Pope Francis suggested Wednesday the coronavirus pandemic is “nature’s response” to inaction on climate change.
“There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives. We forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,'” Francis told British journalist Austen Ivereigh when asked if the coronavirus crisis is an opportunity for an “ecological conversion.”
“We did not respond to the partial catastrophes,” he added. “Who now speaks of the fires in Australia or remembers that, a year and a half ago, a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods?”
“I don’t know if it is nature’s revenge, but it is certainly nature’s response.”
The comments echo a similar statement made last month in which he claimed the coronavirus was “nature throwing a tantrum.”
Francis has been a vocal believer in the dangers of climate change and became the first pope in history to use an encyclical letter solely to address the issue, writing in 2015 that humans are exploiting nature.
The Earth “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her,” he wrote. “We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air, and in all forms of life.”
Almost 16,000 Americans have been killed by the coronavirus, contributing to a worldwide total of almost 92,000 deaths, according to John Hopkins University.
