Pope Francis has told a group of faith and civic leaders from Greater Manchester that the environmental crisis must be tackled by ending a “throwaway culture of waste” and creating new economic models.
The 86-year-old Pope received the interfaith delegation from the northwest of England in the Vatican’s apostolic palace on 20 April, with the group led by the Bishop of Salford, John Arnold and the Dean of Manchester, Rogers Govender. The group included the Mayor of Greater Manchester and former Labour cabinet minister, Andy Burnham, a Catholic.
Francis said their “united witness is particularly eloquent” given that Manchester is so closely linked with the Industrial Revolution, which, along with technical and economic progress, had left a “negative impact on the human and natural environment.”
Drawing from his 2015 encyclical, Laudato si’, the Pope insisted that environmental and social crises cannot be separated as the degradation of the natural world is hurting the world’s most disadvantaged communities.
“Certainly, this [response] demands the creation of new and farsighted economic models,” the Pope told them in his remarks, which were delivered in Italian. “Yet it also requires a determination to overcome the ‘throwaway’ culture of waste generated by present-day consumerism and by a globalised indifference that inhibits efforts to address these human and social problems in the light of the common good.”
He said the Greater Manchester delegation, which included Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh representatives, showed the “intrinsically moral and religious dimension” to protecting the natural world.
“An essential aspect of this contribution is your commitment, as men and women of faith, to forming the minds and hearts of the young, and seconding their demand for a change of course and for farsighted policies that have as their goal a sustainable and integral human development,” Francis said.
In his address, Bishop Arnold told Francis that the leaders would make three pledges: to support the use of renewable technology and the decarbonisation of our buildings of worship; to use their land to help heal nature and encourage their respective communities “to engage in proactive transformational behavioural change”.
The bishop, whose diocese covers Greater Manchester, said that the “reckless development of industry” over recent decades, with its reliance on non-renewable energy, has endangered the future of humanity.
“In some cases, we know that knowledge [about environmental damage] has been withheld by people who were more concerned with their own profit. We are also aware of the further damage done to biodiversity, through our pollution and exploitation of Nature,” Bishop Arnold said.
He said the problems facing the environment could not simply be left “to politicians or industry” and said the Pope’s appeals to protect the natural world had caught the “world’s attention to the urgent dangers of climate change and the need for ecological conversion.”
Francis became the first Pope to use an encyclical teaching document to call for the protection of the planet, setting it out as an urgent moral issue. He timed the publication of Laudato si’ to influence the Paris Cop 21 intergovernmental summit on climate change and, in 2019, raised the prospect of including “ecological sin” in official Catholic teaching.
Meanwhile, Bishop Arnold has led the Church in England and Wales’ efforts to protect the environment and has set up a Laudato si’ centre at his residence, Wardley Hall.
After the speeches in the apostolic palace, Francis greeted the delegation, and Mr Burnham and Lord Mayor, Donna Ludford, presented the Argentine Pope with a framed and signed number six Manchester United shirt of footballer Lisandro Martinez, who plays as a central defender for both Argentina and the Manchester club.
Mr Burnham, sometimes talked of as a future leader of the Labour Party, says Catholic social teaching underpins his politics but has talked of growing disillusioned with the Church over its teaching on same-sex relationships and contraception. He has, however, described Francis as a Pope who has “brought back a forgiving and warm-hearted style that seemed to characterise the Catholic Church in my youth”.
After meeting with Francis, Mr Burnham tweeted a picture of himself with the delegation in St Peter's Square and described himself as a “very proud Mayor today”.
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