Insider Brief:
- Pope Francis, who was elected Pope in 2013, passed away at the age of 88 on April 21.
- The pope had been an advocate for environmental action.
- He published several works linking together the need to understand climate destruction and inequality as equivalent crises, and that both must be addressed concomitantly.
Pope Francis died on April 21 at the age of 88, following a battle with double pneumonia.
In his 12-year papacy, Pope Francis often advocated for climate issues, most notably by publishing the climate-themed ‘Laudato Si: On care for Our Common Home’ papal letter in 2015, in the runup to the COP21 Paris summit.
In the letter, he called on followers to understand ‘integral ecology’ – that all creatures, not just humans, have value, and that environmental measures need to be pursued as well as measures to combat inequality – and better protect the planet. He criticized “throwaway culture”, saying that “we have not yet managed to adopt a circular model of production.”
He also urged believers to view climate as a common good, and called for urgent action to combat the water crisis and the loss of biodiversity, and also tied the climate crisis to the issue of global inequality.
“Never before have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years,” he wrote in Laudato Si.
He urged world leaders to abandon the idea of unlimited material progress and economic growth, calling for an “economic ecology.”
The publishing of the papal encyclical led to the creation of several Catholic environmental organizations, and inspired Catholics worldwide to take a more central role in demanding climate action from their governments.
Pope Francis followed his 2015 publication with an update in 2023 called Laudate Deum, calling climate responses “inadequate” and warning that the world was quickly approaching a breaking point.
Leading environmental figures, including Bill McKibben and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, lauded Pope Francis for his climate advocacy, and for clearly demonstrating that climate action is compatible with traditional Catholic values.
