What ecology owes Pope Benedict XVI"'Laudato Si' has been a watershed for the Church and for the world."On September 1, the Church celebrates the Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This day begins the Time of Creation, which ends on October 4 and aims to focus on the care of the planet.
The motto for 2024 is "Hope and act with creation," a phrase that refers to the Letter of St. Paul to the Roman Christians. To join Pope Francis, the Spanish Episcopal Conference has published a message signed by the Episcopal Subcommission for Charitable and Social Action.
In the text, the Spanish bishops stress that "the Christian vision of the world emphasizes the central position of man within creation and his relationship with the natural environment". Because of this, "the human being is called to care for the natural 'home', but without considering himself as the absolute center of the universe".
The central position of man, the bishops emphasize, obliges him to "walk along the path of the good news of a committed hope, incarnated in the drama of the human and the natural, for the life of the integral ecology and universal fraternity".
God, man and creation
This responsibility of "care for creation interrelates the mystery of God with the mystery of the human being, because it goes back to the act of love with which God creates the human being in his image and likeness".
For this reason, the Episcopal Conference insists that "as Christians we must live our faith in a committed way, informed by the action of the Holy Spirit". It is precisely the Spirit who will make us feel "called to a true conversion centered on the living and sincere proposal of new lifestyles in the personal, social, political and economic spheres, as well as in the spirituality and experience of the transcendent and the religious.
The bishops conclude their message by reaffirming their commitment "to take firm steps in the interest of the care of creation as something essentially linked to the social concerns of humanity, inseparable from the concern for the development of universal brotherhood, as well as care for the weakest and most vulnerable".
