{"id":13171,"date":"2021-09-10T17:06:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T17:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=13171"},"modified":"2021-09-10T17:06:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T17:06:57","slug":"vatican-pope-francis-religious-leaders-call-for-global-cooperation-towards-environmental-sustainability-pray-for-cop26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2021\/09\/10\/vatican-pope-francis-religious-leaders-call-for-global-cooperation-towards-environmental-sustainability-pray-for-cop26\/","title":{"rendered":"VATICAN: Pope Francis, Religious Leaders Call for Global Cooperation Towards Environmental Sustainability, Pray for Cop26"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA<\/em><\/p>\n

As Christians across the globe commence a month-long season of creation, an annual event aimed to \u201crenew relationship with our Creator and all\u00a0creation\u00a0through celebration, conversion, and commitment,\u201d Pope Francis and two other Religious leaders have called for global cooperation on environmental sustainability and pray for world leaders prior to the upcoming 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) late this year.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement<\/a> released Tuesday, September 7, Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew 1 of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby noted that, \u201cThe current climate crisis speaks volumes about who we are and how we view and treat God\u2019s creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand before a harsh justice: biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and climate change are the inevitable consequences of our actions, since we have greedily consumed more of the earth\u2019s resources than the planet can endure,\u201d reads an excerpt of the statement.<\/p>\n

Expressing the effects of Covid-19 worldwide calamity that call for global cooperation, the Christian leaders acknowledged that the pandemic has affected all people \u201cwhether poor or wealthy, weak or strong, and no one is safe until everyone is safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

They said, \u201cThese crises present us with a choice. We are in a unique position either to address them with shortsightedness and profiteering or seize this as an opportunity for conversion and transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their first ever collective statement the Christian leaders disclosed, \u201cIf we think of humanity as a family and work together towards a future based on the common good, we could find ourselves living in a very different world.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added, \u201cTogether we can share a vision for life where everyone flourishes. Together we can choose to act with love, justice and mercy. Together we can walk towards a fairer and fulfilling society with those who are most vulnerable at the center.\u201d<\/p>\n

They call upon each individual to take responsibility noting that \u201cThis path requires an ever-closer collaboration among all churches in their commitment to care for creation. Together, as communities, churches, cities and nations, we must change route and discover new ways of working together to break down the traditional barriers between peoples, to stop competing for resources and start collaborating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing leaders of various organizations in their Tuesday statement, the religious leaders asked \u00a0those heading institutions, running companies, employing people or investment funds to \u201cchoose people-centered profits; make short-term sacrifices to safeguard all our futures; become leaders in the transition to just and sustainable economies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The forthcoming Cop26 is to be held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November. It aims at bringing together heads of state, climate experts and campaigners so as to agree on coordinated actions to tackle climate change.<\/p>\n

The Religious leaders pray for the leaders who will gather for the event to decide the future of our planet and its people as noting that being a critical moment, caring for God\u2019s creation calls for \u201cspiritual commission requiring a response of commitment\u201d and that \u201call of us \u201ccan play a part in changing our collective response to the unprecedented threat of climate change and environmental degradation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA As Christians across the globe commence a month-long season of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-vatican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13173,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13171\/revisions\/13173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}