Catholics now have one more thing to pray about: the environment.
Every September 1, starting this year, will be an annual day of global prayer “for the Care of Creation,” Pope Francis said on Monday.
“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,” Francis said in a letter released by the Vatican.
The timing of the prayer gives the pope another method of focusing global attention on climate change. In Paris in December, world leaders will gather in hopes of negotiating a new agreement on carbon emissions, one that puts the world on a path for less than 2 degrees of warming.
The current plans don’t go far enough, according to Climate Action Tracker, a group of research organizations dedicated to analyzing the world’s progress on the issue. The pope has suggested that he hopes to help change that, raising the profile of environmental issues, and linking them to the broader Catholic defense of the poor.
Francis said he was inspired by Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, who have been praying for the environment since 1980s.
“The celebration of this day, on the same date as the Orthodox Church, will be a valuable opportunity to bear witness to our growing communion with our Orthodox brothers and sisters,” the pope said. “We live at a time when all Christians are faced with the same decisive challenges, to which we must respond together, in order to be more credible and effective.”
Skip to content
Just in case anyone is still under the delusion that the RCC supports the Theory of evolution….
Put away the maple syrup vodka and get out your dictionary and thesaurus, GB.
“Creation” = Biosphere in this context. Creation-ISM vs. Evolution is a whole different argument, and quite irrelevant here (or are you trying to sound like that moron Omnologos?) .
When you sober up, perhaps you will join us in thanking the Pope for keeping the discussion alive with this proclamation of a Day of Prayer for the planet, as well as his political skill in reaching out to the Orthodox Church.
Nope. That’s Creation with a capital “C”, made expressly by God with a capital “G”, and the Day of Prayer is for those who walk with Jesus Christ only, btw.
But don’t worry – the Pope himself bestows his very own Apostolic Blessing for the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation”, and he “invoke[s] 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.”
See DOG, when youse jumps into bed with someone, youse really should know who youse is jumping in with. And in this case, it is someone who does not believe in scientific evolution. Just sayin.
Besides, I like the idea of the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” to be an annual event on September 1st. It’s my birthday. And I get a Apostolic Blessing for my day of Creation! Do you?
But you are right – his keeping this alive is a very good thing.
“….someone who does not believe in scientific evolution” and all the crap you try to append to that is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Don’t make me repeat myself.
If you actually want action on climate change, it requires as many people as possible to care about climate change. It’s insane – so beyond reality it’s scary – to think every person is going to agree about every other thing as well. It only matters that they care about climate change. How they get there is their deal.
Do you really think we’ll address climate change by discounting the other beliefs of 1.6 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, and 2.2 billion Christians (with 1.2 billion Catholics)? Far more of the world has religious convictions than doesn’t. It’s somewhere around 85% religious and 15% atheist/agnostic/secular:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
In North America, it’s even less.
Get over it. People are people. They aren’t going to all think like you or fit your version of a purity test (a deeply irrational belief in itself). Figure out what’s actually important and consider that.
Is that also a day of ACTION?
As Bill Maher once said, praying is indistinguishable from “hoping it were so”.
And after deriding Rick Perry for his “Response” prayer revivals to Texas’ severe drought some years past, I can’t endorse this action by Pope Francis as anything but symbolic.
it is a day of action only if you make it so!!!
symbols can become reality if they are real in people’s minds. the other side knows this, and we’d better get it soon.
Great comment, and exactly right. It doesn’t matter so much whether or not the prayer itself has a direct reaction in the physical world. What’s happening is that if the ‘believer’ prays for something, and believes in the power of that prayer, it will have significant later effects on that person’s beliefs and priorities. The thought, or prayer, becomes that person’s reality, and that will translate into votes, action, and public discourse. Win their hearts and their minds will follow.
That one prayer may be worth 50 books explaining the science of climate change to that person. It shouldn’t be discounted.
Already, there is this:
http://catholicclimatemovement.global/
And this:
https://lcwr.org/media/catholic-religious-leaders-call-action-climate-change
And this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/19/gop-catholics-more-convinced-about-climate-change-than-other-republicans-research-suggests/
Related:
http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/american-catholics-worry-about-global-warming-and-support-u.s.-action/
Every day should be a day of action:
http://bdnews24.com/neighbours/2015/08/12/indian-border-guards-join-hands-to-fight-global-warming-plants-400000-saplings-within-30-minutes
There is a certain amount of irony in the Indian border guards planting trees along the Bangladesh border. There is now a fence along that entire 800+ mile border and if the worst happens climate change wise, the next time we see them they will be laying mines and cutting the trees down to clear fields of fire for the automatic weapons they will have to use to “deal with” the Bangladeshi climate refugees.