Brazil’s ecological offenses have been overshadowed by an arguably graver crisis, according to members of the local church, the government’s disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In his message for the sixth World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, Pope Francis also called for "the cancellation of the debt of the most vulnerable countries."

At a Georgetown forum on church reform, panelists discuss the resistance among some in the Catholic Church to Pope Francis' proposals.

During the virus crisis, Francis has become a 21st century “prisoner of the Vatican," as one of his predecessors was once known, robbed of the crowds, foreign travel and visits to the peripheries that so defined and popularized his papacy.

The “common thread” among the celebrations, especially in 2020, the cardinal said, “is our common home in which the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are one cry.”

The pope’s series, which began in Aug. 5, focuses on healing the world from the physical and social ills related to the coronavirus pandemic.