Pope Francis is expected to issue a formal call for action to fight climate change in the coming year, The Guardian reported over the weekend.
His plans include an address to his church’s 1.2 billion parishioners, a speech before the United Nations and a call for leaders of the world’s religions to meet on the issue, according to the newspaper. The message to the church, known as an encyclical, is one of the most powerful tools available to the pope within the Catholic Church’s traditions.
Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said that Francis’s agenda is intended to influence an upcoming United Nations meeting on climate change. The Guardian reported that the call to Catholics would argue for action “on moral and scientific grounds.”
Francis has become outspoken on the issue in recent moments, giving passionate remarks during an October address in Latin America, according to The Guardian.
“The monopolizing of lands, deforestation, the appropriation of water, inadequate agro-toxics are some of the evils that tear man from the land of his birth,” he said then. “Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.”
