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Francis reiterates his call for the protection of our common home through a renewed sense of shared responsibility and solidarity based on justice, ahead of the COP26 conference
By La Croix International staff | Vatican City
Pope Francis has called on world leaders to respond to crises facing humankind with vision and radical decisions and not to waste opportunities that today's challenges present.
"Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed our deep vulnerability and raised numerous doubts and concerns about our economic systems and the way we organize our societies," the pope said in a message recorded at the Vatican for BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day, as world leaders prepare to meet in Glasgow for the UN COP26 Climate Change Conference.
"Every crisis calls for vision, the ability to formulate plans and put them rapidly into action, to rethink the future of the world, our common home, and to reassess our common purpose," Francis said.
As the many crises impact society "we have lost our sense of security, and are experiencing a sense of powerlessness and loss of control over our lives," he said.
"We find ourselves increasingly frail and even fearful, caught up in a succession of 'crises' in the areas of health care, the environment, food supplies and the economy, to say nothing of social, humanitarian and ethical crises."
All these crises, he said, "are profoundly interconnected" and they forecast a perfect storm that could rupture the bonds holding society together within the greater gift of God's creation.
These challenges also present opportunities that we "must not waste," even though the crises present us with the need to take "radical decisions that are not always easy", he said.
"We can confront these crises by retreating into isolationism, protectionism and exploitation. Or we can see in them a real chance for change, a genuine moment of conversion, and not simply in a spiritual sense," Francis said.
The most important lesson we can take from the crises is our need to "build together so that there will no longer be any borders, barriers or political walls for us to hide behind", Francis said.
He pointed out that moving towards a brighter horizon can only be achieved through "a renewed sense of shared responsibility for our world, and an effective solidarity based on justice, a sense of our common destiny and a recognition of the unity of our human family in God's plan for the world."
But these "represent an immense cultural change," which means giving priority to the common good that calls for "a change in perspective, a new outlook, in which the dignity of every human being, now and in the future, will guide our ways of thinking and acting."
Francis said "each of us -- whoever and wherever we may be -- can play our own part in changing our collective response to the unprecedented threat of climate change and the degradation of our common home."
The pope's message comes as world leaders are preparing to gather in Glasgow for this year's climate summit, COP26, November 1-12.
Pope Francis has often spoken about the climate crisis and in 2015 published an encyclical Laudato si' subtitled "On Care for our Common Home."
Earlier this month, he gathered religious leaders and scientists from across the world at the Vatican to sign a joint appeal calling on COP26 participants to act in a more responsible and consistent manner toward a "culture of care" for our common home, and to work tirelessly to eliminate "the seeds of conflicts," including greed, indifference, ignorance, fear, injustice, insecurity and violence.
Francis, 84, was expected to attend the conference in Glasgow but the Vatican at the last moment announced without giving any reason that the pope would not be going.
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