Pope urges world religions to unite against environmental devastation

3/12/2023 18:05

        Pope Francis said on Sunday that it was essential for all world religions to unite in opposing the "rapacious" devastation of the environment.
        
        The 86-year-old pope had planned to preside at the opening of the Faith Pavilion at the C0P28 climate conference in Dubai but a lung inflammation forced him to remain in the Vatican.
        
        Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin read the pope's message in his place, as he did with Francis' main address to the conference on Saturday.
        
        "Religions, as voices of conscience for humanity, remind us that we are finite creatures, possessed of a need for the infinite," the pope said, noting that a Faith Pavilion was a first at a COP conference.
        
        "For we are indeed mortal, we have our limits, and protecting life also entails opposing the rapacious illusion of omnipotence that is devastating our planet," he said.
        
        Religions, he said, "need, urgently, to act for the sake of the environment", educate their members to "sober and fraternal lifestyles" instead of wasteful ones and work for a return to the individual contemplation of nature's grandeur.