In a joint session of the US Congress coming week, Pope Francis is expected to speak about the environment and the need to fight climate change. Recently, the Pope released an encyclical on the environment entitled ‘On Care for Our Common Home’. In the encyclical, he wrote that the Earth is crying out because of the harm inflicted on her due to careless use and wrong use of the goods with which God has gifted her.

He said people have started seeing themselves as ‘lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will’.

The Pope will Mass in Washington on September 23rd at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He will be assisted by Jerry Kotas. He’s an official with a non-profit organization Interfaith Power and Light, which is worried about climate change, and a former scientist who used to work for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kotas said the Pope has been bringing a ‘fresh, new energy’ to environmental issues like climate change. Kotas said, “He calls things as they are and he says these issues of climate change and our call to care for our common home are moral issues. He said technology is part of the answer, but we ourselves must change”. He said we must transform our heart and alter our lifestyles.

The encyclical by Pope Francis has received praise by a number of environmentalists, but has been criticized by the one who say that the pope should concentrate on religious matters.