Pope Leo prays for peace in ‘burning world’ at first Mass for Care of Creation

‘Only a contemplative gaze can change our relationship with creation and allow us to escape from the ecological crisis caused by the rupture in our relationship with God.’

Pope Leo said the world is “burning both from global warming and from armed conflicts” as he celebrated the first “Mass for the Care of Creation”.

In his homily for the Mass in the Borgo Laudato Si’ on Wednesday, the Pope asked for prayers for those “both inside and outside the Church who still do not recognise the urgency of caring for our common home”, despite the natural disasters caused or worsened by “human excess and our way of life”.

The Church, he said, had a mission “to protect creation, to bring peace and reconciliation”, and was called to prophecy “even when it requires daring to oppose the destructive power of the princes of this world”.

Promising his prayers and encouragement for the Borgo Laudato Si’ – established by Pope Francis in the grounds of the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, where Pope Leo began his summer holiday this week – he said it could develop “new and effective means of protecting the environment entrusted to us” by pursuing “healing and reconciliation”.

“Only a contemplative gaze can change our relationship with creation and allow us to escape from the ecological crisis caused by the rupture in our relationships with God, with our neighbour and with the earth that result from sin,” Pope Leo said.

He cited St Augustine’s vision of harmony between Creator and the created: “Your works praise you so that we may love you, and we love you so that your works may praise you.”

The Mass, which Leo said “gives meaning to and sustains our work”, is a new formulary of the Roman Missal developed by the Dicasteries for Promoting Integral Human Development and for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to offer “liturgical, spiritual and communal support for the care we all need to exercise of nature”, the former’s prefect Cardinal Michael Czerny said last week. It joins 17 other Masses and prayers included in the missal for civic occasions.

Pope Leo’s homily drew on many of the themes of his message for the tenth World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on 1 September, published last week, in which he said creation was “turned into a battleground” by those who pursue profit and power. Care of creation was a “duty born of faith”, he said, because “the universe reflects the face of Jesus Christ”.

The same week saw the publication of a joint statement by Catholic bishops from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, marking 10 years since Laudato Si’ and the Paris Agreement on climate change, which called for justice ahead of November’s COP30 climate talks in Brazil.

Speaking at the document’s launch in Rome, India’s Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, the Archbishop of Goa and Damao and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, described it as “a call to conscience in the face of a system that threatens to devour creation, as if the planet were just another commodity”.  

The Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, the Archbishop of Kinshasa and president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, said that “enough is enough, enough of false solutions, enough of decisions taken without listening to those on the front line of climate collapse”.

Catholic leaders told the G20 International Symposium on Global Justice and Solidarity in Cape Town that financing a response to the climate crisis demands action on Africa’s unsustainable debt,

Delegates including representatives from the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) also flagged their limited access to development finance and called for accelerated efforts to meet “loss and damage” commitments by rich countries.

The SACBC’s Justice and Peace Commission was among the faith-based groups and humanitarian agencies, governments, and multilateral institutions to sign the “Cape Town Declaration” demanding action to address the economic challenges of the climate crisis.

A statement published by the SACBC called for “a new social contract for the global economy” which would guarantee commitments to environmental responsibility, and for “planetary solidarity and ecological transformation”.

These commitments would “support the creation of an Ecological Impact Fund for the Global South, with resources directed toward climate resilience and loss-and-damage financing”.

The summit was organised by the South African government which holds the current presidency of the G20, bringing together countries from the EU and the African Union.

Bishop Thulani Mbuyisa of Kokstad said debt relief cannot be excluded from discussions of the impact of climate change, while the Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network-Africa last month calling for “the establishment of an Ecological Impact Fund (EIF) to accelerate climate innovation in the Global South”.

Pope Leo discussed climate change with the President of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific during his visit to Rome to receive his pallium.

Archbishop Ryan Jimenez of Agaña, in Guam, told the Pope about emigration from low-lying Pacific islands driven by rising sea levels and worsening extreme weather events. The 53-year-old archbishop had told Vatican News beforehand of a request from a colleague in Tuvalu: “Please tell the Holy Father that we are sinking.”

Of the many Pacific Islanders who move to Australia, Archbishop Jimenez said, “there’s a tension because you want to cling on to your roots, because this is home [but] on the other hand, you have no choice but to leave, because your home is slowly being covered by water”.

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