Published on Oct 26, 2017
Pope Francis went to the heavens virtually on Thursday (October 26) when he called the International Space station (ISS) and appealed for protection of the planet after an astronaut said he could see creation from God's perspective.
Francis spent about 20 minutes in a video call to the six astronauts on the space station while it was about 400 km from the Earth, asking the members several questions, sometimes with the gee-whiz wonder of a school boy.
The pope seemed to be mostly moved by Russian Sergey Ryazanskiy talking about his grandfather and U.S. astronaut Randy Bresnik who said that the view from the ISS allowed him to see the earth's "indescribable" beauty and be more hopeful for humanity's future.
Francis has made many appeals for the protection of the Earth's environment, devoting a encyclical, or major letter, to its defence in 2015. That document backed scientists who say global warming is at least partly due to human activity.
