Ugandans to embrace Pope’s climate change message
Kampala- The Catholic Church in Uganda has seized on Pope Francis’s June 2015 critique of profit-driven destruction of the environment, asking the youth here to care more for nature as God’s priceless gift.
In an encyclical or authoritative letter to bishops and priests, titled Laudato si (Praise be to you), the pontiff criticised prosperity based on wanton exploitation and called for action on climate change which he said further impoverishes the poor.
In Kampala, church leaders last Saturday gathered hundreds of youth for a Uganda Martyrs symposium to sensitise them on hazards of environmental degradation and its links to poverty.
Rev Fr Joseph Mary Ssebunya, the convener and Kampala Archdiocese chancellor, said: “We want them (youth) to get these messages so that when the Pope comes, they don’t just see a figure but they see a person and relate to his message they can take home as they live their lives.”
The Catholic Church, he said, is interested in what the youth can do in environmental protection and why they should act now.
Pope Francis in the encyclical urged frontline faith teachers to reach out to “everyone on the planet” to drum up support for a shift in the economic model and political action for an all-inclusive prosperity without laying the earth to waste.
The Holy Father propagated the same ideals during his visit to the United States last week, providing a moral momentum for an expected global accord when world leaders meet for a climate change summit in Paris at the end of the year.
The Ugandan symposium at Nsambya Youth Centre was on the theme, environment, climate change and modern slavery, and Fr Ssebunya said it derived from the pontiff’s June letter.
Hundreds of students who attended renewed their commitment to plant trees to protect the environment and enable nature provide for both the current and future generations.
