“There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives,’” the pope said in an interview published Wednesday in The Tablet, a United Kingdom-based Catholic weekly.

The pope, 83, was responding to whether he believed coronavirus could spur ecological conversion, the idea for people to lead more environmentally conscious lives through the understanding that the natural world is a creation of God.

Pope Francis said the world had yet to respond to recent “partial catastrophes” related to the climate.