Pope on Environment Day: We cannot
pretend to be healthy in a world that is sick
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| A volunteer collects rubbish on the beach on World Environment Day, Sri Lanka |
On World Environment Day, Pope Francis calls for a change in
attitudes, so that we may leave a better and healthier planet to later
generations.
By Vatican News
World Environment Day is marked annually on 5 June.
The celebrations for this year’s Day, scheduled to take
place in Colombia, were held online instead due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter addressed to Colombian President Ivan Duque on
Friday, Pope Francis stresses that “the protection of the environment and
respect for the biodiversity of the planet are issues that affect us all."
Healthy in a sick world
“We cannot pretend to be healthy in a world that is sick”,
writes the Pope.
“The wounds inflicted on our mother earth are wounds that
also bleed in us.” Pope Francis says that caring for ecosystems demands “a view
to the future” that is truly concerned for life, rather than “quick and easy
profit.”
Pope Francis then warns that our attitude towards the
present state of our planet should “make us concerned for and witnesses to the
gravity of the situation.”
“We cannot remain silent before the outcry when we realize
the very high costs of the destruction and exploitation of the ecosystem,” he
adds.
"This is not a time," the Pope continues, "to
continue looking the other way, indifferent to the signs that our planet is
being plundered and violated by greed for profit, very often in the name of
progress.”
Building a better world
Everything depends on us, says the Pope, stressing that “we
have the chance to” commit ourselves to passing a better, healthier world on to
future generations.
He then recalls the recent celebrations of the fifth
anniversary of his encyclical ‘Laudato Si’. This “drew attention to
the cry that mother earth lifts up to us”, he says.
Finally, the Pope expresses his trust that all deliberations
and conclusions “will always foster the building of an increasingly habitable
world and a more humane society, where all of us have a place and no one is
ever left behind.”
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