Global Climate Movement Mourns Passing of Pope Francis
The Monday passing of Pope Francis, the world's first Latin American pontiff, has prompted an outpouring of tributes for the spiritual leader—including from members of the environmental movement who remembered him as a champion of climate justice.
"If he could bring new hope and energy to an institution as hidebound as the Vatican, there was reason for all of us to go on working on our own hidebound institutions," wrote the environmental activist and author Bill McKibben on Monday, adding that Francis' passing had hit him hard.
Francis, 88, passed away from a stroke, followed by a coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse, the Vatican announced.
He died a day after briefly meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Sunday morning. His annual Easter speech, which was read by a surrogate, included a condemnation of unnamed political leaders who use "fear" to oppress marginalized people including immigrants and refugees.
McKibben highlighted that Franceis brought "moral resolve to the question of climate change," including by making environmental issues the subject of his 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si'," which Mckibben called "arguably the most important piece of writing so far this millennium.
In Laudato Si', a papal letter, Francis called the climate crisis a global problem with grave consequences, particularly for the poor. It was the first papal letter exclusively focused on the environment, according to The New York Times. When The Paris Agreement, a global climate treaty, was adopted later that year, several leaders made specific reference to the pope's words about climate change during their addresses to the United Nations climate conference, per the Times.
The national nonprofit Catholic Climate Covenant paid tribute to Francis in a statement Monday, emphasizing the impact of Laudato Si', and writing that his "leadership and attention to 'the poorest of the poor' and our Common Home inspired and renewed not only our work but that of billions of people around the world."
Laudato Si' also spawned a global climate group, the Laudato Si' Movement, which has representation in 115 countries across five continents, according to its website. The group was previously called the Global Catholic Climate Movement.
"All around the world, you saw all of these people reading the encyclical, writing letters to the editor, posting on social media, forming discussion groups in their parishes," Rebecca Elliott, senior director for strategy and special projects at Laudato Si' Movement, toldNPR.
According to Mauricio López Oropeza, a rector and lay vice president of the Amazon Ecclesial Network who spoke to the Times, one of the most important impacts of Laudato Si' has been the church's work in the Amazon basin.
Unhappy with the lack of progress in combating the climate crisis, Francis wrote a follow-up to Laudato Si' in 2023, "Laudate Deum."
"The necessary transition toward clean energy sources such as wind and solar energy, and the abandonment of fossil fuels, is not progressing at the necessary speed," he wrote in Laudate Deum.
He also directly called out the United States for being disproportionately responsible for planet-warming emissions.
"Pope Francis spoke plainly and with clarity about the climate crisis, correctly naming that the burning of fossil fuels only further exacerbates our peril and that the United States has a moral obligation to lead by example as the world's leading historical emitter," Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said Monday.
In addition to his stance on the environment, Francis also loosened official church attitudes toward divorce and approved non-wedding blessings of same-sex couples, among other actions generally viewed as progressive.
Eloise Goldsmith is a staff writer for Common Dreams.