If we follow the guidance of the Holy Father and believe that it is part of our task and Christian vocation to protect natural values ​​as works of God, then we can do this in the most obvious way in our immediate environment.

In a circular on the occasion of Earth Day, the Hungarian Catholic Bishops' Conference (MKPK) draws attention to the Christian's "responsibility for our Earth and our immediate environment".

The bishops wrote: the protection of the created world is one of the important ideas of the teaching of the Catholic Church, which is more relevant in our time than ever.

Pope Francis - who took the name of St. Francis of Assisi, who is revered as the patron saint of nature, out of his commitment to the protection of the poor and nature - places particular emphasis on this topic.

In 2015, the head of the church published his encyclical entitled Laudato Si' on "care for our common home", in the first paragraph of which he reminds us that our common home is "like a sister with whom we share life and like a beautiful mother who encloses us in her arms". .

The first lines of Pope Francis' encyclical clearly and dignifiedly express the original relationship between the Christian man and nature. However, this relationship has changed in recent centuries, in the period since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and the Earth has suffered from this, assessed the MKPK.

"It's time to change and change the world. In the words of the Holy Father: an ecological conversion is needed," said the bishops.

They also explained that "if we follow the guidance of the Holy Father and believe that it is part of our task and Christian vocation to protect natural values ​​as works of God, then we can do this in the most obvious way in our immediate environment".

To achieve this, Pope Francis' most important guidance is that we must act together. The Holy Father calls for cooperation, connection, joint action. "Just as the trees of the forest form the forest together, we must work together to protect God's work," the announcement reads.

On the occasion of Earth Day, the bishops urge the faithful to jointly realize the great common mission in parish communities, theology groups, prayer circles and spiritual movements: the protection of God's work, the created world.

MTI

Cover image: Our great, common mission is to protect God's work, the created world
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