{"id":16280,"date":"2025-04-25T21:40:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T04:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16280"},"modified":"2025-04-25T21:40:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T04:40:43","slug":"the-blunt-plain-spoken-climate-action-of-pope-francis-canadian-broadcasting-corporation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16280","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe \u2018blunt, plain-spoken\u2019 climate action of Pope Francis\u201d, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published April 25, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 powerful papal documents pushed for deeper care of a planet in peril<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fight against climate change became known as one of Pope Francis\u2019s most important causes, helping persuade world leaders to sign the Paris climate accord and earning the pontiff fans in the scientific community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anand Ram<\/a> \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Apr 25, 2025 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pope Francis became influential voice in climate fight<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ocean acidification, atmospheric carbon concentrations and bioaccumulation of agrotoxins are, perhaps, what you\u2019d expect in the writing of someone with a master\u2019s degree in chemistry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when that person is the Pope \u2014 writing official papal documents \u2014 the audience is much wider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate, environmental and theology experts say the late Pope Francis leaves behind a strong legacy of pushing for protecting the planet, while weaving science and faith-based arguments to elevate the crisis of climate change to a new level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our common home<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, two years into his papacy, Francis released his first major encyclical \u2014 a papal letter, outlining a Church position \u2014 called Laudato Si\u2019: On Care for our Common Home<\/u><\/em><\/a>. A sweeping, 180-plus page document, it appealed to \u201cevery person on the planet\u201d in the face of \u201cglobal environmental deterioration.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pope Francis addresses a plenary meeting of the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 at United Nations headquarters in New York on Sept. 25, 2015. Earlier that year, he published a papal document calling for climate action and environmental protections. (Adrees Latif\/Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alongside precedents in scripture about responsibilities toward the natural world, Francis \u2014 who noted his namesake, Francis of Assisi, was the patron saint of ecology \u2014 highlighted the complex physical Earth systems that were seeing a rapid pace of change driven by humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were almost like a mini summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports,\u201d described Katharine Hayhoe, Global Chief Scientist at Nature United and climate scientist with Texas Tech University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says his communication of science on climate change was crystal clear, along with the fact that it disproportionately affects some communities more than others \u2014 and that paved a moral pathway for climate action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd if we say that we take the tenets of our faith seriously \u2026 we cannot neglect our responsibility to care for nature or creation, and we cannot abdicate our responsibility to care for our sisters and our brothers,\u201d said Hayhoe of Francis\u2019s arguments in Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe draws our attention towards paying attention to those who are most on the margins, who are most impacted directly by this ecological crisis,\u201d said Anna Johnson, North American director of the Laudato Si\u2019<\/em> Movement, a Catholic organization that claims 20,000 community leaders in 140 countries, devoted to the cause laid out in Francis\u2019s encyclical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nuns hold a banner of Pope Francis reading \u2018I ask you in the name of God to defend Mother Earth\u2019 during the Global Climate March in Bogota, Colombia, on Nov. 29, 2015, on the eve of the UN conference on climate change COP21, to take place in Paris. (Guillermo Legaria\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Its timing, experts say, intentionally released in the months leading up to the COP21 climate talks in Paris, was influential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPope Francis was actively engaging in diplomacy to ensure the Paris Agreement passed,\u201d Johnson told CBC News from Seattle, adding that \u201cmultiple leaders said from the stage in Paris as well as others have said that it was profoundly impactful\u201d on negotiations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Silence\u2019 and another letter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The years that followed this full-throated plea for the planet were not met with what Francis considered an adequate response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dan DiLeo, a moral theologian at the Omaha-based Creighton University, researched the response of Catholic bishops in the United States<\/u><\/a> and found a lack of action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe found overwhelming silence among the bishops,\u201d DiLeo described, \u201cwhose responsibility is to share and to communicate church teaching, that includes church doctrine.\u201d He adds that conservative Catholics in the U.S. favoured their political party\u2019s views on climate change over the messages from the Pope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the reception of Laudato Si\u2019<\/em> broke along ideological and partisan lines,\u201d DiLeo remarked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WATCH | The legacy of Pope Francis\u2019s calls for planetary stewardship: <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pope Francis an \u2018influential voice in protecting our planet,\u2019 climate activists say<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 22 is the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, organized by the non-profit Earthday.org. In a statement, it writes that Pope Francis \u2018was without a doubt the world\u2019s most earnest and influential voice in protecting our planet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of action and ambition around the world led to Francis releasing an exhortation \u2014 a shorter follow-up, Laudate Deum<\/em>. In it, a biting criticism of international political failures to achieve action on climate as well as continued warnings over the dangers of climate denialism and misinformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember reading that exhortation when it came out \u2026 on my phone. I felt like my phone was going to burst into flames,\u201d recalled Hayhoe, who co-authored the 2009 book, A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe did not mince any words. He was blunt. He was plain spoken. And it was such a refreshing change from how we\u2019re often so careful and so guarded when we talk about issues that matter.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A light left behind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While both these papal documents were extraordinary, DiLeo says they build on precedent set by Pope John Paul II<\/u><\/a> and Pope Benedict XVI<\/u><\/a>. Knowing this is important, he says, as it prevents a misrepresentation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my experience, if people perceive Laudato SI\u2019<\/em> as new, it can be \u2026 misframed as radical and therefore dismissible, as something that isn\u2019t really part of church doctrine.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pope Francis speaks during his weekly general audience on St.Peter\u2019s Square in Vatican City on Oct. 11, 2023. (Tiziana Fabi\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the encyclical and exhortation, which were aimed globally, Francis also addressed more local climate considerations. Last June, he wrote to the administration of the Vatican<\/u><\/a> to construct a solar farm that could one day power the city-state completely on renewable energy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n