Pope Leo XIV calls Catholics to care for creation and our common home
Season of Creation: Everything and everyone is connected
Monday, September 7, 2026
*Tony Magliano
About 1,600 years ago, the brilliant Doctor of the Church St. Ambrose admonished the wealthy who clung to their sense of entitlement: “You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.”
With these prophetic words, St. Ambrose eloquently highlighted and linked together the Catholic Social Teaching principles known today as the “preferential concern for the poor and vulnerable,” the “common good,” and “care for creation.”
In the first encyclical letter dedicated to the environment in the history of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis voiced concerns similar to those of St. Ambrose. In his letter titled “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home” – a must-read – Pope Francis warned: “When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected.”
Yes, everything is connected! We have no time to waste in recognizing, healing, and strengthening these connections.
And there’s no better time to begin than now, during this “Season of Creation,” which runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4 – the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.
More than ever before, much of our planet and many of our brothers and sisters are suffering greatly.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the past 11 years have been the warmest on record, and ocean temperatures continue to rise with no end in sight.
Global hunger, starvation, and thirst are worsening because of numerous ongoing armed conflicts, corporate greed, grossly inadequate governmental responses, and widespread individual indifference. Global warming, due largely to human-induced climate change, is also significantly worsening the crises of hunger, starvation, and thirst across much of the world.
According to Oxfam, formerly known as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, climate change has caused more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts, and floods, with the number of disasters increasing fivefold over the past 50 years.
Oxfam notes that the wealthy “G20 countries are among the most polluting nations in the world, collectively responsible for nearly 77% of carbon emissions. This dwarfs emissions from the 10 countries most impacted by climate change which are 0.1%.”
Oxfam stresses the need for individuals and governments to urge G20 leaders to drastically cut emissions and fairly compensate poor nations – 18 days of fossil fuel companies’ profits could cover the entire U.N. humanitarian appeal for a full year!
Furthermore, Oxfam prophetically states: “It is extraordinary that as humanity faces this existential crisis, there is still more incentive to destroy our planet than to save it.”
Pope Leo, in his Sept. 1, 2026, message for the 11th “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” leads with a challenging passage from Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
The Holy Father explains: “The prophet Isaiah spoke of a time when nations ‘shall beat their swords into plowshares (Is 2:4), transforming what destroys life into what sustains it. But today, we too often witness the very opposite, as efforts continue to be directed toward violence and war …
“The wounds of war and the degradation of the earth, then, are profoundly linked to the condition of the human heart. The conflicts that torment humanity are in many ways the outward expression of interior discord and division. When the heart is distorted, relationships suffer, and the structures we build begin to reflect that disorder …
“In order to build a peaceful society, therefore, we must not only reform structures but also renew our hearts.”
Please read, individually and as a community, Pope Leo’s inspiring “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.”
