Help protect creation from greed, exploitation, pope says in message

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis asked Christians to help protect nature from human greed and exploitation during the Holy Year.

At the start of the Lenten season, the pope greeted Catholics in Brazil and praised the country’s bishops for their continued support of the annual Fraternity Campaign, which is dedicated this year to “Fraternity and Integral Ecology.”

He also expressed his hope that the church in Brazil will contribute to COP 30, the U.N. climate conference to be held Nov. 10-21 in Belém, Brazil, “in the heart of the beloved Amazon.”

The church’s efforts could help nations and international organizations effectively adopt and “commit themselves to practices that help overcome the climate crisis and preserve the marvelous work of creation, which God has entrusted to us and which we have a responsibility to pass on to future generations,” the pope wrote.

The message, which was released by the Vatican March 5, Ash Wednesday, was signed by the pope and dated Feb. 11, three days before he was hospitalized for respiratory difficulties.

With their Fraternity Campaign, now in its 61st year, the bishops of Brazil are inviting all the faithful to follow a path of personal conversion during Lent that is based on the pope’s 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.”

That document and its follow-up, “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”) in 2023, Pope Francis said, were meant to draw the whole world’s attention to the urgency of changing its attitude toward and relationship with the environment.

The “ecological crisis is a call to a profound interior conversion,” he wrote.

The pope’s message praised the bishops’ conference for proposing a theme dedicated to integral ecology. “May we all, with the special help of God’s grace during this Jubilee season, change our convictions and practices to give nature a rest from our greedy exploitations.”

The pope said he hoped the campaign would once again “be a powerful aid to the people and communities of this beloved country” in their “concrete commitment to integral ecology.”