2023-10-05 05:01:00
From Rome
In a St. Peter’s Square full of faithful but also cardinals, bishops, men and women religious and lay people, Pope Francis inaugurated with a mass the XVI General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops from around the world that will conclude on October 29. And in the homily of the mass he recalled that the Synod “is not a political meeting but a convocation of the spirit”, “it is not a polarized parliament”, “it is not a customs”, perhaps as a tacit message to certain conservative sectors of the Church that criticizes him because Francis promotes some changes within the Church that will be discussed during the Synod.
And in parallel with this celebration, the Vatican released an Apostolic Exhortation from Pope Francis on the climate crisis, in which he makes a detailed analysis of the different problems that arise today in this regard and the way to confront them.
The mass in St. Peter’s Square was celebrated with several of the new cardinals that the Pope consecrated last Sunday and in the presence of some 25,000 faithful, cardinals, bishops, men and women religious and other guests.
The General Assembly of the Synod has 464 participants, 80 of them women, and 169 bishops appointed by the respective episcopal conferences. Three of them Argentine: Oscar Vicente Ojea, bishop of San Isidro, Marcelo Daniel Colombo archbishop of Mendoza, and Carlos Alfonso Azpiroz Costa, archbishop of Bahía Blanca. The brand new cardinal created by the Pope last week, and archbishop of Córdoba, Angel Sixto Rossi, was also invited.
The new Apostolic Exhortation
As October 4 marks the day of Saint Francis of Assisi, a great environmentalist of his time, patron saint of Italy and the saint admired by Jorge Bergoglio and for whom he chose his name as Pontiff, the Argentine Pope issued a new Apostolic Exhortation about the climate crisis.
Francis is a person very concerned about ecological issues to which he has so far dedicated two encyclicals, “Laudato si” (Praise be) on the care of the common home, on May 24, 2015, and “Fratelli Tutti” (all brothers). which was spread in Assisi, the original city of San Francisco, on October 3, 2020. The climate crisis was also discussed during the Synod for the Amazon that took place in the Vatican in 2019 and where the indigenous people told what they were suffering.
In the Apostolic Exhortation on the climate crisis, Francis says that with the passage of time, since he published “Laudato si”, “we do not have enough reactions while the world that welcomes us is falling apart” and “there is no doubt that the impact of change Climate change will increasingly harm the lives and families of many people. We will feel its effects in the areas of health, sources of work, access to resources, housing, forced migrations.” “Climate change is one of the main challenges facing society and the global community,” he emphasized.
He also referred to those who try to hide the dangers of climate change. “No matter how much we try to deny, hide, dissemble or relativize, the signs of climate change are there, increasingly evident,” he stressed. “No one can ignore that in recent years we have witnessed extreme phenomena, frequent periods of unusual heat, drought and other complaints of the earth.” It is known that “every time the global temperature increases by 0.5 degrees Celsius, the intensity and frequency of heavy rains and floods in some areas, severe droughts in others, extreme heat in certain regions and heavy snowfalls in others will also increase.” .
Francisco also referred to the lack of information and false information on this issue. “With the aim of simplifying reality, there is no shortage of those who blame the poor because they have many children and even try to solve it by mutilating women in less developed countries. As always, it seems that the fault lies with the poor” when in reality Africa, which is home to more than half of the poorest people on the planet, is responsible for a minimal part of the emissions,” the Pope stressed. In fact, the first three countries that have so far proven to be the most polluting of the environment due to the diffusion of carbon dioxide are China, the United States and the European Union, followed by India, Russia and Japan, according to data from COP 27, the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2022.
The necessary changes
According to the Pope, “a broader view is urgently needed that allows us not only to admire the wonders of progress, but also to pay attention to other effects that probably could not even be imagined a century ago. We are asked nothing more than some responsibility for the legacy that we will leave behind after our passage through this world.”
And for this we must rethink the “use of power,” according to Francisco. “Not every increase in power is progress for humanity.” “We need to rethink together the question of human power, what its meaning is, what its limits are. Because our power has increased frantically in just a few decades. We have made impressive and astonishing technological progress, and we do not realize that at the same time we become highly dangerous beings, capable of putting the lives of many beings and our own survival at risk,” he stressed, alluding to cases in which a population that such a company, or factory or dam, will give them great benefits, when in reality the environment will be mistreated or destroyed. During the synod on the Amazon, the indigenous people who participated denounced several cases that not only destroyed the Amazon rainforest but also their communities.
Francisco also denounced in the text the “weakness of international politics.” “In order for there to be solid and lasting progress, I would like to insist that multilateral agreements between States must be favored,” he said. And he warned that “it is not advisable to confuse multilateralism with a world authority concentrated in one person or an elite with excessive power.”
international organizations
And in this area Francis made reference to international organizations, in particular the United Nations, which is not always very effective in its actions. “We are talking above all about more effective world organizations, endowed with authority to ensure the global common good, the eradication of hunger and misery, and the certain defense of basic human rights. The point is that they must be endowed with real authority so that the fulfillment of some unavoidable objectives can be “ensured.” This would give rise to a multilateralism that does not depend on changing political circumstances or the interests of a few and that has stable effectiveness,” he stressed. But he clarified that “More than saving the old multilateralism, it seems that the current challenge is to reconfigure and recreate it taking into account the new world situation.”
And indirectly Francis alluded to the crisis that the UN is experiencing at this time of war in Ukraine but not only, given that it is being held back by certain countries on the Security Council (the only one that can decide sanctions or impose other measures). Only the five permanent members of this Council have the right to veto: the United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom.
“It is not enough to think about power balances but also about the need to respond to new challenges and react with global mechanisms to environmental, health, cultural and social challenges (…) It is about establishing global and efficient rules that allow us to “ensure” this global protection.” All of this “supposes generating a new decision-making and legitimation procedure,” said Francisco.
And finally he made reference to the different conferences on climate change (COP) that have been held in recent years, but whose suggestions were not really applied. He asked the authorities of the COP28 to be held at the end of November in the United Arab Emirates to stimulate forms of energy transition that have three characteristics: “that are efficient, mandatory and that can be easily monitored.”
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