In a message delivered during the 'Pray with the Pope' prayer initiative dedicated to water conservation this month, Pope Leo XIV emphasized that water is a scarce, unsafe, or inaccessible resource for millions of people, and that humanity must learn to preserve it 'with gratitude, justice, and responsibility.'
In this prayer, Leo XIV asked God for forgiveness because water has turned into a 'commodity, forgetting that it is a universal gift, a right without borders,' and expressed sorrow for 'many brothers and sisters who lack clean water, who travel for kilometers to find it, and who fall ill due to its scarcity.'
In the September prayer, published as a video, Robert Prevoet, the baptismal name, concluded the appeal by asking believers to become 'pilgrims of necessity,' capable of living moderately, condemning waste and pollution, and defending every person's right to drink water without fear or inequality.
He noted that one in four people globally 'still lacks access to safe drinking water, and entire communities and nations need action for the sake of blessed relief in water care.'
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, approximately 2.1 billion people do not have safe access to drinking water, and 106 million depend directly on rivers, lakes, or other untreated surface waters.