The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, on Thursday was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the renowned University of Notre Dame, in Indiana.
The Ecumenical Patriarch is on a wide-ranging Apostolic tour of the United States this week, having already been received by US President Joe Biden at the White House, by Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department and by Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill.
The award came during an academic convocation held at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, on Notre Dame’s South Bend campus.
Afterwards, His All-Holiness delivered an address on environmental stewardship, noting that “…Religion must function and serve in connection with – and never in isolation from – science.”
His All-Holiness underlined that “…Both climate change and the coronavirus pandemic are rightly labeled as crises. You may be aware that the etymological root of the word “crisis” is a Greek word that signifies “judgment.” The truth is that we are all judged by our response to or rejection of defining moments in our lives. Ironically, the strategies used to dismiss climate change and Covid-19 adhere to a similar pattern, and are adopted by the same people.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch added “…Both climate and Covid, therefore, present us with an unprecedented problem, but at the same time an unparalleled opportunity. This is why, throughout the world, we witnessed how the pandemic revealed the best in human nature, as well as the worst in human indifference.”