Japan: Bishops call for ecological conversion amid waste crisis

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan (CBCJ) has warned that mass production, excessive consumption, and reckless disposal are destroying humanity’s relationship with creation.

In their statement for this year’s Month for Protecting All Life, the bishops cautioned against society’s tendency to act as “masters of this world,” seeking domination and exploitation rather than stewardship.

“Even though we humans are created to help each other and share with one another, we want more for ourselves than we give to others. We get things we don’t need one after another, and because of this, we destroy nature and discard so much that we don’t even have places to throw it away,” wrote Bishop Daisuke Narui, head of CBCJ’s Laudato Si’ Section.

The bishops stressed that despite being created in God’s image, people continue to build barriers of nationality, ethnicity, religion, and ideology. They urged the faithful to embrace humility and live as true stewards of creation.

“The Jubilee Year is a time of ecological conversion to restore this distorted state to the original relationship in which everything relies on each other, as God created and considered very good,” they said.

Recalling Pope Francis’ ecological encyclical Laudato Si’, issued a decade ago, the bishops repeated his question: “What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?”

They also echoed the Pole Leo XIV’s reminder that the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer the effects of climate change, deforestation, and pollution. Care for creation, they said, is therefore both a moral duty and an expression of faith.

The CBCJ introduced the Month for Protecting All Life after Pope Francis’ 2019 visit to Japan. It coincides with the global Season of Creation (September 1–October 4), this year celebrated under the theme “Peace with Creation.”