On September 1, 2026, Pope Leo XIV presided over the Mass for the Care of Creation in the Garden of the Madonnina at the Borgo Laudato Si’, within the Pontifical Gardens of Castel Gandolfo. The celebration marked the 11th World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and took place as the Season of Creation was drawing to a close, in a year marking the eighth centenary of the transitus of St. Francis.
At 6:30 p.m. Rome time, Pope Leo presided over the Eucharist, becoming the first pope to personally preside at a Mass on the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. He used the Mass formulary he had approved the previous year. The Holy See’s official calendar confirms the celebration at the Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo.
The Message Heard with Franciscan Ears
Pope Leo’s message for the day, signed on the Solemnity of the Assumption, took its title from Isaiah: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” War, he wrote, leaves behind social and ecological destruction that lasts for generations, while armed conflict and environmental degradation feed one another in a cycle: ecosystems are destroyed, air and water are contaminated, food security is undermined, and poverty and inequality are deepened, creating fertile ground for new conflicts.
He then linked the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor to war:
“The wounds of war and the degradation of the earth, then, are profoundly linked to the condition of the human heart.”[1]
He quoted Benedict XVI, who wrote that the external deserts in the world are growing because the internal deserts have become so vast. Pope Leo then concluded his reflection by moving from desert to garden, from division to communion, and from violence to peace.
Pope Leo has placed peace and creation in the same sentence and refuses to let them come apart. We see the same paradigm in our lives as Franciscans, shaped by Francis’s Canticle, where the verse about those who give pardon sits between the creatures and Sister Death. Francis did not write an ecology poem and then add a peace verse. He wrote one song, which we carry in our hearts as we mark the eighth centenary of his transitus.
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May the grace of Creation Day be with you.
Friar Michael LASKY
General Delegate for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation
[1] https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/creation/documents/20260815-messaggio-giornata-curacreato.html
