Pope appeals for greater care for creation, Gospel values

Following the Angelus with pilgrims in St Peter's Square on Sunday, Pope Francis called on the faithful and all people of good will to have greater care for creation. Sunday was the Italian Bishops' Day for the Safeguarding of Creation initiative. This year the focus of the day is to promote education in the care for creation. Pope Francis said: “I hope everyone – institutions, associations and citizens – will strengthen their efforts, so as to safeguard the life and health of people by respecting the environment and nature.”

Before the prayer, Pope Francis reflected on the day's Gospel reading, in which St Matthew recounts the moment in which Christ revealed to His disciples His coming Passion, death and Resurrection (Mt. 16:21-27).

Pope Francis said it was a critical moment in which the apparent contrast between Jesus’ way of thinking and that of the disciples was revealed, especially in Peter’s behaviour. The leader of the twelve rebukes the Master, wrongly thinking that the Lord could not possibly make so ignominious and end.

“Then Jesus, in turn, severely rebukes Peter, because he does not think ‘according to God, but according to men’, and plays – without realizing it – the part of Satan, the tempter.”

The Holy Father said that St Paul in his letter to the Romans, drives the point home when he says: “Be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God, (Rom. 12:2)”

“In fact, we Christians live in the world, fully integrated into the social and cultural reality of our time, and rightly so: but this carries with it the risk that we might become ‘worldly’, that ‘the salt might lose its flavour’ (cf. Mt. 5:13).”

He went on to say: “Instead it should be the opposite. When the power of the Gospel remains alive in Christians, it can transform mankind's criteria of judgment.."

In his greetings to the faithful, especially to the participants in the fifth international gathering of Catholic legislators Pope Francis said: “I encourage you to live the delicate role of representatives of the people in conformity with Gospel values."

Source: Vatican Radio