Pope applauds advocates of ecology from many religions

Pope Francis yesterday encouraged people of different religions to work together in caring for the Earth, which he called our “common house”.

Speaking from his window in a Vatican palazzo to tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists, Francis singled out a few hundred people who had marched to St Peter’s Square under the banner “One Earth, one family”.

The marchers included Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and others who had walked from near the French embassy to remind people of a key UN climate change conference in Paris in December.

“I encourage the collaboration between persons and associations of different religions on behalf of an integral ecology”, Francis said, offering good wishes to young people discussing what he described as “the care of the common house”.

In a recent encyclical, or church teaching document, about the environment, Francis wrote passionately about the world’s moral duty to save the Earth and move away from business systems that pollute.

In his encyclical, Francis noted how the poor often suffer the most from pollution and from other environmental damage in developing countries.