Pope Leo XIV has celebrated what has been dubbed the first “green” papal Mass after journeying to his 135-acre summer palace in Castel Gandolfo south of Rome ahead of a six-week vacation break.
AP reports a new set of prayers imploring care for God’s creation were used Wednesday in the private mass in a sign Leo intends to emphasize “environmental stewardship and climate justice for the world’s most vulnerable people.”
In addressing climate issues, the recently elected 267th leader of the Catholic Church is following the papal footsteps on the man he succeeded.
AP detailed some of the background to the holy gathering, reporting:
The private Mass was celebrated for the Laudato Si center, named for Francis’ 2015 environmental encyclical, in which the first pope from the Global South blasted the way wealthy countries and multinational corporations had exploited the Earth and its most vulnerable people for profit.
Leo approved the new Mass formula “for the care of creation,” directing it to be added to the list of 49 Masses that have been developed over centuries for a specific need or occasion. Officials said it was crafted in response to requests stemming from Francis’ encyclical, which has inspired a whole church movement and foundation to educate, advocate and sensitize the world to the biblically mandated call to care for nature.
Leo, history’s first American pope, has previously indicated he intends to further his predecessor Francis’ ecological endeavors.
In a message for the church’s annual day of prayer for creation, Leo blasted the “injustice, violations of international law and the rights of peoples, grave inequalities and the greed that fuels them are spawning deforestation, pollution and the loss of biodiversity.”
He made no equivocations about what or who was to blame, identifying “climate change provoked by human activity.”
“As yet, we seem incapable of recognizing that the destruction of nature does not affect everyone in the same way. When justice and peace are trampled underfoot, those who are most hurt are the poor, the marginalized and the excluded,” he wrote in the message, released last week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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