Earlier this month, The New York Times (Povoledo, 2025) reported on a newly introduced Vatican Mass by Pope Leo XIV, centered on environmental care. The Mass, in combination with other newly introduced steps, represents the church’s commitment to sustainability and exemplifies a spiritual, cultural, and communal response to climate action and environmental stewardship.
According to the article, the new mass features readings and prayers centered around the duty to care for creation, which is a foundational theme of liturgy. This comes at a time when the leaders within the Roman Catholic Church also publicly issued a formal statement urging global political leaders to take stronger, more urgent action on the climate crisis, in a document titled “A call for Climate Justice and the Common Home: Ecological Conversion, Transformation and Resistance to False Solutions.” Not to mention, 2025 marks the Jubilee Year, further adding important context and symbolic weight to this development as a sacred time for reflection, justice, renewal and restoration in the Catholic Church.
These steps taken by the Vatican, encourage communal reflection and collective environmental action, serving as an expression of sustainability ethics that is rooted in faith. In this context, the church recognizes that our current climate realities are not solely a scientific or political issue, but are also moral and spiritual as well. This story is a rich example of how communities can unite and integrate cultural traditions into sustainable development to advance environmental accountability, communal action, and spiritual resilience. By building a sense of moral duty in caring for the planet, it will impact how people see their relationship to the Earth and to each other. In doing so, the Roman Catholic Church is embedding sustainability into religious practice, mobilizing its global community (a billion people) around the world, in the shared responsibility to protect our common home.
Written by Sabrina Careri, for Ann Dale.
Image Source: Andy Luo from Unsplash
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