Pray, reflect, act to safeguard creation, pope says

Pope Francis has invited Catholics to pray, reflect and act to protect an endangered environment in a message released to mark the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

"Now is the time to abandon our dependence on fossil fuels and move, quickly and decisively, toward forms of clean energy," Francis said.

"We have caused a climate emergency that gravely threatens nature and life itself, including our own," he said in his message for the Sept. 1 ecumenical day of prayer.

He urged Catholics to reflect on God’s creation "as a precious gift" to safeguard.

"Tragically, the human response to this gift has marked by sin," he said. “Selfishness and self-interest have turned creation, which was meant to be a place of encounter and sharing, into "an area of competition and conflict."

The pope highlights how the world has experienced increased deterioration in recent decades.

Pollution, the incessant use of fossil fuels, deforestation and intensive farming are causing global temperatures to rise and already threaten the lives of the world's poorest people, he said. Melting glaciers, a lack of drinking water and "the considerable presence of plastics and microplastics in the oceans" are signs of how human greed is making the planet increasingly hostile to life.

"We have forgotten who we are: creatures made in the image of God, called to dwell as brothers and sisters in a common home," Francis said.

"Now is the time to rediscover our vocation as children of God, brothers and sisters, and stewards of creation," he said. "Now is the time to repent, to be converted."

"Let us choose life," the pope said. "Let us say 'no' to consumerist greed and to the illusion of omnipotence, for these are the ways of death."

"May God, the lover of life, grant us the courage to do good without waiting for someone else to begin or until it is too late," he prayed.

Francis suggested Catholics join the ecumenical "Season of Creation" initiative, which runs from the Sept. 1 day of prayer through the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4.

The initiative, explained at www.seasonofcreation.org, includes prayer and practical action to clean up the environment, promote recycling and lobby governments for action to mitigate climate change.

For the full text of the message, click here.