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VATICAN CITY – A rain-soaked Mass celebrated in Tacloban, Philippines, in 2015 stands as a powerful illustration of Pope Francis’ deep understanding of climate change and the critical need for global action. This pivotal moment in his papacy highlighted the urgency of addressing environmental concerns.
A Personal Encounter with Extreme Weather
Donning a simple, inexpensive yellow poncho distributed to worshippers, Pope Francis personally experienced the type of unpredictable, intense storms that scientists link to global warming. These increasingly frequent events disproportionately impact vulnerable, low-lying island nations.
Visiting Typhoon Haiyan Survivors
The Pontiff’s visit to Tacloban, situated on the island of Leyte, was intended to offer solace to survivors of Typhoon Haiyan, a devastating tropical cyclone in 2013. This catastrophic storm claimed over 7,300 lives, demolished communities, and displaced approximately five million residents.
Weather Forces Abbreviated Visit
Compounding the challenges, another storm approached Tacloban during his visit two years later, compelling Pope Francis to shorten his time on the island for safety reasons.
Addressing the assembled crowd in Tacloban’s muddy airport field, as strong winds threatened to overturn candlesticks on the altar, Pope Francis acknowledged, “So many of you have lost everything. I don’t know what to tell you.”
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Encyclical Laudato Si’ and Ecological Awakening
The profound suffering of the survivors and the widespread devastation deeply affected Pope Francis. This experience fueled his resolve to address environmental issues. Months later, he released his groundbreaking encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” framing the responsibility to care for the planet as a critical moral imperative.
Landmark Ecological Document
This significant document, crafted to influence global negotiators at the 2015 Paris climate conference, condemned the “structurally perverse,” profit-driven economic systems of developed nations. It accused these systems of exploiting the Earth and transforming it into a “pile of filth.” Pope Francis emphasized that impoverished communities, indigenous populations, and island inhabitants, such as those in Tacloban, disproportionately suffer the consequences – enduring increased droughts, severe storms, deforestation, and pollution.
“Laudato Si’” marked the first ecological encyclical, solidifying the Argentine Jesuit, with his background in chemistry, as a respected and influential voice within the environmental movement. Cited by world leaders and scientists alike, the encyclical inspired a global, faith-based movement dedicated to preserving the environment.
“I think he understood from the beginning that there are three relationships that had to be regenerated: Our relationship with God, our relationship with the created world and our relationship with our fellow creatures,” commented papal biographer Austen Ivereigh.
A Transformation in Perspective
However, this environmental focus was not always central to his thinking.
The 2007 Brazil Bishops’ Conference
Pope Francis underwent a significant shift in his environmental understanding, similar to his evolving views on clergy sexual abuse. He identified a 2007 conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops in Aparecida, Brazil, as the catalyst for his ecological awakening.
At this gathering, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was tasked with drafting the conference’s concluding document. He initially resisted calls from Brazilian bishops to emphasize the plight of the Amazon rainforest.
Bergoglio, then the reserved Archbishop of Buenos Aires, initially struggled to grasp the urgency of these environmental concerns.
“At first I was a bit annoyed,” Pope Francis confessed in his 2020 book, “Let Us Dream.” “It struck me as excessive.”
Yet, by the conference’s conclusion, Bergoglio experienced a profound conversion and became deeply convinced of the cause.
The final Aparecida document dedicated considerable sections to environmental concerns. It denounced multinational corporations for exploiting the region’s resources to the detriment of impoverished populations. It cautioned against the dangers of melting glaciers and biodiversity loss. The document framed the degradation of the planet as an affront to God’s divine plan, violating the biblical mandate to “cultivate and care” for creation.
These pivotal issues later gained prominence in “Laudato Si’,” drawing its title from the opening line of the “Canticle of the Creatures,” a renowned hymn by St. Francis of Assisi, the Pontiff’s namesake and a figure celebrated for his love of nature.
These concerns were further emphasized during the Amazon Synod convened by Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2019. This meeting brought together bishops and Indigenous representatives to specifically address the Catholic Church’s role in responding to the crisis in the Amazon and the struggles of its marginalized communities.
“I think the pope’s most important contribution was to insist on the ethical aspect of the debate about climate justice,” stated Giuseppe Onofrio, head of Greenpeace Italy, “that the poor were those who contributed the least to pollution and the climate crisis, but were paying the highest price.”
Environmentalism as a Holistic Concern
These interconnected issues came to define much of Pope Francis’ papacy. He viewed environmentalism as encompassing a wide array of pressing global challenges of the 21st century: poverty, social and economic inequity, migration, and the “throwaway culture”— a complex web of interconnected problems requiring comprehensive solutions.
Pope Francis frequently delivered some of his most impactful appeals for environmental protection around Earth Day, observed annually on April 22nd.
“For some time now, we have been becoming more aware that nature deserves to be protected, even if only because human interaction with God’s biodiversity must take care with utmost care and respect,” Pope Francis asserted in a video message released on Earth Day in 2021.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, the Canadian Jesuit entrusted by Pope Francis with leading the Vatican’s environmental efforts, emphasized the significant impact of the 2007 Brazil meeting on the Pope’s thinking.
“In Aparecida, listening to so many different bishops talking about what was deteriorating, but also what the people were suffering, I think really impressed him,” Czerny explained.
Czerny’s mandate embodied Pope Francis’ vision of “integral ecology,” encompassing environmental stewardship, the Vatican’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the charitable Caritas federation, migration advocacy, economic advancement, and the antinuclear movement.
This comprehensive approach was intentional, Czerny clarified, aiming to establish a new understanding of ecology that transcended the politically charged concept of “green” advocacy, evolving into a broader, fundamental issue: humanity’s relationship with God and creation.
“Everything is connected,” Pope Francis often remarked.
Building on Papal Predecessors
Pope Francis was not the first Pope to champion environmentalism. According to “The Popes and Ecology,” Pope Paul VI was the first pontiff to reference an “ecological catastrophe” in a 1970 address to a UN food agency.
While St. John Paul II largely overlooked environmental issues, he did author the first truly ecological statement: his 1990 World Day of Peace message, connecting consumerism to environmental degradation.
Pope Benedict XVI earned the moniker “green pope,” primarily by installing solar panels at the Vatican and initiating a tree-planting initiative to offset Vatican City’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Pope Francis issued an update to “Laudato Si’” in 2023, preceding the UN climate conference in Dubai. While consistent with the original encyclical, the updated text adopted an even more urgent and somber tone, reflecting Pope Francis’ escalating alarm.
He became increasingly direct in criticizing the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, particularly the United States. He also openly challenged those, including within the Church, who denied the human causes of global warming.
“He showed that he had an understanding of what was happening in the world, and he saw the world from the point of view, as he was like to say, of the peripheries, of the margins,” observed papal biographer Ivereigh. “He brought the margins into the center.”