The Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople is of the same view.

Faith in God comes with two "inseparable" elements, Bartholomew said on Sunday which was the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

He said these two elements are the God-given dignity of the human person and the integrity of God's creation.

Religious groups must help

Francis says religious groups must help fight climate change because true progress will require conversion.

Bartholomew agrees.

"Genuine religious faith dissolves the arrogance and titanism of humankind" by helping people realise they are not God.

A person has no right to abolish "all standards, boundaries and values, while declaring himself ‘the measure of all things' and instrumentalising his fellow human beings and nature for the satisfaction of his unquenchable needs and arbitrary pursuits.

"Respect for the sacredness of the human person and the protection of the integrity of the ‘very good' creation are inseparable."

World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

Bartholomew's predecessor, Patriarch Demetrios, instituted the annual day of prayer for creation in 1989.

In 2015, Francis added the day to the Catholic Church's annual observances.

His message for the 2024 day of prayer also speaks of the conversion necessary to leave behind "the arrogance of those who want to exercise dominion over others and nature itself, reducing the latter to an object to be manipulated".

Instead, it asks for people to embrace "the humility of those who care for others and for all of creation".

He said that "With God as the loving Father, his Son as the friend and redeemer of every person, and the Holy Spirit who guides our steps on the path of charity and obedience to the Spirit of love - this radically changes the way we think: from ‘predators' we become 'tillers' of the garden".

A shared message

Like Francis, Bartholomew's statement emphasised the connection between care for creation and love for one another, especially the poor.

"There is a close and indissoluble bond between our care of creation and our service to the body of Christ, just as there is between the economic conditions of the poor and the ecological conditions of the planet" he said.

"Scientists tell us that those most egregiously harmed by the current ecological crisis will continue to be those who have the least."

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• Our Sunday Visitor

"For us, this was an extraordinary and unexpected event that we could not have hoped for," said Archbishop Job of Telmessos who received the relics on Bartholomew's behalf.

Job had been at the Vatican for the 29 June Sts Peter and Paul feast day celebrations.

After the celebratory Mass, Francis and Job went down to St Peter's tomb under the high altar to pray.

Job said after they had prayed, Francis told him he had a gift for his brother Patriarch Bartholomew.

He then drove Job to the Apostolic Palace, took a bronze reliquary containing nine fragments of St Peter's bones that Pope St Paul VI had placed in the Palace's little chapel and offered it to Job.

The bone fragments were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St Peter's Basilica that began in the 1940s.

While no pope has ever declared the bones to be authentic, St Paul VI in 1968 said the "relics" of St Peter had been "identified in a way which we can hold to be convincing".

The only time the bronze reliquary has been displayed publicly was in November 2013, when Francis had it present for public veneration as he celebrated the closing Mass for the Year of Faith.

Job says he phoned Patriarch Bartholomew as soon as he could to tell him about the gift.

It was "another gigantic step toward concrete unity," Job said.

At a ceremony last week to receive the relics and venerate them, Bartholomew said, "Pope Francis made this grand, fraternal and historic gesture" of giving the Orthodox fragments of the relics of St Peter.

"I was deeply moved. It was a brave and bold initiative of Pope Francis."

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• America Magazine
• Crux Now
• Image: Crux Now