Bernie Sanders has accepted an invitation to the Vatican to meet with church leaders to discuss social justice and environmentalism, the New York Times reported on Friday. Sanders will reportedly travel to Vatican City on April 14 to speak at a conference hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences,
“To me, this a source of real pride and excitement that I have been invited to speak to a major conference at the Vatican on how we can create a world economy that is moral and how we address the massive levels of wealth and income inequality that exist around the world, how we deal with unemployment, how we deal with poverty and how we create an economy that works for all people rather than the few,” Sanders told the NYT.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Sanders said he was excited to get to speak about an issue “close to his heart.”
In an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Sanders, who is Jewish, praised Pope Francis for discussing the moral consequences of economic issues.
“[Pope Francis] has played an unbelievable role, an unbelievable role of injecting a moral consequence into the economy” Sanders said. “He is talking about the idolatry of money, the worship of money, the greed that’s out there, how our whole culture is based on: ‘I need more and more and more. And, I don’t have to worry about veterans sleeping out on the street or elderly people who can’t afford their prescriptions.’”
Sanders has yet to confirm whether or not he will meet with the Pope one-on-one during his visit.
