Pope Leo XIV’s message for the 10th World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, to be celebrated on September 1, was released today, July 2.

Entitled “Seeds of Peace and Hope”, the message echoes the theme chosen by Pope Francis and is set within the broader context of the Jubilee of Hope and the tenth anniversary of the encyclical Laudato Si’, a foundational text of the Church’s ecological teaching.

In his message, the Pope urgently calls for a global ecological conversion, denouncing the environmental tragedies afflicting our planet: deforestation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The root causes of this degradation, he stresses, lie in injustice, greed, inequality, and the violation of human rights and international law. “Our earth,” the Pope writes, “is falling into ruin.”

The message concludes with a hopeful look toward the future: “Among the Church’s initiatives that are like seeds sown in this field, I would mention the Borgo Laudato Si’ project that Pope Francis bequeathed to us at Castel Gandolfo. It is a seed that promises to bear fruits of justice and peace, and an educational project in integral ecology that can serve as an example of how people can live, work and build community by applying the principles of the Encyclical Laudato Si’”

This is an urgent call to rediscover the beauty of caring for creation as a path of peace and hope for humanity and for future generations.

Read the full text of Pope Leo XIV’s Message for the Season of Creation