President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement was described as “a disaster for everyone” by Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

He added that the fact that the decision was announced just a few days after Trump met Pope Francis made the decision “a slap in the face for the Vatican”.

This is not the first time that the Argentinian bishop has spoken strongly about climate change. This time he labelled Trump’s position as “an absurdity, motivated solely by the need to make money”.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, speaking in his role as president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), said Trump’s stance “is a major challenge for climate protection at the international level”.

‘End arms trade’

Pope Francis has released a video message with his prayer intention for June 2017: the elimination of the arms trade.

In his video, distributed through the Apostleship of Prayer, the Pontiff says:

“It is an absurd contradiction to speak of peace, to negotiate peace, and at the same time, promote or permit the arms trade.

“Is this or that war really to solve problems or is it a commercial war to sell weapons illegally so that the merchants of death get rich?

“Let us put an end to this situation. Let us all pray together that national leaders may firmly commit themselves to ending the arms trade that victimises so many innocent people.”

‘Avoiding two temptations’

Speaking on the feast of Pentecost last Sunday, Pope Francis said: “We need to avoid two recurrent temptations. The first temptation seeks diversity without unity. This happens when we want to separate, when we take sides and form parties, when we adopt rigid and airtight positions, when we become locked into our own ideas and ways of doing things, perhaps even thinking that we are better than others, or always in the right, when we become so-called ‘guardians of the truth’.

“The opposite temptation is that of seeking unity without diversity. Here, unity becomes uniformity, where everyone has to do everything together and in the same way, always thinking alike. Unity ends up being homogeneity and no longer freedom. But, as St Paul says, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17).”

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)