By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Together with the head of the
Orthodox Church, Pope Francis urged people to be respectful and responsible
toward creation while being aware of how disrupted ecosystems impact the poor.
To mark the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
Sept. 1, the pope said he and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of
Constantinople “prepared a message together.”
Although the text was not published immediately, Pope
Francis told people at his general audience Aug. 30 that the message would be
an invitation to all people “to adopt a respectful and responsible
approach toward creation.”
“Furthermore,” he said, “we appeal to
those who hold an influential role to listen to the cry of the earth and the
cry of the poor, who suffer more because of ecological imbalances.”
Pope Francis instituted the world day of prayer for the
Catholic Church in 2015, joining with the ecumenical patriarchate, who has
observed the Sept. 1 day of prayer since 1989.
The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,
Pope Francis said when he instituted it, is to be a time for individuals and
communities to “reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of
creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to
our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his
pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live.”
If Christians are to make their special contribution to
safeguarding creation, they must rediscover the spiritual foundations of their
approach to what exists on earth, beginning with an acknowledgment that
“the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body or from
nature,” but lived in communion with all worldly realities, he had said.
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