• Cardinal Peter Turkson has renewed the call for radical changes in thinking and attitudes towards environment, ecology and creation.  In a message delivered to the second international gathering for talks on climate change, organised by the Peruvian government in Lima, the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Cardinal Turkson, invited participants “[to] assume a new ecological spirituality which favors the bond between man and environment, through an integral, ecological, community conversion.”

    The 5-day event, starting on the 24th of August, is the second appointment of the COP20 forum, a global initiative which gives nations the opportunity to showcase plans to reduce carbon emissions in preparation for the Paris conference on climate change due to take place later in the year.

    The forum opened with a presentation of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, which was organised by the Jesuit University Ruiz de Montoya in Lima. The opening presentation event hosted 250 people, including experts, policy makers and religious leaders, who offered analysis of the Pope’s encyclical from a scientific, economic, political and theological perspective.

    In his message, Cardinal Turkson expressed the hope that this second conference dedicated to environmental emergency might promote a “deeper ecological conversion, able to reflect itself in the different aspects of human life: in one’s lifestyle, education, in the dialogue between science, culture and faith, and in national politics and international negotiations.”

    He concluded his message citing the last words of Pope Francis’ encyclical: “To re-establish harmony with Creation, people ought to reflect on their lifestyles and ideals, in order to contemplate the Creator, who lives in us and in what surrounds us.”

    Source: Vatican Radio