Senior church leaders urged all Catholics around the world to increase awareness of global climate security by ending the use of fossil fuel.
This is the first time the Catholic priests unite for one purpose: to bring about security in global climate treaty. According to BBC, there are about 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. The huge population has significant influence on the environmental issue.
The bishops released a statement saying they want a "deepening of the discourse at the COP20 in Lima, to ensure concrete decisions are taken at COP21 to overcome the climate challenge and to set us on new sustainable pathways."
"We bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe have engaged in intense dialogue on the issue of climate change," said Archbishop of Ayacucho, and president of the Peruvian Bishops' Conference Monsignor Salvador Piñeiro García-Calderón. "We can see it's the poorest people who are impacted the most, despite the fact they've contributed the least to causing it."
He also added that the people are the ones who respect the planet, the Earth, the water, the soil and the rainforest. The whole nation should achieve maintaining the planet's temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"As the church, we see and feel an obligation for us to protect creation and to challenge the misuse of nature. We felt this joint statement had to come now because Lima is a milestone on the way to Paris, and Paris has to deliver a binding agreement," he said.
Lima negotiators are now pulling out the agreement documents at the UN-led talks. They said a difference of 2 degrees already impose dangerous climate change. A large scale demonstration will be held Wednesday by activists to call the attention of the negotiators further.
The Catholic bishops believe their effort is important "in order to protect frontline communities suffering from the impacts of climate change, such as those in the Pacific Islands and in the coastal regions."
"In viewing objectively the destructive effects of a financial and economic order based on the primacy of the market and profit, which has failed to put the human being and the common good at the heart of the economy, one must recognise the systemic failures of this order and the need for a new financial and economic order," they said.
Amy is a Press Services International Columnist from Adelaide. She has a BA in Creative Writing and Screen & Media, and now works as a freelance photographer, videographer and writer. She was runner-up in the 2018 Basil Sellars Award. Her previous articles can be viewed here: http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/amy-manners.html