism 20 years ago, said he would listen to Francis, but that he was dismissive of the letter the pontiff will issue Thursday on climate change.

{mosads}“I’m going to read what he says, of course, I’m a Catholic and try to follow the teachings of the Church,” Bush said at a Washington, Iowa, campaign stop, according to The Washington Post.

He later added, “I don’t go to Mass for economic policy or for things in politics. I’ve got enough people helping me along the way with that.”

Bush repeated what he has previously said on the general issue of global warming: the climate is changing, but political action might not be the best way to fight it.

“Look, the climate is changing, there’s lots of things that we can do that aren’t political or doesn’t create a partisan divide or political divide about that issue,” he said, according to the Post.

Francis’s long-awaited encyclical is expected to frame the fight against greenhouse gas emissions that warm the Earth as a moral imperative and an essential step toward protecting the world’s poorest people.

In a draft of the encyclical released Monday by an Italian magazine, Francis said that human activity is the main cause of climate change.

Bush added that the federal government could play a role in incentivizing clean energy that reduces emissions.

He is among five declared or potential 2016 GOP contenders who are Catholic.

But Bush’s positions on climate change are decidedly centrist in comparison to the rest of the Republican field.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) said earlier in June that Francis should stay out of the climate change conversation.