Pope Francis greets British theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, during an audience with participants attending a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican Nov. 28. The pope addressed experts attending a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to discuss the impact of scientific knowledge and technology on people and the planet. People in the modern world have grown up “thinking we are the owners and masters of nature, authorized to plunder it without any consideration for its secret potential and evolutionary laws, as if it were an inert substance at our disposal, causing, among other things, a very serious loss of biodiversity,” he said. An “ecological conversion” is needed in which people recognize their responsibility for caring for creation and its resources, for trying to bring about social justice and for overcoming “an unfair system that produces misery, inequality and exclusion,” the Pope said.

In fact, with sustainable development, the tasks of taking care of both people and the planet are inseparable, he said.