VATICAN CITY AUGUST 11, 2015(CISA)-Pope Francis has set up a World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which will be celebrated annually on September 1.
“I wish to inform you that I have decided to set up also in the Catholic Church, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation which, beginning this year, will be celebrated on the 1st of September,” Vatican radio quoted Pope Francis as saying.
The Pontiff said this in a letter to the heads of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, dated August 6 where he emphasized that “it is our duty as Christians to resolve the ecological crisis which humanity is presently experiencing, keeping in mind how Jesus lived in this world.”
Recalling his encyclical on the environment (Laudato Si’) he stressed, “Christians are called to “an ecological conversion whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them.”
“The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation will offer individual believers and communities a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful works which he has entrusted to our care and invoking His help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live,” he said
