Early this morning, the Vatican announced the passing of Pope Francis on Easter Monday, April 21, at the age of 88. After faithfully serving as head of the Catholic Church for over a decade, Pope Francis leaves behind a rich legacy of Christian leadership that will have lasting impact for generations to come, including bringing deeper awareness to the biblical mandate to care for God’s creation and the impact of climate and environmental degradation on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. In 2015, his encyclical Laudato si’: On Care For Our Common Home brought together faith, climate science, and the need to take action, a point further highlighted in his 2023 treatise on climate change, Laudate Deum. 

“It is with profound sadness that I awoke this morning to the death of Pope Francis,” says Rev. Mitch Hescox, EEN’s President Emeritus. “Although from a different tradition than my own, Pope Francis was one of, if not the greatest, Christian leaders of our generation. His love and care for the marginalized children of God and living out his faith in tune with Jesus’s Gospel inspired all of Christianity. Pope Francis’s Laudato si’ expressed care for God’s creation and climate change regarding human life, reflecting the Evangelical Environmental Network's core belief that creation care is a matter of life.

“Two events illustrated Pope Francis’s impact on my life. Firstly, I was honored to attend President Obama’s state reception for the Pope during his visit to the United States. There, the crowd exuded an extraordinary sense of peace and hope that I had never experienced at any other public event. On the second occasion, I had the opportunity to present at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican on Children’s Health and Climate Change. The Vatican organized this meeting in accordance with Laudato si’, bringing together leading scientists, public health experts, and religious leaders from various traditions to address the imminent threat of climate change faced by those least responsible and most affected around the world.

“Pope Francis will be remembered for living out Jesus’s greatest commandment:

“‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’” (Mark 12:29-31)

EEN’s President & CEO, Rev. Dr. Jessica Moerman, reflects:

“Pope Francis’s impact broadening and deepening engagement on environmental care, both within and beyond the walls of the church, cannot be overstated. With his collective call to care for our common home, Pope Francis inspired people of faith and non-faith alike to care for God’s creation as a matter of life and as a matter of faith. The Evangelical Environmental Network offers our deepest condolences to our Catholic brothers and sisters on the passing of Pope Francis and celebrates the life and legacy of a true servant leader.”