Pope Leo Builds on Pope Francis’ Great Legacy of Climate Leadership
Our Story Together: Finding Hope, Inspiration, and Encouragement in Our Past and Present
For the Climate Movement to become what we are destined to be, the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world, we need to embody seven characteristics/imperatives/goals, the first of which is to be big and broad and active enough.
To be this we must be made up of people from all walks of life, all generations, all ethnicities, all cultures — in short, all of the ways we are perceived to be different from one another. Our differences must become a strength, as we seek to bridge what could divide us and be unified in our common cause to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
As I have said in previous posts, we are a moral movement; we are about right and wrong. This is one of our primary sources of power, the power to help persuade all of us to act certain ways and not others, to join together to create a better world by achieving our vision and thus fulfill our Better Future Covenant, to keep going when victory seems far off.
We must not lose sight of the power that comes from doing what’s right.
But who is to say what’s right?
We are. Each one of us.
Does this sound like moral chaos? It is a simple consequence of our ability to choose, the choice-function we were born with.
Our first teachers of right and wrong are our parents or primary caregivers, who seek to channel our choices. Many of the groups we belong to in our lives — childhood friends, teenage peer groups, college groups, civic groups, online groups and Social Media, work relationships and our place of employment, political groups, the nation where we live — also seek to influence our choices. And then there are cultural products that attempt to shape us — literature, art, films and TV, ritual. It is a cacophony of voices and practices.
To be big and broad and active enough we must be made up of people whose understanding of right and wrong has been influenced by the breadth of human influences that exist.
All of this is to say that the Climate Movement doesn’t have a Pope. No one is in charge of the Climate Movement. No one has the authority to say what’s right for everyone in the Climate Movement.
We must be persuaded, and then we must choose. (Incidentally, persuading you is what I’m trying to do much of the time!)
Just because the Climate Movement doesn’t have a pope, doesn’t mean we can’t listen to the Pope!
But just because we don’t have a pope, that doesn’t mean we can’t listen to the Pope! You don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate what a Pope says and does, the moral leadership a Pope provides.
That’s why I was so pleased to see that Pope Leo is continuing in the tradition of Pope Francis in teaching about the climate crisis and caring for the environment more generally.
Recently Pope Leo led the first “Mass For the Care of Creation” based on a new liturgy of prayers and Scripture readings which has been added to the official book of texts for celebrating Mass. This new Mass grew out of the need to make the teachings on creation-care more assessable and familiar, especially as found in Pope Francis’ Encyclical, Laudato si, or “To the Care of our Common Home,” which had a strong emphasis on climate change.
Pope Leo began his reflections on this new Mass and Pope Francis’ leadership by noting that everyone must be “converted” to our calling as human beings for climate action and the care of all of creation:
At the beginning of Mass, we prayed for conversion, our own conversion. I would like to add that we should pray for the conversion of the many people, inside and outside the Church, who do not yet recognize the urgent need to care for our common home. The many natural disasters we see occurring almost daily in our world, in so many places and countries, are also in part a result of the excesses of human beings and our lifestyles. We need to ask whether we ourselves are undergoing that conversion. How much we need it!
The Climate Movement and Climate Action Supporters are the driving forces propelling forward the strategic synergy of the Catalytic-4 that will overcome climate change. But to become what we must be — 80% of the population calling for bold climate action — we must help persuade many who are not yet with us to join our moral cause.
And so this call by Pope Leo for everyone to become a part of “the urgent need to care for our common home” is welcome news and supports our efforts.
Speaking to his fellow Christians, Pope Leo said:
Our mission to care for creation, to foster peace and reconciliation, is Jesus’ own mission, the mission that the Lord entrusts to us. We hear the cry of the earth and we hear the cry of the poor, because this plea has reached the heart of God. Our indignation is his indignation; our work is his work.
Pope Leo recognizes that creation-care, climate action, and peace and reconciliation are all a part of the Christian life. They are “the mission that the Lord entrusts to us.” And then he adds these poignant words: “We hear the cry of the earth and we hear the cry of the poor, because this plea has reached the heart of God.”
We hear the cry of the earth and we hear the cry of the poor, because this plea has reached the heart of God.
You don’t have to be a Christian or an adherent of any traditional faith community or believe in God to be touched by this sentiment.
Two more of the characteristics/imperatives/goals of the Climate Movement are that we must be passionate enough and deep enough for us to become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world so that we can make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful and our future come faster. That the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor has reached the heart of God, however we understand this, fires our passion and deepens our commitment to climate action, to becoming what we are destined and called to be.
Pope Leo goes on to say that the Lord
commits the Church to speak prophetically, even when it calls for the courage to oppose the destructive power of the princes of this world. The unbreakable covenant between Creator and his creatures inspires our minds and galvanizes our efforts to ensure that evil may turn into good, injustice into justice, and greed to sharing.
All of us in the Climate Movement, and all who will become a part of us, and all Climate Action Supporters are working together to turn bad into good, injustice into justice, and greed into a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances the wellbeing of everyone and everything.
Everything? On that final point, near the end of his message Pope Leo says this:
With infinite love, God has created all things and given them life. That is why Saint Francis of Assisi could call every creature his brother, his sister and his mother.
Love is our most supreme Movement value, and love and life are intimately connected. Life flows from love, which is why we seek for justice, so that every person and all of the other creatures enjoy the lives intended for them, because they are loved.
It is good for us to listen to our ally in climate action, Pope Leo, and find hope in his leadership and that of Pope Francis. We are a moral movement, and they are our friends. Join us!
Remember to check out our Introductory Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.