Pope Francis reminds young people of "dramatic urgency" of climate crisis
Pope Francis on Thursday reminded young people of the "dramatic urgency" of global warming and advocated an "integral ecology" on the second day of his visit to Lisbon to take part in World Youth Day (WYD).
"We must recognise the dramatic urgency of taking care of our common home. However, this cannot be done without a conversion of heart and a change in the anthropological vision that is at the basis of economics and politics," the Argentine pope said during a meeting with students at the Catholic University of Lisbon.
"We cannot be satisfied with simple palliative measures or with timid and ambiguous commitments," the 86-year-old Pope insisted, after listening to the testimony of several young people at this institution founded in 1967 and presided over by the Jesuits.
Francis again defended the concept of "integral ecology", a trademark of his pontificate developed in his encyclical "Laudato Si" (2015), dedicated to the defence of the environment, which links ecology and social justice, closely integrating human beings with nature.
"We need an integral ecology; we need to listen to the suffering of the planet alongside that of the poor; we need to put the drama of desertification alongside that of refugees, the issue of migration alongside that of the falling birth rate," he said.
The Pope added to the 6,500 people who attended the event, according to local authorities, "Do not create polarisations, but visions of the whole".
The spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics began his five-day visit to Lisbon on Wednesday to take part in a week of festive, cultural and spiritual gatherings that brings together hundreds of thousands of young people from all continents.
After a first day dedicated to the authorities and local clergy, Francis will preside over a massive welcoming ceremony for the pilgrims on Thursday afternoon in a large park in the centre of a city now taken over by WYD.
Before that, at the end of the morning, he will travel to Cascais, a historic seaside resort some thirty kilometres west of Lisbon, where he will meet young people from the international educational network Scholas Occurrentes.
After Rio de Janeiro (2013), Krakow (2016) and Panama (2019), this is the fourth WYD for Pope Francis, whose health seems increasingly fragile. Hospitalised three times since 2021, the Argentine pontiff now often moves around in a wheelchair or with the help of a cane.
Considered the largest international gathering of Catholics, WYD was created in 1986 at the initiative of John Paul II. This edition was to have been held in 2022, but was postponed because of the pandemic.
