At U.N., a Call for ‘Universal Respect’ for Our ‘Common Home’

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Pope Francis made a strong case for safeguarding the environment and protecting the interests of poor people around the world, saying in a speech at the United Nations that the two sectors are “closely interconnected and made increasingly fragile by dominant political and economic relationships.”

Addressing the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 25, the pope declared that a “right of the environment” exists because humans and other living things are an integral part of it in accord with the “loving decision” of the Creator.

“Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity,” he said, and humankind “is not authorized to abuse it, much less to destroy it.”

The speech came on the opening day of a special conference to adopt the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which outlines 17 goals aimed at eliminating global poverty by 2030 and pursuing a sustainable future to protect the world’s oceans, forests and air.

The pope, whose first encyclical, Laudato Si, was devoted to protecting the environment, used his U.N. platform to decry a widespread and quietly growing “culture of waste,” which he said provides fertile ground for environmental harm and exclusion of the poor and the marginal.

Cardinal Dolan and Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s nuncio to the United Nations, accompanied the pope to the U.N.’s iconic headquarters on Manhattan’s East Side, where he became the fourth pontiff to address the world body.

Pope Paul VI spoke there in 1965, Pope John Paul II in 1979 and 1995, and Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon greeted the pope’s arrival and led him through a short tour of the building’s ground floor, going part of the way in a golf cart, where excited U.N. employees who won a lottery for viewing spots greeted Francis with cheers while snapping cell-phone pictures.

In his welcoming remarks, a beaming Ban applauded the pope’s teachings on social justice, climate change and “liberty for all.”

“Thank you for your spiritual guidance and prayers and your love for humanity,” Ban said.

In the General Assembly, the pope drew on his theme of humanity’s “common home,” saying that it must continue to rise on a foundation of a proper understanding of “universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic.”

He added, “This common home of all men and women must also be built on the understanding of a certain sacredness of created nature.”

While focusing on environmental issues and the condition of the global poor in his 45-minute talk, the pope also denounced war as “the negation of all rights” and supported a goal of banning all nuclear weapons. He called for increased efforts to address drug trafficking, which, by its very nature, is “accompanied by trafficking in persons, money laundering, the arms trade, child exploitation and other forms of corruption,” he said.

He also renewed his appeal for more attention to the “painful situation” of religious and cultural persecution in “the entire Middle East, North Africa and other African countries.”

“These realities should serve as a grave summons to an examination of conscience on the part of those charged with the conduct of international affairs,” he said.

He reminded the world leaders that wars and conflicts directly affect “individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die.”

He underscored his message of promoting peace by quoting from “El Gaucho Martin Fierro,” a classic of literature in his native Argentina: “Brothers should stand by each other, because this is the first law…if you fight among yourselves, you’ll be devoured by those outside.”

In closing, Pope Francis assured his listeners of his own support and prayers, and those of all the faithful of the Catholic Church, that the United Nations and all of its member states and officials “will always render an effective service to mankind, a service respectful of diversity and capable of bringing out, for sake of the common good, the best in each people and in every individual.”