‘Bell’ from Pope Francis – ‘A terrible global war is underway against the environment’

Announcing that he will publish a new document on the protection of nature, Mr Pope Francis stated, on Wednesday (30/8) that he is doing this because a “terrible global war is in progress against the environment’.

Speaking at the general hearing today, Francis said that the document will be issued on October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment.

It will be a follow-up to his influential papal encyclical in 2015 which spoke of the need to protect the environment against the dangers and challenges of climate change and to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

The pope has said the new document will be an “update” of the 2015 Laudado Si with current issues.

Pope calls on people to side with ‘victims of environmental and climate injustice’

Describing nature as a “sacred gift from the Creator”, the pope called on people to take the side of “the victims of environmental and climate injustice”.

He called for an end to the “senseless war against our common home, it is a terrible world war”.

In the eight years since “Laudado Si” was published, the global community has seen an increase in extreme weather events: more intense and prolonged heat waves, more frequent forest fires, more severe hurricanes.

Francis said last month that these phenomena show that more urgent action is needed to tackle climate change and called on world leaders to “do something more tangible to limit polluting emissions”.

He also said, as reported by the Athens News Agency, that the new document will be an Apostolic Exhortation, another form of papal document.

After the publication of “Laudado Si,” some conservative Catholics along with conservative political movements and business interests, particularly in the United States, sharply criticized the pope for supporting the view of the majority of scientists who say global warming is at least partly human-caused activity.