Pope calls youth to environmental action

The pope has said he wanted the encyclical to influence a United Nations climate change summit in Paris in December and has now effectively taken his campaign to convince governments on the road. Correa’s policies on drilling for oil and mining Amazon forests have incensed environmentalists, and the Pope spoke forcefully in Ecuador on the importance of preserving the country’s resources.

Pope Francis continues his tour of South America in Boliva Wednesday, after urging the faithful to open their arms to the poor and preserve the environment for future generations during a pair of speeches in Ecuador.

Before boarding the Boliviana de Aviacion plane, the pope hugged and blessed dozens of children who were dressed in traditional Andean garb.

The Mass was attended by President Rafael Correa, who had private talks with the pope on Monday night at the presidential palace after Francis returned from the coastal city of Guayaquil, where he said Mass for 800,000 people. Later this week, Francis will visit Bolivia and Paraguay.

Francis will now head in his popemobile to Quito’s Catholic University for a speech, the second major event of the day.

Some just shrugged it off. Although her clothes were soaked and she shivered in the cold of Quito’s 9,000-foot altitude, 71-year-old Angelica Naranjo said: “This isn’t a sacrifice”.

At the special campus that is being built for the pope, 700 priests will celebrate masses and will give out the holy host to about 750,000 people. “For that reason, and considering the pope’s health, our president will use minimal time for his words of welcome”.

What is notable, experts say, is how the pope has managed to sound social justice themes that overlap traditionally leftist leaders in South America who otherwise have been at odds with the church.

As he insisted in the encyclical, Pope Francis told the educators and students that care for the environment is not an isolated moral issue.

The Pope told them to “not lose the memory” of who they were and the places they came from; to not feel like they have been “given a promotion”.

Like most Brazilians, I come from a Catholic upbringing, and I’m encouraged by the Pope’s response to our country’s mass-incarceration problem.

Pope Francis is pressing his case for a new economic and environmental world order, saying the goods of the Earth are meant for everyone and must not be exploited by the wealthy few for short-term profit at the expense of the poor.

“There is a need to fight for inclusion of all at all levels, avoiding selfishness, and promoting communication and dialogue”, the pontiff told the massive crowd at the Bicentennial Park. He then approached a statue of the virgin of El Quinche, pausing to pray.

The values learned in family life such as love, fraternity and mutual respect, can and should manifest in societal life as gratitude, solidarity and subsidiarity, the Pope explained.

According to Lombardi, Francis believes that it is the grace of the office God has given him.

James Grant, Catholic priest and adjunct fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, has reassured Catholics that they should react to the pope’s views about climate change. Numerous residents are in wheelchairs.

As a person who identifies as LGBTQ, the abuse and treatment of trans women in detention is especially abhorrent, where they are 15 times more likely to suffer from sexual abuse including rape.

Along the route that Francis will take to visit an elderly home, thousands are lined up. Two of his predecessors engaged in the local custom, and Bolivia’s culture minister has invited Francis to do the same. Francis wraps up the first leg of a three-nation South American pilgrimage Wednesday.