Turkson, who heads the pontifical council for justice and peace, said global challenges elevated by Francis – such as climate change and justice – would still take second place in importance to individual life-and-death issues such as abortion and the death penalty.
“I would not put them on the same level. I would not associate them at all. Climate change is something that has happened to the world around us,” he told a small group of reporters in a telephone interview. “It’s something essentially that we can control, we can rein in, whose impacts and consequences we can master.”