Pope Francis’s Visit Essay
Author: Anjali G.K, (12 year old)
As many people know, Pope Francis is
currently in the US, giving speeches on his beliefs many of which include
interesting ones on climate change. A couple of days ago he addressed Congress
on this issue but being as this is such a controversial topic, one of the
senators had actually boycotted the speech because he hadn’t agreed with the
Pope’s views on the subject. “Solemn commitments, however, are not enough even
though they are a necessary step towards solutions,” that was one of the quotes
from his speech which made a lot of sense to me. While he projected it towards
the need for a solution to climate change, the sentence can be applied to many
things. It is to my thinking that he is talking about how people can make
promises and commit to something but that means absolutely nothing unless you
follow through with it and make a change to this world.
This event was extremely significant
because I do believe it really opened mine and many other people’s eyes. As he
said in the first speech he made at the white house, we can’t leave these
problems to future generations and we need to take care of them now. I think
there was a very important reason he spoke in English, it was almost as if he
addressed everyone very personally and went out of his way to pronounce these
words just so that he could present a very important speech. I don’t think that
it was very significant that he spoke out at the certain moment but I do think
it was significant he spoke in Washington DC because it is our nation’s
capital. Also, I do think the particular speech was also significant because
he’s such an important religious figure and most things he says people think
about often and have a huge impact on the world.
The overall message of this was about how
we need to shape our world and take care of it because every living creature
does rely heavily on it. “Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm
done to humanity.” That is one of the many memorable quotes that stuck with me.
Later on in the speech Pope Francis talks about how harming the earth we are
destroying what God gave us, and with each harmful act we make, we change
humanity for the worse. The main idea I gathered from this speech is that if
the world works together to conserve our planet it will prosper and along with
that, as will the rest of humanity.
I do believe that this will make a huge
impact on how everyone operates together to protect our earth. As mentioned
earlier, he is an important figure seeing as a large percentage of the
population is Christian, and even if people aren’t, many still support his
views and the way he handles problems. He has strong and important beliefs and
I do believe many people will take what he says into consideration and will
possibly change the way that we are currently handling this issue.
Personally, I thought what the Pope said
was brilliant. His views are unique and ideas potentially helpful if they will
be put into action. I agree that our earth is a gift from God and should be
cared for sufficiently so that it is safe for us and many generations to come
in the future. If I was able to ask Pope Francis a couple of questions or were
able to comment on his speech I would praise him for all the work he has done
so far and ask him specifically how he proposes to fix this issue. Overall,
this speech was extremely inspiring and I hope many other important political
people take into consideration his ideas and make our world change for the
better.
