Month: April 2025

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – With thousands of infirmed people and those who care for them gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis, seated in a wheelchair and wearing a nasal cannula, made an unexpected appearance to greet the crowd.

“A happy Sunday to you all, many thanks!” the pope said to them with a strained voice.

Appearing at the end of the closing Mass of the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers April 6, the pope shocked the thousands gathered in the square who broke out in cheers upon seeing his nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, wheel him out of St. Peter’s Basilica and into the square.

After his brief greeting, doctors in white lab coats, some wearing red clown noses, and infirmed people in wheelchairs applauded as Pope Francis was taken through the crowd to leave the square.

The appearance marks the first time Pope Francis had been seen in public since he was discharged from Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 23 after more than five weeks of treatment for breathing difficulties and double pneumonia.

Prior to appearing in the square, Pope Francis went to confession in St. Peter’s Basilica and passed through the Holy Door, the Vatican press office said.

Although the pope did not attend the entirety of the Mass, his spiritual presence was made tangible through the large cloth banner bearing his papal coat of arms that hung from the central balcony of the basilica. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, presided over the Mass as the pope’s delegate and read the pope’s homily.

Even amid pain, illness and human fragility, “God does not leave us alone and, if we abandon ourselves to him precisely where our strength fails, we can experience the consolation of his presence,” the pope wrote. “By becoming man, he wanted to share our weakness in everything. He knows what it is to suffer.”

Organizers expected some 20,000 pilgrims to come to Rome for the Jubilee celebration, including patients, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and other health care workers from more than 90 countries.

Doctors and infirmed people were seated in the front rows for the Mass; health care workers wearing white lab coats served as lectors during the liturgy.

In his homily, the pope emphasized that the experience of illness, though painful, can become “a school in which we learn each day to love and to let ourselves be loved, without being demanding or pushing back, without regrets and without despair.”

The pope urged society not to marginalize the weak and vulnerable but to embrace them as essential members of the community, quoting Pope Benedict XVI who said that a society unable to accept its suffering members “is a cruel and inhuman society.”

In his written message to accompany the Angelus, published by the Vatican after the Mass, Pope Francis reflected on his personal experience of illness.

“During my hospitalization, even now in my convalescence I feel the ‘finger of God’ and experience his caring touch,” he wrote. “On the day of the Jubilee of the sick and the world of health care, I ask the Lord that this touch of his love may reach those who suffer and encourage those who care for them.”

He expressed deep gratitude for health professionals, “who are not always helped to work in adequate conditions and are sometimes even victims of aggression,” calling for resources to be ” invested in treatment and research, so that health systems are inclusive and attentive to the most fragile and the poorest.”

The pope also renewed his appeal for peace in the world, urging the international community to act with urgency in places devastated by war.

“May the weapons be silenced and dialogue resumed; may all the hostages be freed and aid brought to the population,” he said, naming Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo, Myanmar and Haiti among the suffering regions.

SCRANTON – The month of April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. It is a time to recognize the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child mistreatment.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate a Healing Mass for Survivors of Abuse at 12:10 p.m. on Thursday, April 10, 2025, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

The Healing Mass provides space for those affected by abuse to find solace, strength, and support. Through prayer, reflection, and healing, the Diocese of Scranton remains committed to offering care and compassion to survivors

The Mass will be broadcast live on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton and livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and social media.

SCRANTON – Parishes across the Diocese of Scranton, including the Cathedral of Saint Peter, are busy preparing for Holy Week and Easter. The faithful are invited and encouraged to attend Masses to experience the joy, hope and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate several Pontifical Liturgies at the Cathedral of Saint Peter for this holiest time of the year.

CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will provide live coverage of all of the Pontifical Masses from the Cathedral of Saint Peter. In addition to being broadcast, the Masses will also be available via livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and all Diocesan social media platforms.

PALM SUNDAY, APRIL 13

The solemn observances of Holy Week, which recall the passion and death of Jesus Christ, begin on Palm Sunday, April 13. Those attending the service receive palms, a reminder of Scripture telling us that people welcomed Jesus by laying down their cloaks and waving palm branches.

Bishop Bambera will celebrate a Pontifical Liturgy at 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

CHRISM MASS, APRIL 15

Priests serving throughout the Diocese will gather at the Cathedral on Tuesday, April 15, at 4:00 p.m. for the Solemn Pontifical Chrism Mass, at which the Holy Oils used during the conferral of sacraments throughout the Church year will be blessed. Bishop Bambera will be the principal celebrant and homilist.

HOLY THURSDAY, APRIL 17

The three most sacred days of the Church’s liturgical year, known as the Sacred Paschal Triduum, begin on Holy Thursday, April 17, with the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

The Pontifical Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, which will include the Rite of the Washing of Feet, will begin at 5:30 p.m.

GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 18

On Good Friday, April 18, and the following day (up to the Easter Vigil Mass), by a most ancient tradition, the Church does not celebrate the sacraments at all, except for Penance and Anointing of the Sick.

The Commemoration of the Passion and Death of the Lord celebrated by Bishop Bambera will begin at 12:10 p.m.

HOLY SATURDAY, APRIL 19

Holy Saturday, April 19, is the day that the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb in prayer, meditating on his passion and death and awaiting his resurrection.

Bishop Bambera will be the principal celebrant and homilist of the Easter Vigil Mass at the Cathedral beginning at 8:00 p.m.

EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 20

Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord is the most joyous day in the Church year. This joy overflows into the 50 days of the Easter season, which concludes on Pentecost Sunday.

On Easter Day, Bishop Bambera will celebrate a Pontifical Mass at 10:00 a.m. at the Cathedral.

WILKES-BARRE – Hundreds of people will gather Saturday evening, April 5, 2025, for a night of fun with great food and exciting basketball games, all to benefit the programs and services of the Wyoming Valley Catholic Youth Center.

The CYC will hold its annual ‘March Madness’ event at the Westmoreland Club, South Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre, from 6 to 11 p.m.

The spirit of March Madness will be everywhere, including with the Final Four basketball games broadcast live on large screens throughout the evening.

The CYC March Madness event is one of the CYC’s largest fundraisers of the year. For those who cannot participate in person, there is an online auction available that opened on Wednesday. Dozens of items, including sports memorabilia, a trip to Walt Disney World, and much more, are available via online auction. All of the items can be viewed here.

The Wyoming Valley Catholic Youth Center has been a fixture in downtown Wilkes-Barre for decades, providing a solid foundation and serving as a home away from home for area youths and families.

The CYC is the largest single-site childcare center in Luzerne County. The facility serves children and families throughout Luzerne County:

• There are currently 247 children enrolled in the 24-hour-a-day childcare program. Of that number, 110 are aged six months to five years. The other 137 children participate in the CYC before/after-school program
• The CYC served a total of 687 children during the 2024 calendar year in its day care/school-aged program
• The CYC serves nearly 10,000 meals a month to the children in our care
• This past winter, 478 children participated in youth basketball leagues

Over its many decades of service to the community, the CYC has developed the personalities, gifts, talents and goals of thousands of young men and women while serving as a major recreation agency.

The CYC’s original structure consisted of multipurpose rooms for programming and special events. A 1959 expansion brought a gymnasium and swimming pool. More land was purchased in the 1970s that allowed for the construction of outdoor basketball and tennis courts and a playground. Through a capital expansion/improvement program, the CYC added a state-of-the-art aquatic center, converted the existing swimming pool into an additional gymnasium, remodeled its main gymnasium, and purchased land to create a park at the rear of the facility.

The Olympic-size pool and community-use indoor basketball court, among other recreational amenities, are community value-adds in the health and wellness arenas, but – even more important in keeping with the CYC’s core mission – they provide outlets for physical health, recreation and socialization for a local population of underprivileged and underserved families who otherwise would lack options for physical exercise, supervised play or coached sport.

Throughout its history, the CYC has evolved to meet changing community needs and now offers social and recreational opportunities to adults and senior citizens as it operates with a motto of “For the Young and the Young at Heart.”

All programming fosters physical, intellectual, and moral development as it combats and prevents substance abuse, delinquency and undesirable or traumatic family circumstances. Ninety-five percent of individuals served are low-income, and they depend on the CYC for unique offerings that include 24-hour childcare, pick-up and drop-off transportation for respite care and drop-in recreation, physical activity, and socialization.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument April 2 in a case concerning South Carolina’s attempt to prevent Planned Parenthood from participating in its Medicaid health program, in what could determine the nation’s largest abortion provider’s ability to use public funds in states that have restricted abortion.

Supporters of allowing Planned Parenthood to receive Medicaid funds point to that group’s involvement in cancer screening and prevention services — such as pap tests and HPV vaccinations — but critics argue the funds are fungible and could be used to facilitate abortion.

Efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of these or other taxpayer funds are sometimes called “defunding,” such as a 2018 executive order signed by Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., stripping two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state of Medicaid funds, a federal program for health care for people with low incomes that is administered by the states.

Federal law generally prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for abortion, and McMaster argued at the time that abortion clinics should be excluded from participating in the Medicaid program. But the Planned Parenthood affiliate in South Carolina and its Medicaid patient, Julie Edwards, argued that any patients eligible for Medicaid should have free choice to obtain health care from any qualified provider.

A key question in the case is whether Medicaid recipients have the ability to sue over such decisions to maintain their chosen provider.

But John Bursch, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy, who represented the state, argued before the high court that “the words ‘free’ and ‘choice’ don’t appear anywhere” in the statute relevant to Medicaid.

However, pointing to language in the Medicaid law specifying recipients can choose their doctor, Chief Justice John Roberts asked elsewhere during argument, “If the person thinks that’s not being provided, what remedies do they have?”

Attorney Nicole Saharsky, who is representing Planned Parenthood South Atlantic before the court, argued that there is “no alternative federal remedy.”

“There is no way for individuals to challenge the state’s decision to deny them their provider of choice,” she said. “There is no federal cause of action. There is no administrative remedy. Congress expected that an individual would be able to sue in the rare instance when a state is keeping a needy patient away from a qualified and willing provider, if the individual can’t sue, this provision will be meaningless.”

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic has argued its role in South Carolina’s health system is “irreplaceable,” claiming it provides birth control and cancer screenings to people who cannot afford them elsewhere.

According to its website, each of the two clinics Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates in South Carolina offer abortion prior to the state’s six-week ban.

National health statistics on abortion compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show approximately 39.5% of abortions take place within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of the court’s current term, typically in June.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – During his long and fruitful pontificate, St. John Paul II embraced the entire world, which stands yet again in need of his blessing, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said.

“Bless us, Holy Father John Paul II. Bless the Lord’s church on its journey, that it may be a pilgrim of hope. Bless this lacerated and disoriented humanity, that it may find the way back to its dignity and its highest vocation, that it may know the riches of God’s mercy and love,” the cardinal said during a memorial Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica April 2, the 20th anniversary of the late Polish pope’s death.

Hundreds of faithful attended the Mass, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a small government delegation representing Poland as well as cardinals and bishops living in Rome and diplomats accredited to the Vatican.

Retired Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who served as St. John Paul’s personal secretary from 1966 until the pope’s death in 2005, greeted and thanked all those who were present.

“Our hearts go out to the Holy Father Francis,” who could not attend as he continues to recover in his residence, the Polish cardinal said. “We know that right now, he is spiritually united with us.”

“We pray for his health, that the Lord will give him the strength he needs to lead the pilgrim church in this Jubilee Year, under the banner of hope in these difficult times for the church and also for the world,” the cardinal said.

Pope Francis had sent Cardinal Dziwisz a letter before his hospitalization Feb. 14, expressing his wishes for a peaceful Holy Year lived in a spirit of hope and offering his blessings to all those taking part in events April 2.

Cardinal Parolin, who began serving in the Vatican Secretariat of State under the late pope starting in 1986, gave the homily, which recalled the legacy and spirituality of the Polish pope, whose pontificate of more than 26 years was the third longest in history.

Pope John Paul exclaimed “with impressive force from the very first unforgettable homily at the inauguration of his pontificate, ‘Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ,'” who knows what humanity is meant to be and points the way to eternal life, the cardinal said.

Because of that conviction, the late pope “could address with authority and firmness not only the Catholic faithful, but also peoples and government leaders,” urging them to “be aware of their responsibility to defend justice, the dignity of human persons and peace,” he said.

“We remember with gratitude and admiration his tireless service of peace, his passionate warnings, his diplomatic initiatives trying to avert wars” even when he was experiencing difficult moments in his life and “the fragility of physical strength was already evident,” Cardinal Parolin said.

St. John Paul never gave up, he said, even while “many of his appeals remained unfortunately unheeded, as happens even to great prophets.”

Another unforgettable hallmark of Pope John Paul’s legacy, he said, was the great Holy Year of 2000 and his ushering the church and the world into the third millennium.

The pope invited the church to confidently set out to sea and cast wide its nets with the new evangelization, he said.

“His words continue to inspire us and are echoed today by his successor, Francis, in this new jubilee,” which also sees the church’s faithful as setting out into “troubled waters, but still pilgrims of hope,” he said, “guided by Peter’s successor and assisted by the Holy Spirit.”

Like the “countless pilgrims who continually come to this basilica and ask for his intercession at the altar where his body rests,” Cardinal Parolin prayed the saint would continue to bless all the faithful, the church and humanity so that everyone would know God’s mercy and love.

After the Mass, dignitaries processed to St. John Paul’s tomb to pray. Cardinal Dzivisz placed a lit white candle on the altar and four representatives of Poland set a large bouquet of red and white roses, the colors of the Polish flag, next to the tomb, which was adorned with many flowers.

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the papal vicar of Rome, read a prayer, asking for the saint to bless the world’s young people and the faithful so they would be “tireless missionaries of the Gospel today.”

“Bless every family,” he said, underlining how the pope warned against “Satan’s assault against this precious spark of heaven that God has lit on earth. Make us strong and courageous in defending the family.”

“Pray for the whole world, scarred by so many injustices and lacerated by absurd wars, which turn the world into a bloody battlefield, deliver us from war, which is always a defeat for everyone,” Cardinal Reina said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Even when a person seems totally lost and unable to find a way back to God, the Lord is already looking for him or her, said the text for Pope Francis’ weekly general audience.

“Let us nurture our desire to see Jesus, and above all let us allow ourselves to be found by the mercy of God, who always comes in search of us, in whatever situation we may be lost,” said the text prepared for April 2.

While Pope Francis was not holding audiences since he was still recovering from double pneumonia and multiple infections, the Vatican has been publishing the texts prepared for his general audiences each Wednesday.

During the Holy Year 2025, the pope’s audiences have focused on “Jesus Christ our hope.” The text for April 2 was the third in a series looking at Gospel stories of Jesus’ encounter with different people and how meeting him changed their lives.

After looking at Nicodemus and then the Samaritan woman at the well, the early April text focused on the story of Zacchaeus from Luke 19:1-10.

Pope Francis, who often talks about how God is waiting for people to turn back to him, wrote that the Zacchaeus story “has a special place in my spiritual journey.”

Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector and so probably reviled by his neighbors. The Gospel also says Zacchaeus was wealthy, “suggesting that he has grown rich on the backs of others, abusing his position,” the pope’s text said.

Zacchaeus hears that Jesus is coming to Jericho, and he wants to see him, but he is too short to see over the crowd.

Something similar can happen to everyone, the pope said. “It is our reality: we have limitations that we have to deal with.”

To find a way around those limitations, he said, “you need to be courageous and unashamed; you need a little of the simplicity of children and not to worry about your own image. Zacchaeus, like a child, climbs a tree.”

He might have thought he could see Jesus without being seen, the pope said, but the Lord notices him.

Zacchaeus — and the people in the crowd — probably expected Jesus to rebuke him for being a tax collector, but Jesus asks him to climb down and tells him that he wants to go to his house.

The Gospel story shows that “God does not pass by without looking for those who are lost,” the pope said.

And “Luke highlights the joy in Zacchaeus’ heart,” the text said. “It is the joy of one who feels that he has been seen, acknowledged and above all forgiven.”

“Jesus’ gaze is not one of reproach, but of mercy,” the pope continued. “It is that mercy we sometimes struggle to accept, especially when God forgives those who, in our opinion, do not deserve it.”

After he is forgiven by Jesus, Zacchaeus vows to return four times the amount of money he has extorted from anyone, the Gospel says.

“It is not a price to be paid, because God’s forgiveness is free,” the pope said, “but rather the desire to imitate the one by whom he felt loved.”

(OSV News) – As the death toll following the massive earthquake in Myanmar is expected to reach 3,000, humanitarian organizations in the region, like Catholic Relief Services, are working round the clock to get essential supplies to those in need.

Cara Bragg, country manager for CRS Myanmar, said that while it’s “still too early to tell,” the devastation wrought by the 7.7 magnitude quake is “sure to cause some major, long-term impacts for people here.”

“Thousands have lost their homes, so there will be more people in need of temporary housing. Many have lost their businesses, so they won’t have a source of income. We’ve already heard reports of people unable to find anywhere to buy food, so we are worried about hunger,” Bragg said in an email to OSV News April 1.

“And we don’t know yet what the impact has been for farmers, so we could be talking about a long-term, large-scale disruption in crops, and that of course will impact hunger levels,” she said. “It is so critical to provide immediate relief now — providing food, water, medicine, shelter materials and other household items, like mosquito nets, soap and blankets.”

The epicenter of the March 28 earthquake struck Mandalay, the country’s second largest city, destroying roads, buildings and religious sites. While the death toll as of April 2 stood at 2,886 people with another 4,639 injured, according to state television MRTV as cited by The Associated Press, the number is believed to surpass 3,000 as hundreds more are still missing or feared dead, the Reuters news agency reported.

Based in Yangon, the country’s largest city, CRS Myanmar is coordinating relief efforts with local and international partners, including Caritas, which is known locally as the Karuna Mission Social Solidarity, or KMSS. CRS is the official international relief and development agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Bragg told OSV News that due to the devastating “loss of life, the high number of injuries and the wide-scale destruction,” assessing a “clear picture of the impact of the earthquake was challenging at first.”

“Phone networks were down or unreliable. The major highway between Yangon — where the CRS office is — and Mandalay, which is the second-largest city in Myanmar and very close to the earthquake’s epicenter, was damaged, impeding our ability to send teams to support our staff and partners in the most affected areas,” she explained.

However, “connectivity has improved” over the last few days and routes have been cleared “so there has been a way to get information about the critical needs and start moving aid workers and supplies to where they need to be.”

The earthquake hit the country at a time of uncertainty due to the ongoing civil war between resistance groups and Myanmar’s governing military junta, which overthrew the previous democratically elected government in 2021.

Several reports accused the military junta of not prioritizing relief efforts and has continued bombing rebel-controlled areas and hampering relief efforts by aid organizations. The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has turned down ceasefire proposals from rebel groups that were aimed at allowing aid to reach regions affected by the deadly earthquake on Friday.

Bragg said that beyond “the initial complications caused by damage to the highways and roads, we haven’t experienced any significant issues in proceeding with the response.”

“Throughout our 80 years, CRS has worked in a number of different, complex scenarios, and thankfully in Myanmar, we have a strong relationship with the local churches and Caritas — KMSS — so we’ve been able to lean on them. They’ve helped us ensure that our work is reaching the most vulnerable in the most effective way possible,” she said.

Bragg told OSV News that several CRS and KMSS staff members in Mandalay are working to provide relief, despite the fact that some have even lost their homes.

“It’s been inspiring to see the resiliency of the people here,” Bragg said. “Despite going through this very traumatic event, they are out there doing whatever they can to help their neighbors.”

“We have a few team members in Mandalay right now. They have been figuring out the immediate needs and trying to determine the best way for us to respond together with our partner staff,” she added. “We are planning for additional team members to travel to Mandalay soon to join them and provide critical technical expertise and operational support to our local church partners. We are bringing emergency supplies to the affected areas and doing our best to reach the people in need as soon as possible.”

Bragg urged prayers and asked that those “who are in a position to donate,” visit the CRS website.

“Catholics across the U.S. are always among the first to stand up and support their sisters and brothers overseas, and we are extremely grateful for their generosity,” she noted.

Despite the fact that “recovery is going to take a long time,” Bragg told OSV News that she remains hopeful that “together, we can help the people of Myanmar rebuild.”

“The resiliency of the Myanmar people is so remarkable, and I know they will persevere through this crisis thanks to local support systems and solidarity from the international community,” she said.

(OSV News) – In 2015, Pope Francis shared an urgent message with the world.

Writing in “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” he said the Earth “cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”

With the 10th anniversary of the release of “Laudato Si'” approaching May 24, experts wonder: Have we been listening?

Several Catholic ecological experts and organizations agree that good – even great – work is being done to address climate issues. But, they say, it is not enough.

Pope Francis said so himself in 2023 when he penned “Laudate Deum,” an apostolic exhortation “to all people of good will on the climate crisis,” released eight years after “Laudato Si’.”

“With the passage of time,” said Pope Francis, “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.”

The pope further forecast a bleak global future, with widespread impacts on human dignity.

“In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons,” Pope Francis wrote. “We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc.”

Pope Francis’ concern about such outcomes is rooted in integral ecology — a central tenet of “Laudato Si'” that emphasizes the interconnectivity of the many issues facing humanity, while urging a comprehensive outlook to engage global challenges.

Brother Jacek Orzechowski — a Franciscan friar and associate director of the Laudato Si Center for Integral Ecology at Siena College in Loudonville, New York — echoed the pontiff’s warning.

“The speed and the scale of the progress has not been commensurate with the gravity and urgency of the crisis,” Brother Orzechowski said.

“It’s a consequence of not really embracing the message of an integral ecology, and treating the environmental issues, climate issues, social justice issues, as not on par with other moral issues,” he said. “There’s a bit of a disconnect between the papal pronouncements and some of the laudable efforts of individual parishes or institutions to embrace ‘Laudato Si’,’ and the rather anemic response — including from the hierarchy.”

In 2021, Religion News Service examined thousands of columns written by Catholic bishops from 2014 to 2019. “Of the 12,077 columns we studied,” reported RNS, “only 93 (0.8%) mention climate change, global warming or their equivalent at all.”

“Pope Francis, in ‘Laudate Deum,’ has rightly expressed concern about the pace of progress in addressing climate change,” said Dan Misleh, founder and executive director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, a nonprofit formed with the help of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that — with 20 national partners — guides the church’s response in the U.S. to climate change.

“The Holy Father has called for not just deeper reflection but concrete action, highlighting the need for a radical shift in our lifestyles to align with a sustainable and finite planet,” Misleh added. “The growing urgency around these issues is something we all must heed.”

Misleh is, however, encouraged by the work of his own partners, as well as the Laudato Si’ Action Platform and the Laudato Si’ Movement, among other organizations.

“Obviously there’s a lot of work to be done,” Misleh said. “And I think we can do it — but there has to be commitments at many levels of the church to make that happen.”

The last decade is the warmest on record, and according to NASA, Earth’s average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest since recordkeeping began in 1880. The World Meteorological Organization noted in March 2024 that the previous year broke records for ocean heat, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice loss and glacier retreat. Extreme weather events including floods, droughts and fire are becoming more frequent and destructive.

In America, the new Trump administration has retreated from Biden-era climate and clean energy initiatives. It also withdrew U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, also known as COP21, when nearly 200 countries pledged to work together to limit global warming.

“There’s progress — and yet there’s still so much more to do,” said Anna Johnson, North American director for the Laudato Si’ Movement, a global network of over 900 Catholic organizations and over 10,000 trained grassroots leaders.

“Tens of thousands of people, Catholics around the world, have said yes to living out this call to ‘Laudato Si” on personal levels, on community levels — with parishes and dioceses and congregations adopting huge transformations,” she told OSV News.

Nonetheless, Johnson feels efforts are at a crossroads.

“We’re coming to a point of having to really assess whether we stand for the common good and God’s creation in the midst of this economy,” Johnson said, “because these choices are being put in front of us in a very stark way.”

In 2023, the Pew Research Center reported that a 2022 survey found, “Broadly speaking, Catholics are no more likely than Americans overall to view climate change as a serious problem. An identical share in each group say global climate change is either an extremely or very serious problem (57%).”

But the particular dynamics of the American political landscape have seemingly produced a fragmented reception of “Laudato Si’.” The 2022 Pew survey found that among Catholics who were Democrats or leaned Democrat, the view of global climate change as a “extremely/very serious problem” problem climbed to 82%, while among Catholics who were Republican or leaned Republican, that view dropped to 25%.

“There is polarization between political factions that has weakened this response to the call for creation care,” said Sister Damien Marie Savino, a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist who is dean of science and sustainability at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and is a visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Sister Damien Marie is encouraged by global efforts to embrace “Laudato Si’,” noting there are an abundance of initiatives large and small — from regenerative agriculture to recycling — that deeply resonate with the pope’s integral ecology emphasis.

“There’s still a lot more that could be done,” she admitted, “but I do think this groundswell is a pretty good testament.”

However, she remains cautious in her outlook.

“It’s up to humans — and their unique creativity — to come up with solutions,” she said. “We wouldn’t have environmental issues if it wasn’t for human action. So we have to recognize that our actions do have a unique effect because of our unique ecological niche.”

At Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, scholars will reflect on “Laudato Si'” in an April 15 panel titled “Ten Years of Laudato Si’: Operationalizing Integral Ecology.”

“I think there are small outcroppings of things that actually wholly align with ‘Laudato Si’,’ but it’s certainly not at any accelerating rate that’ll make a substantive difference,” said Richard Marcantonio, an assistant professor of environment, peace and global affairs at the Kroc Institute.

“There’s been progress that’s been made in some ways,” he said, “but I think one of the big challenges of ‘Laudato Si” that has not been grappled with well, in the United States in particular, is the idea of not needing more.”

It is a tough truth for a consumer-centric society, he noted.

“When you look at the amount of material consumed by any American — regardless of the wild wealth inequality that we have — for most groups of people in the U.S., they’re consuming well above what would be globally sustainable,” Marcantonio said.

“And that’s not just with the stuff in their household, but also all of the metals, minerals and other materials that are used to build the things that they engage with — roads, buildings, other infrastructure. If you look at the amount of material consumed per capita annually, it’s about 42,000 pounds of stuff,” Marcantonio said, citing the U.S. Geological Survey.

While experts see both environmental progress and decline, real change and real stagnation, and much work done with much work still to do, Pope Francis did not want “Laudato Si'” to be a source of despair. Ten years later, he might reiterate the piece of advice with which he concluded ‘Laudato Si”: “May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope.”

POZNAN, Poland (OSV News) – As the 20th anniversary of St. John Paul II’s death approached April 2, top world leaders and thinkers gathered in Poznan, Poland, to discuss his legacy.

A common thread of their memories and interventions was that the pope from Poland was a sensation of the times whose steadfast faith brought humanity more freedom and true spiritual leadership — and continues the drive for freedom in today’s world.

Hanna Suchocka, Polish prime minister in early 1990s and ambassador of Poland to the Holy See in the final years of John Paul’s pontificate said in her remarks that speakers at the conference she and her team organized are “the last generation that can point out that papal teaching is not only history” but is rooted in reality.

She said John Paul “became a sign of hope for all of us — those that lived under the communist rule, but also those that lived on ‘a better side’ of the wall.” She pointed out that “we didn’t fight for a free world” under the Iron Curtain of Cold War divisions to become closed “yet again” today, polarized against each other and that all the more now we need to reject “trivializing” John Paul’s teaching and remind the world of “its true meaning.”

If there are two people that immediately come to mind as iconic Poles to anyone in the world, it’s most probably Karol Wojtyla, elected Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa.

The leader of the first free trade union in a communist country — Solidarity — a movement that led to first free elections in Poland in June 1989 and eventually the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe, said that the pope was a believer in the cause of freedom from communism. It was the pope’s faith in the peaceful revolution that kept Solidarity leaders going in times of persecution, Walesa said.

“When a Pole became pope — a year after his election he came to Poland and organized us to pray, not to start a revolution. He allowed us to notice how many of us there are. At the same time the pope said: ‘change the face of the earth.’ We stopped being afraid,” Walesa told a packed auditorium at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan March 26 during the conference titled “John Paul II — to Read History, to Form History.”

Elected pope on Oct. 16, 1978, John Paul visited his country only seven months later, in June 1979. Eleven million people in a nation of 36 million at the time came to see the pope in person.

“Up to that point I was organizing the fight against communism. The pope accelerated those processes and made them bloodless,” said Walesa, who was president of Poland from 1990 to 1995.

Norman Davis, professor of history at Oxford, Cambridge and London universities, said that Solidarity, a movement supported spiritually and organizationally by the pope, was a “sensation of the times.”

John Paul “was a master of conveying information not through harsh words. He never condemned the communist system. He always spoke in a gentle language that was much stronger than harsh words. He didn’t offend anyone, but got his point across,” Davis said.

Hans-Gert Pöttering said that when he was about to meet the pope for the first time in 1981, John Paul was an hour late to that meeting.

“He was on the phone with Lech Walesa,” the German lawyer, historian and conservative politician, said in Poznan, testifying to the ongoing commitment of the pope to support the freedom movement.

“If someone told me then, ‘Poland will be free,’ I wouldn’t believe it,” said Pöttering, who served as president of the European Parliament 2007-2009.

He pointed out that “we wouldn’t be in Poznan today” if it were not for John Paul telling the Polish people, “Don’t be afraid, change the world.”

But this message, he said, has an all the more powerful dimension today when “we are challenged by the dictator in the Kremlin,” he said. Pöttering made the comments as he stood next to the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, Ukraine, representing a country that has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion since Feb. 24, 2022.

Following the teaching of John Paul, “it’s our duty to show solidarity to our friends in Ukraine so that they’re free people,” Pöttering highlighted.

“We in the EU (European Union) — Poland, Germany — we are not just living in an organization, we are living in a EU based on values of the dignity of the human being, the core of the teaching of John Paul II. The person is responsible for himself and for the other,” the European leader said, emphasizing that this task falls on today’s youth, who need to be “engaged” in their societies.

Major Archbishop Shevchuk spoke next, addressing the hundreds of young people in the room, including large groups of Ukrainian students who later stood in the line to take a picture with him.

“For John Paul II,” the prelate said, “young people were more important than meeting with senior political leaders. He knew that it’s the youth that will decide the fate of their countries and of the world.”

Major Archbishop Shevchuk said that John Paul “was not afraid of youth — sometimes bishops are afraid of young people, but it was not a feature of John Paul.”

He said that young people are destined to “build bridges, memory and communion among nations.”

In 2001, he said the Polish pontiff told Ukrainians that “freedom is not only a gift but a challenge” and that young people defending Ukraine today put those words into practice “defending freedom at the price of their own blood,” and that it was the words of John Paul that became for them a “signpost how to build freedom.”

Major Archbishop Shevchuk thanked Walesa, who was on stage, for having a Ukrainian flag pinned to his shirt as a sign of solidarity since the war began.

Papal biographer George Weigel said that the truth about humankind that we meet in Christ is “the truth that we are creatures who long to form authentic community, to live in solidarity with others, creatures made for love, not merely for satisfaction,” and therefore are thinking about freedom “in a distinctive way.”

As a Christian formed by John Paul, “you will think of freedom as tethered to truth and ordered to goodness,” Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, told the conference in a pre-recorded video.

The leading American theologian said that John Paul’s teaching shows a visible difference between “freedom of indifference” and “freedom for excellence.”

The first, he said, “can be summed up by thinking about Frank Sinatra and that famous song of his, ‘I did it my way.’ This is a freedom of self-absorption. It’s a freedom untethered to any notion of truth and goodness. It’s freedom as I want it. I want it now. I want it my way.”

“Freedom for excellence” — a term coined by the Belgian Dominican moral theologian Father Servais Pinckaers, who deeply influenced John Paul, Weigel said — “means choosing the right thing, which we can know by reason, aided by supernatural faith … and doing so as a matter of moral habit.”

He added that John Paul taught about “freedom as choosing the right thing for the right reason, as a matter of moral habit, or what an older vocabulary would call virtue, ‘habitus’ being translated from Latin in some respects as ‘virtue.'”

In the encyclical “Centesimus Annus,” Weigel said, “John Paul II taught that freedom untethered to truth becomes self-destructive. Or, if you will, it cannibalizes itself. And I’m afraid that’s the situation we find in much of the Western world today. If there is only your truth and my truth, and nothing that either one of us recognizes as the truth, then how do we settle the dispute?”

Weigel said “it is up to us to help heal the breach between that freedom of indifference and freedom for excellence, between the dictatorship of relativism and a genuine exercise of freedom in the public space.”

Remarks on John Paul’s legacy by top world leaders and thinkers “really made a mark in our conscience,” said Michal Senk, director of the Center for the Thought of John Paul II, a Warsaw-based think tank. “It left us with conviction that freedom is intertwined with truth and aligned with goodness and that we need to carry that legacy of John Paul II ahead,” he told OSV News.

“In the context of a just peace for Ukraine, this vision of freedom becomes a powerful call to act with moral clarity, pursuing not only political peace but a peace grounded in virtue and truth,” he added.

Ambassador Suchocka, who is a lawyer, concluded: “Maybe it’s my professional twist, but John Paul II is like the constitution — he needs to be interpreted. Interpretation is important. The interpretation for today is probably different than it was 30 years ago, but the text and its message remain constant: Don’t close yourselves off, open yourselves up. And dialogue — without dialogue, and the ability to understand each other, we will perish.”