Continuing the Work of Pope Francis

The author is a Sophomore at Laurel School in Ohio.

“Today…we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” – Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (2015)

On Monday, April 21, 2025, Pope Francis passed away at the age of 88. 

Pope Francis was the first pope from the global south in over 1,000 years and the first from South America. With humility, Pope Francis advocated for inclusion, peace, economic justice, and the environment. The question now is, how do we continue his work into the future?

Pope Francis was born on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was elected pope in 2013. When he was elected as pope, Archbishop Jorge Mario of Buenos Aires chose the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of, among other things, ecology and the environment. In his second year as pope, Pope Francis issued the first-ever encyclical to be devoted entirely to issues of the environment and climate: Laudato si’, which highlights the duty and role of humans in caring for the Earth and recognizes that the climate crisis is both an environmental and social issue and has an outsized impact on the poor. 

Although this was a point of division among some Catholics, it also inspired the creation of environmental stewardship and action groups within the church and brought new international attention to the climate crisis. As Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and the editor at large of catholic media company, America Media, stated, “Before Pope Francis, climate change was seen either as a political issue or a scientific issue. What his encyclical did was frame it as a spiritual issue.”

During his twelve years as pope, Pope Francis uplifted topics around the environment, poverty, immigration, and refugeeism. He was not afraid to take political and social stances in his advocacy as he felt they were part of his core beliefs and spirituality. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican officially joined the Paris Agreement in 2022, and by 2050 it has committed to becoming carbon neutral. Meeting with world leaders and oil company executives, Pope Francis pressed for a faster decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, and has stood in solidarity with indigenous people around the world, denouncing environmental exploitation of the global south by the global north. 

Christiana Figueres, former United Nations climate chief who was the lead architect of the Paris Agreement, stated in an interview about the pope, “Pope Francis has left a profound legacy on environmental issues…He emphasized the moral responsibility to care for the Earth, framing climate change not just as an environmental crisis, but as a social and ethical one. … By highlighting the interconnectedness of humanity and the planet, Francis' teachings have inspired both religious and secular communities to confront the ecological challenges of our time with compassion, urgency, and responsibility.”

Eight years after issuing Laudato Si’, Francis released Laudate Deum. On the topic of climate change, he wrote:

Pope Francis, in 2020

"I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point, in addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons."

He later commented on Laudate Deum saying that "I wanted to draw the attention of all humanity to the urgency of a necessary change of attitude in our relations with the environment, recalling that the current ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion." 

Lorna Gold, executive director of the Laudato Si' Movement remarked in the wake of his death; "We are heartbroken, but we take on this responsibility to be a living legacy of Pope Francis and to carry his message forward, in particular his courage to speak truth to power — and he lived this right to the very end in his service of the mission of the church."

As the cardinals are in the process of electing the new pope, the question remains: how do we continue to build on the work of Pope Francis?