Nearly 10 years ago, Pope Francis released a brutal diagnosis of climate change: It was a profound failure of human morality.
Read today, in the week of his death, the pamphlet feels both more distant and more urgent than ever. Its message of unity and healing with nature is worlds away from today’s discourse of clashing greed, national competition and climate-trashing populism in places like the U.S. and his homeland of Argentina.
Francis’ intent was revolutionary. “There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself,” he wrote in Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You).
But such a clear moral position is rarely heard today from climate leaders and champions — many of whom praised Francis this week as a patron saint of their cause.
