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Pope Francis is well known for his strong views about faith and protecting God’s creation.
The Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople is of the same view.
Faith in God comes with two “inseparable” elements, Bartholomew said on Sunday which was the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
He said these two elements are the God-given dignity of the human person and the integrity of God’s creation.
Religious groups must help
Francis says religious groups must help fight climate change because true progress will require conversion.
Bartholomew agrees.
“Genuine religious faith dissolves the arrogance and titanism of humankind” by helping people realise they are not God.
A person has no right to abolish “all standards, boundaries and values, while declaring himself ‘the measure of all things’ and instrumentalising his fellow human beings and nature for the satisfaction of his unquenchable needs and arbitrary pursuits.
“Respect for the sacredness of the human person and the protection of the integrity of the ‘very good’ creation are inseparable.”
World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
Bartholomew’s predecessor, Patriarch Demetrios, instituted the annual day of prayer for creation in 1989.
In 2015, Francis added the day to the Catholic Church’s annual observances.
His message for the 2024 day of prayer also speaks of the conversion necessary to leave behind “the arrogance of those who want to exercise dominion over others and nature itself, reducing the latter to an object to be manipulated”.
Instead, it asks for people to embrace “the humility of those who care for others and for all of creation”.
He said that “With God as the loving Father, his Son as the friend and redeemer of every person, and the Holy Spirit who guides our steps on the path of charity and obedience to the Spirit of love – this radically changes the way we think: from ‘predators’ we become ’tillers’ of the garden”.
A shared message
Like Francis, Bartholomew’s statement emphasised the connection between care for creation and love for one another, especially the poor.
“There is a close and indissoluble bond between our care of creation and our service to the body of Christ, just as there is between the economic conditions of the poor and the ecological conditions of the planet” he said.
“Scientists tell us that those most egregiously harmed by the current ecological crisis will continue to be those who have the least.”
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