Earlier this week, on Easter Monday, Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) passed away from stroke and heart attack at the age of 88. His funeral will take place tomorrow starting at 4am EST and will be live-streamed on the Vatican YouTube channel.
He was a great source of Hope for many, especially in the areas of justice, care for migrants and the poor, and care for the Earth. He was a hero to many in the field of religion and ecology, and his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si', is considered to be one of the most important documents of our time. You'll find many resources related to Laudato Si here.
Many people around the globe have been sharing reflections on his life and legacy. Our own Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim shared their thoughts this week on our YouTube channel:
This Laudato Si' Movement event celebrating his life aired live this morning and featured individuals such as Fletcher Harper and Iyad Abumoghli. Bishop Vicente Ferreira's thoughtful comments on the Integral Ecology of Pope Francis are also available in print form here.
The National Catholic Reporter also did a piece on his environmental legacy, as well as one that covered his life and what me might expect from the next Bishop of Rome.
Andrew Revkin, former New York Times environmental blogger, reposted a piece he had written about Pope Francis in 2014 after the Vatican workshop where the Pope had laid the foundations for Laudato Si'.
But we'd like to close today with Pope Francis' own words. Though there are many gorgeous quotes from Laudato Si' that illustrate his concern for the Earth and the poor (read the full text here), this one I feel is a charge–a mantle he is now handing over to us:
“How wonderful is the certainty that each human life is not adrift in the midst of hopeless chaos, in a world ruled by pure chance or endlessly recurring cycles! The Creator can say to each one of us: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jer 1:5). We were conceived in the heart of God, and for this reason “each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary”.[39]
Each of us is necessary. Each of us has a crucial part to play in creating a truly ecological civilization for the future of Earth. He showed us what a difference one individual can make. And now that he has moved on from this world, we must each of us take up the task ever more earnestly.