Pope Francis achieved greatness as an unflinching advocate in support of Earth, in support of nature
Pope Francis just died. On Easter Monday. He was 88. Up until 12 years ago, his name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio. From Argentina, he was the first ever Pope from South America.
I am not Catholic. But Francis was, to me, one of the two greatest voices of our time in support of the Earth, in support of Nature. The other, Antonio Guterres of the United Nations is, thankfully, still alive and he just delivered a major warning to the world this past December. He warns that Nature always strikes back. There is, of course, a horde of human voices in support of the Earth, but none achieve the greatness of these two, in my mind. Not in regard to protecting Nature.
We need to be ever mindful and appreciative of the great ones we have been fortunate enough to have lived in the world with at the same time. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and, yes, Jimmy Carter all come immediately to my mind. And Francis.
But Francis was unflinching. He led the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world to a new and real appreciation that ‘everything is connected.’ Include me and millions of others in this appreciation. He was the world’s moral conscience on climate change. Not long after a year, 2023, when 196 environmental activists were murdered, renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben memorialized Francis as “perhaps the world’s greatest environmental champion.”
Francis was, of course, much more than that. He supported immigrants and the poor, condemned all wars. He changed his church’s stance on gays, saying laws against them were ‘unjust.’ He got the church to call the death penalty ‘inadmissible’. He added ‘ecological sin’ to the Catholic Catechism.
It was the encyclical Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home that he gave to the world in 2015 that has done the most to change things, and I believe it is this for which he will be most remembered and canonized.
It recognizes that justice for the natural world and animal species is inseparable from justice for marginalized human communities. He directly blamed human activity for the on-going degradation. He said coal, oil and gas must “be progressively replaced without delay.” He called humans ‘self-destructive” and asked, "What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?"
The document also shows a notable reorientation of the church's understanding of the human person, from a being that dominates to one that responsibly serves creation.
It’s no coincidence that Pope Francis released Laudato Si’ at a crucial moment in 2015 (the year he met with President Obama, seen above) prior to the UN climate summit, Cop21, in Paris. A follow-up exhortation, or official statement, Laudate Deum, was released in October 2023, just before another UN climate summit, Cop28 in Dubai. In this latter, he bemoaned the lack of progress "on the climate crisis."
So, this great man’s death is now grieved by hundreds of millions. We are already shuddering at the thought of who will replace him. Our grief is disparate. The Catholics have lost their Holy Father. The poor and disadvantaged and marginalized have lost a major supporter. And those of us who have believed for more than a decade that what we have already done to the planet makes it already too late for a meaningful recovery have lost a hero, someone who might have helped mitigate our oncoming future misery.
"I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point," he wrote. "In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons."
Just last month, in a meeting with Brazilian bishops, he stated, “"May we all, with the special help of God’s grace, change our convictions and practices to let nature rest from our rapacious exploitations."
Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis. He also became a great man.
Van Carter of Sioux Falls is a retired broadcast journalist and environmentalist who published a green website for 15 years. This essay originally appeared on the Change Agents of South Dakota website.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
