“Is it unusual for the Pope to make a comment on the environment?”

VATICAN CITY – Dive into the world's problems with courage and help people turn their lives of desolation into abundance and hope, Pope Francis said.

Polar adventurer Geoff Green posed an ethical choice to an audience of more than 200 Toronto Catholic high school students. 

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis' call to action on climate change does not want to ruin any business, provoking job losses, but seeks to point humanity in the right direction in protecting the environment for future generations, a Vatican official said.

VATICAN CITY - During Holy Week and in the Easter season, the Vatican will take part in several initiatives highlighting the importance of ecology and the care for creation.

For 12 days starting Nov. 30 several dozen world leaders, joined by 50,000 delegates and lobbyists, will meet in Paris to craft a global treaty to dramatically reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions. This zeal for an international consensus is certainly commendable but it misses the point.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The international community is facing a stark and serious choice, "either to improve or to destroy the environment," Pope Francis said, referring to the Paris Climate Conference.

ACCRA, Ghana - Ghana's Catholic bishops called on Ghanaians to fight the indiscriminate destruction of the environment and supported a hands-on project to fight pollution.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Cardinal Peter Turkson, the lead consultant on the papal encyclical on the environment, is hoping the document would have a significant impact on the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM CUBA - Pope Francis defended his position on the economy, the environment and other social issues as faithful repetitions of the basic Catholic social doctrine.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - John Kostoff sees Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’: on Care for Our Common Home as a calling for Catholic educators to foster a sense of environmental responsibility rooted in religion.

“This is really a challenge that Pope Francis is presenting,” said Kostoff, director of education for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

TORONTO - The youngest students at James Culnan Catholic School are getting the opportunity to connect with nature as part of their daily life at school.

In the early 1940s, as a barefoot-in-summer lad in Ireland, I had my introduction to the natural environment. My family had a small store and pub on a gravel coast road in The Burren, a barren karst limestone district on Galway Bay.

My father had built a small windmill, using the dynamo from a Ford car, with a wooden wind direction indicator, on an eight-metre pole. The constant winds from the ocean kept three “wet” batteries charged, which provided enough electricity for four light bulbs and a wireless radio. Every night, my father and the neighbours from miles around gathered around the wireless to listen to the news/propaganda from the war fronts.

VATICAN CITY - The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation should be a time for individuals to examine their lifestyles and the way they impact the environment, Pope Francis said.

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine environmentalists and advocates for farmers, fishers and the poor praised lauded the recently released encyclical, "Laudato Si'," as "affirmation" for their causes and said that, using it as a guide, they were ready to get to work.