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'Creation is crying out,' pope says in new message to COP30

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While "creation is crying out" and millions of people suffer the effects of climate change and pollution, politicians are failing to act, Pope Leo XIV said.

As the U.N. Climate Conference, COP30, began its final week of meetings Nov. 17, the pope sent a video message to Christian representatives and activists from the global south who were holding a side event to the conference in Belem, Brazil.

The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 at COP21 "has driven real progress and remains our strongest tool for protecting people and the planet," Pope Leo said in the video.

"But we must be honest: it is not the agreement that is failing, we are failing in our response," he said. "What is failing is the political will of some." 

Pope Leo gives his blessing at the end of a video message
Pope Leo XIV is seen giving his blessing to Christian representatives and activists at the U.N. Climate Conference, COP30, in a screen grab from a video released by the Vatican Nov. 17, 2025. (CNS photo/screen grab, Vatican Media)

While Pope Leo did not specify which nations were at fault, the U.S. government was not represented at COP30 because U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Paris Agreement.

"True leadership means service, and support at a scale that will truly make a difference," the pope said. "Stronger climate actions will create stronger and fairer economic systems. Strong climate actions and policies -- both are an investment in a more just and stable world."

"Creation is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat," Pope Leo said.

"One in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes," he added. "To them, climate change is not a distant threat, and to ignore these people is to deny our shared humanity."

As government representatives from most of the world's countries -- more than 190 nations registered delegations -- struggled to finalize agreements on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing reliance on fossil fuels, Pope Leo told the Christian activists he believed "there is still time to keep the rise in global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius, but the window is closing."

"As stewards of God's creation, we are called to act swiftly, with faith and prophecy, to protect the gift he entrusted to us," the pope said.

In safeguarding creation as a gift of God, he said, "we walk alongside scientists, leaders and pastors of every nation and creed."

"We are guardians of creation, not rivals for its spoils," the pope said. "Let us send a clear global signal together: nations standing in unwavering solidarity behind the Paris Agreement and behind climate cooperation."

Despite the challenges, Pope Leo told the activists, "you chose hope and action over despair, building a global community that works together."

The efforts have made a difference, he said, "but not enough. Hope and determination must be renewed, not only in words and aspirations, but also in concrete actions."
 

Pope Leo: "Creation is crying out"

Pope Leo: "Creation is crying out"

In video message to Catholic activists at COP30, Pope Leo decries lack of "political will" to address climate change.

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne: Saint of the Day for Tuesday, November 18, 2025

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Virgin (Feast day - November 18) Born in Grenoble, France, in 1769, Rose joined the Society of the Sacred Heart. In 1818, when she was forty-nine years old, Rose was sent to the United States. She founded a boarding school for daughters of pioneers near St. Louis and opened the first free school west of the Missouri. At the age of seventy-one, she began a school for Indians, who soon came to call her "the woman who is always praying". Her biographers have ...

Ghana’s Catholic Bishops outline pastoral priorities

The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) has concluded its 2025 annual plenary assembly held in the Diocese of Damongo, during which key pastoral priorities and national concerns for the coming years were outlined. The assembly took place from 7 to 14 November under the theme “A Synodal Church at the Service of Justice and Peace in Ghana.”

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Jamaican expat in Florida raises funds for hurricane-hit nation

In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, Lorna Owens—a Jamaican living in Florida—explains her work raising funds for two organizations providing humanitarian aid to those living without homes, food, water, or medicine.

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Cardinal Zuppi in Assisi: Renew peace efforts in 'martyred Ukraine'

Ahead of Pope Leo XIV's visit this week to the Italian hill town of Assisi to close the 81st General Assembly of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI), the Bishops' leader, Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, addresses his fellow Bishops with a call to promote peace in the war-torn world and to counter exclusion of the marginalised.

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Pope to bishops at COP30: We are guardians of creation, not rivals for its spoils

Pope Leo XIV sends a videomessage to the bishops and cardinals of the Global South participating in COP30 in Brazil, urging cooperation and stressing that it is not too late if we choose deeds over words.

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Pope to nunciature staff: Bring hope where the world lacks peace

In Rome, Pope Leo meets with Vatican diplomatic staff serving worldwide, urging them to be "pilgrims of hope, especially where people lack justice and peace."

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CAFOD at COP30: Catholic actors push for justice and climate finance

Catholic actors at COP30 are amplifying the “cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor” while urging negotiators to pursue justice-based climate finance. CAFOD brings the experience of its partners across the globe who work with communities facing life-threatening climate impacts.

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Help everyone access the Bible, including online, pope urges

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- At a time when young people spend so much time in "digital environments," members of the Catholic Biblical Federation need to ask how they are fulfilling the Second Vatican Council's mandate to give everyone access to the Bible, Pope Leo XIV said.

"What does 'easy access to Sacred Scripture' mean in our time? How can we facilitate this encounter for those who have never heard the Word of God or whose cultures remain untouched by the Gospel?" the pope asked members of the federation's steering committee and its regional representatives.

Pope Leo welcomed the group to the Apostolic Palace Nov. 17, expressing particular concern for people who "find themselves in cultural spaces where the Gospel is unfamiliar or distorted by particular interests."

At the end of the audience, Mary Sperry, associate director of the U.S. bishops' Office for the Biblical Apostolate, presented Pope Leo with two large white binders. They contained a preview copy of The Catholic American Bible, slated for publication in 2027. 

Pope Leo speaks to the Catholic Biblical Federation
Pope Leo XIV meets with members of the Catholic Biblical Federation at the Vatican Nov. 17, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Meeting on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, "Dei Verbum," Pope Leo asked members of the group to reflect on how they individually and as a federation respond to the call "to hear the Word of God with reverence and to proclaim it with faith."

"The church draws life not from herself but from the Gospel," he said. "From the Gospel she continually rediscovers the direction for her journey, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who teaches all things and reminds us of everything the Son has said."

A key part of that, he said, is helping everyone have access to a Bible so they can "encounter the God who speaks, shares his love and draws us into the fullness of life."

Translations of the Bible, which the federation promotes, are essential for that, he said, but so are initiatives like encouraging "lectio divina," a prayerful reading of Scripture.

"Ultimately," Pope Leo told federation members, "your mission is to become 'living letters … written not in ink but by the Spirit of the living God,' bearing witness to the primacy of God's Word over the many voices that fill our world."
 

Dozens of people die in DRC mine accident

At least 32 people have been killed in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo when a bridge at a copper and cobalt mine collapsed due to overcrowding. Enormous financial interests in the mineral-rich region have long fuelled strife and conflict, resulting in corruption, displacement and an acute humanitarian crisis.

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