Is the new Pope the world of the environment?

On January 2018, Pope Francis to treat 100,000 believers in Porto Maldonado, Peru, not far from the place where gold mining had destroyed an area of ​​Amazon rain around Colorado. He said to the crowd: “Perhaps the original Amazon peoples have never been threatened with their lands as they are at the present time.” Simultaneously condemned the extractive industries and memorization efforts that “under the guise of preserving the forest, and large forests and negotiating with them, leading to the positions of persecution for the origins of the original peoples.”

Francis denounced the uncertain consumerism that drives the destruction of the Amazon, and the support of those who say that the guardianship of the original peoples of their lands must be respected, and urged everyone to defend the isolated tribes. He said: “Their cosmic vision and their wisdom have a lot to teach those of us who are not part of their culture.”

To Julio Kosurichi Palacius, the original leader of the population who was on the field on that day, the words were from the head of the Catholic Church – which claims 1.4 billion members and has a long history of violence against indigenous peoples around the world – welcome.

“A few world leaders have talked about our issues, and the Pope has publicly said that the rights of indigenous peoples have been historically violated,” He said After the death of Pope Francis last month. “Let’s hope that the new Pope will be the person who can continue to implement the situation that the Pope talks about.”

During the 12 years of his life, Francis has radically reshaped how a stronger religious institution in the world dealt with the moral and moral call to protect the planet. In addition to his calls for the rights of the indigenous population, Francis admitted the role of the Church in colonialism, and climate change was considered an ethical issue born from consumption and rampant materialism. Since the Trump administration is dismantling climate work and cutting funding for the indigenous peoples around the world-the extreme right-wing policy continues to rise globally-Experts believe that the flavor of Robert Francis Preveost, or Pope Liu fourteenth as it is now known, as a clear beacon that the regular justice movement based on the list on what is spent anywhere.

In 2015, Pope Francis released his historic, or musical papacy, entitled “Bat” Laudato si‘ In the approximately 180 -page document, unambiguously identified pollution in which heating the planet is unambiguous as an urgent global issue that is not proportional to the poor in the world, and the wealthy countries in rich countries such as the United States are condemned to contribute to the climate crisis. However, Francis did not do what no door had done before: he spoke very clearly and urgently about the human deterioration of the environment is not just an environmental issue, but rather a social and moral issue. Laudato Si created the final relationship between faith, climate change and social justice, and made it a principle of Catholic faith.

” The seventh generation alliance between religions for responsible investment And a former priest. “This means caring for people, especially the poorest, the most vulnerable, and the most marginalized. We also need much larger care for creation. We got a beautiful land and we consume it at a rate that is far exceeding what will be able to maintain life in the long run.”

Francis was the first Pope in Latin America, Francis, to implicitly adopt some elements of liberation theology, the Catholic Social Justice Movement that calls for the liberation of marginalized peoples from repression. Although Francis was sometimes criticizing the elements of the Market principle of belief and never supported it, many observers see his statements related to the poor people and the indigenous people as reflecting the central values ​​of the doctrine.

“From the beginning of the papacy, this communication, this recognition of the original methods of being the Catholic language and the indigenous population of Catholicism – to that point – is an official scope at the original university that studied the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Catholic team Their religion has made many of its own Catholic societies, and may arrest an increasing number of church leaders for the idea that there are multiple ways of Catholicism and that Catholicism and original cultures can coexist.

A year after the Pope becomes, Francis agreed to use the two Mayan languages, Tzotzil and Tzeltal, in a mass and secret such as baptism and confession. In 2015, he expanded this list to include the Aztec Nahuatl language, and in 2016, during a visit to Mexico, he celebrated the Mass in Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Chol.

In 2022, Francis officially apologized to Canada for the residential schools that destroyed the indigenous children of their families, which led to the death of many who later buried in unique graves. The following year, the doctrine of discovery rejected, a religious concept that the colonists used to justify the illegal seizure of the land of the indigenous peoples and became Part of the US Supreme Court ruling 1823 Which described the original Americans as “brutal”.

“The doctrine of discovery is not part of the Catholic Church’s teaching,” Pope Francis He said, adding that he It strongly supports the global implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Native Peoples. He also made a clear relationship between those rights and climate work: in 2023, he explained that the original peoples Decisive in combating climate change When he said: “ignoring the indigenous societies in protecting the earth is a serious mistake, it does not mean that he says great injustice.”

But Progressive Pope Francis had its limits. In 2019, it is Call on the church leadersKnown as the Bishop Senodes, for the Amazon entire region to address problems that affect the Amazon basin. The indigenous Catholics who attended the raising of trees and illegal violence against land defenders and proposed reforms. “The wisdom of the ancestors of the original peoples confirms that the motherland has a female face.” Read the document This appeared from the assembly and urged the church to give women more leadership roles and to allow the marks married to the arrangement of priests. In responseFrancis condemned the companies that destroy the Amazon as committing “injustice and crime”, so far Refusal to embrace proposals To make the church leadership more comprehensive for married women and men.

Francis’s climate activity was also Fill in restrictions. How religious institutions have seen the climate crisis, which develops failure to dispose of them as a Brutal “Towards the most at risk, but it was possible to implement” more direct institutional work. “Although the previous ink supported the adoption of renewable energy publicly, called for not investing fossil fuels, and pushing churches around the world to go to solar energy, but he did not win what he considered” energy transmission Rore “through the dioceses, schools and hospitals. Ahmed said that the work he performed” was possible to amplify a little more and he had more accountability. “

She pointed out that this restriction, most likely stems from the contradictory policy that plays inside the church – many conservative traditional Catholics, Especially in the United StatesFrancis’s progressive teachings. 2021 Ticket I found that over a period of five years, most American bishops were “almost silent and sometimes misleading”, in their official messages to the parish sons about climate change and the famous encyclopedia of the Pope.

Although Pope Liu XIV has been praised by his defense in defending immigrants and workers’ rights – known as Liu XIII, who ruled from 1878 to 1903 as a historic Catholic champion Social justice and equality – New Pope Register about engaging directly with climate change is sporadic.

However, Marie Evelyn Taker, the director participating in the Yale Forum on Religion and the Environment, sees comments that the new Pope that the Pope made last year needed to move.From one words to anotherAs a promising evidence that Francis’s commitment to condemning the world of warming will continue.

She said: “It may be a sign to say” America, return to the global community, and return to the future of planetary, where we work collectively to create a future that deserves our children and our children. “

Liu grew up in Chicago, a citizen of both the United States and Peru, where he spent contracts for work as missionaries and roofs before Francis Cardinal made him in 2023. He speaks five languages ​​fluently And some QuechuaThe language of the indigenous people.

While working in Peru in the 1990s, Liu was criticizing the government’s violations of human rights-although he refrained from being explicitly in the political battle between the Mawaian rebels and the then Decor government, Alberto Fujimori, according to Matthew Casey, a historian and a clinical associate professor in the state of Arizona based in Lima. However, his reaction to tyranny in the country can provide a glimpse of the situations that he might take as the Pope. “It does not matter who was offending human rights, and he was beside people,” he said.

In 2016, the Pope Pope Speak at a conference In Brazil, the attendees talked about the threats of rainforests and the original diseases that lived there. He praised the Francis Encyclopedia, describing the document as “very important”, and represents “something new in terms of this explicit expression of the Church’s interest in all creation.” For Casey, this indicates that Pope Leo XIV, like his predecessor, has awareness of issues that affect the original peoples, such as the outbreak of the environment.

Casey said: “Francis and Boost are suitable for retreating in ways that they could not be in Europe or the United States, because the policy of retreating in Latin America is completely different,” Casey said. More than a week later, and it is called Conclave, which is called the Pope, societies through Peru are still celebrating the selection of Pope Liu XIV.

Levy, historian of Alfred University, said that Francis and Wyu’s joint experiences that work with marginalized societies affected by colonialism and climate change, and their commitment to social justice on the church mission, is especially useful at this political moment.

He said: “We are witnessing a return to the policy of the right -wing extremist wing worldwide, and the Catholic Church adjacent to the United Nations is one of the few organizations that may be able to respond in one way or another to the questions of our modern time or our contemporary moment.”

This article was originally appeared in Barrier in https://grist.org/international/pope-leo-climate-catholic-igenous-francis/. Grist is a non -profit and independent media organization dedicated to the novel of climate solution stories and a just future. Learn more in Grist.org.