“I wish to inform you that I have decided to institute in the Catholic Church the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” which, beginning this year, is to be celebrated on 1 September”, the pope said in a letter released by the Vatican. Susy Hodges asked for her reaction to Pope Francis’s move. It is also seen as a sign of unity with the Orthodox Church, which established September 1 as a day to celebrate creation in 1989.
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“We must not add more weight to what children in these situations already have to bear”. “It is my hope that this day will in some way also involve other churches and ecclesial communities and be celebrated in union with similar initiatives of the World Council of Churches”.
Francis said it would also be a chance 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”.
Writing to Vatican cardinals about his decision, Francis quoted from his encyclical this year about the need for Christians and all people to protect the environment.
Whilst I look forward to the widest possible cooperation for the best start and development of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, I invoke the intercession of Mary, the Mother of God and of St. Francis of Assisi, whose Canticle of the Creatures inspires so many men and women of goodwill to live in praise of the Creator and with respect for creation.
Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople greet a small crowd after delivering a blessing in Istanbul November 30. Meanwhile, Pope Francis has been heralded for attempting to craft a more welcoming, less exclusionary Catholic Church, making his unease with this policy seem natural.
“How can we genuinely train the significance of concern for different weak beings, nevertheless troublesome or inconvenient they could be, if we fail to guard a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?”
The Pope expressed his hope that the new day will serve as a call to the faithful to an “ecological conversion”, whereby their encounter with the risen Lord is evident in their care for the world around them.
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Francis said the day, to be marked with events in every Catholic diocese around the world, would offer Catholics “a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation”.
