By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The earth is sick and needs the prayers of Catholics and their personal commitment to care for creation, Pope Francis said.

“Let us pray that each of us may listen with our hearts to the cry of the Earth and the victims of ecological disasters and climate change, making a personal commitment to care for the world in which we live,” the Pope said in a video message released August 30 by the Pontifical World Prayer Network.

The network publishes a short video in which the Pope offers a specific prayer intention each month, and members of the network pray for that intention each day. Pope Francis’s intention for September is “For the Cry of the Earth,” which coincides with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on September 1 and the inauguration of the month-long “Season of Creation.”

“If we measured the temperature of the planet, it would tell us that the Earth has a fever,” the pope said in a video. “And it is sick, like everyone who is sick. But do we listen to this pain? Do we hear the pain of the millions of victims of environmental disasters?”

The first victims and those who suffer the most are, he said, “the poor, those forced to leave their homes due to floods, heat waves or drought.”

To fight poverty and at the same time protect nature, people must change their personal habits, the pope said. But because climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity are “man-made,” social, economic and political responses are also necessary.