Pope Francis to COP28: Environmental destruction is ‘an offense against God’

Catholic News Agency ^ | December 2, 2023 | Courtney Mares

[ebb tide]

Pope Francis to COP28: Environmental destruction is ‘an offense against God’

Pope Francis called the destruction of the environment “an offense against God” in a message given to the participants in the U.N. climate summit on Saturday.

The keynote address that the pope had intended to give in person at the COP28 conference was distributed to the attendees in Dubai, where Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin read a shortened version of the pope’s speech to the assembly on Dec. 2.

Pope Francis, who turns 87 in two weeks, canceled his scheduled trip to the United Arab Emirates days before the climate summit at the request of his doctors after coming down with a flu infection that left him with breathing difficulties and acute bronchitis.

“Sadly, I am unable to be present with you, as I had greatly desired,” the pope said in his message to COP28.

“Even so … I am with you because the destruction of the environment is an offense against God, a sin that is not only personal but also structural, one that greatly endangers all human beings, especially the most vulnerable in our midst, and threatens to unleash a conflict between generations.”

Pope Francis would have been the first pope to attend the U.N.’s climate change conference, known as the “Conference of the Parties” (COP), which has been held annually since 1995.

Care for creation has been an important theme in Francis’ pontificate. The pope has said that he decided to write his 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si’ ahead of the COP21 summit in Paris and recently published a new apostolic exhortation titled Laudate Deum (“Praise God”), called climate change “one of the principal challenges facing society and the global community.”

In his message to the COP28 conference, the pope underlined the need for “multilateralism” to establish “global and effective rules” to fight climate change.

“Climate change signals the need for political change. Let us emerge from the narrowness of self-interest and nationalism; these are approaches belonging to the past,” he said.

The pope called it “disturbing” that “global warming has been accompanied by a general cooling of multilateralism, a growing lack of trust within the international community.”

“How much energy is humanity wasting on numerous wars … conflicts that will not solve problems but only increase them!” he added.

Pope Francis described environmental protections as part of “a culture of life” and underlined that attempts to shift blame for climate change onto the poor or high birth rates “must be firmly dispelled.”

“Births are not a problem, but a resource: They are not opposed to life, but for life, whereas certain ideological and utilitarian models now being imposed with a velvet glove on families and peoples constitute real forms of colonization,” he said.

“Let us join in embracing an alternative vision: this will help to bring about an ecological conversion, for ‘there are no lasting changes without cultural changes’ (Laudate Deum, 70),” the pope added.

“In this regard, I would assure you of the commitment and support of the Catholic Church, which is deeply engaged in the work of education and of encouraging participation by all, as well as in promoting sound lifestyles, since all are responsible and the contribution of each is fundamental.”

During the COP28 summit in Dubai, Cardinal Parolin will also preside over the inauguration of an interfaith pavilion at the climate conference on Dec. 3 alongside Spanish Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, an expert on Islam and current prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.

The faith pavilion, hosted by the Muslim Council of Elders, will serve as a hub for faith-based engagement on climate issues and as the venue for more than 65 sessions with religious figures, scientists, and political leaders at the conference.

[BipolarBob]

You’re just using logic and facts to make Pope Frankie look bad. I thought at first maybe he had a climatologist degree, but no bartender and bouncer were his background skills.

[Bookshelf]

Humanity was to “subdue” the earth (Genesis 1:28)

[2nd Amendment]

Where’s John Paul when we need him?

[Ge0ffrey]

“More poop from the Pope.” —Archie Bunker

[dfwgator]

At this point, I’ll even take John Paul I.

[stanne]

“Not accepting the blessing of fossil fuels is also offensive to God.”

Good point

Pope F. - per the catechism we are stewards of the earth. I’ve been a conservative conservationist my whole life.

As such I see the problem with growing dependence on lithium to be an enormous problem. It is not clean. Tge miners of it are exposed to terrible toxins. It takes an enormous any of energy beside tgat to make an EV

Anyone who makes no mention of these issues in such an argument is not credibility

[ebb tide]

A valid pope only speaks infallibly when it's ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals.

No post-conciliar pope has ever done so.

[metmom]

He needs to look in the mirror.

[Trump_Triumphant]

John Paul I was great, that’s why they killed him.

[dfwgator]

Apparently so.

[chief lee runamok]

Tired from his journey on foot from the vatican, pope frank sez:

"..to COP28: Environmental destruction is ‘an offense against God’""

[gibsonguy]

He’s sees the real offense every time he looks in a mirror.

[ABStrauss]

Francis, the talking mule, is an offense against God!

[Thrownatbirth]

In the Rosary, we have to say that one Our Father for the Holy Father. I just pray the Lord fixes him.

[NWFree]

But the fake pope thinks faggotry is grand What a fraud

[vespa300]

This clown is so obsessed with saving a planet God himself is going to destroy and recreate.

The Bible tells who she is. The Protestant Reformers told us who she is. Pagan Rome to Papal Rome....she’s a fraud, a liar, she stands in a holy place, she is abomination that causes desolation, she sits on the city of 7 mountains, she speaks great blasphemey claiming to be God on earth, forgiving sins...even changing the law of God.....Daniel 7:25.....”change times and law”....Sabbath time to Sunday..read her catechism......

This pope embodies all of what scripture says she is..and her wound is healed.....the world including evangelicals are reaching out to her again......just as prophecy says they would. And Sunday is coming......she hates the Sabbath. It is a rebuke to her authority.

[ebb tide]

What have you been smoking?

[left that other site]

Check out Romans 1, Francis.

It talks about what happens when people worship CREATION rather than the CREATOR.

[Revel]

Didn’t God Flood the world. Set off Volcano’s, and shower us with meteors.

[vespa300]

I read the Bible just like the Protestant Reformers did. Then again, you probably never heard of John Wesley, who along with Luther and others identified the first beast in Revelation 13 as the beast......idiot.