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Pope Benedict XVI, who was leader of the world’s Catholics for almost eight years from April 2005 to February 2013, died December 31, 2022. He was 95 and had been ill for some time.
Joseph Ratzinger leaves behind a complex legacy. He was a conservative Pope and seen by many as a ‘polarising figure’.
But the world will probably remember him most for his resignation, a shocker since he was the first head of the Catholic Church to resign from the post in 600 years.
The world should also remember him for being the first Bishop of Rome to lay emphasis on environmental issues. Indeed, the media a decade ago had dubbed him ‘the Green Pope’.
In an article republished by the Huffington Post on February 11, 2013, journalist Beth Buczynski noted that “Benedict XVI helped to author several books that share his views on the real meaning of progress and development, and what that means for our planet of limited resources”.
These books included Ten Commandments for the Environment published in 2009 and The Environment “which shares his thoughts on everyone’s right to food, right to water and responsible sharing” in 2012.
Going through Benedict’s statements as compiled in this latter book reveal his understanding of green issues and connect with them.
Take for instance, his message to the director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization for the Celebration of World Food Day, October 16, 2006. (The transcripts below are from the website of The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, which in turn quoted from The Environment):
The order of creation demands that a priority be given to those human activities that do not cause irreversible damage to nature, but which instead are woven into the social, cultural, and religious fabric of the different communities. In this way, a sober balance is achieved between consumption and the sustainability of resources.
He again refers to sustainability (and surprise, climate change) in his Letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople on the Occasion of the Seventh Symposium of the Religion, Science and the Environment Movement, September 1, 2007:
Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family.
In 2011, Benedict urged Italian students “to become guardians of nature and follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology,” a report published by The Guardian in February 2013 noted.
The same report also noted that Benedict “turned heads when he chose electric vehicles for use within the grounds of the Vatican and his summer home of Castel Gandolfo, as well as for the Vatican’s police force”.
Could it be that Benedict’s environmentalism may have rubbed upon his successor? When Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope in 2013, he chose ‘Francis’ as his papal name, in honour of St Francis of Assisi.
He did not stop there.
In June 2015, Francis released the encyclical Laudato Si, calling on humanity to save the earth. The Paris Agreement was formulated later that year at the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
On February 12, 2020, the Vatican released Querida Amazonia (Dear Amazon), a new document by Pope Francis I.
The leader of the world’s one billion Catholics pleaded with members of his flock as well as ‘all persons of good will’ to save the great biome that is the Amazon.
The 94-page Dear Amazon urged respect for the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, their ways of life and traditions in order to conserve the rainforest that saw the worst wildfires in 2019.
Coming back to Benedict, he may have divided opinions on other things. But on the green front, as these instances show, he had the pulse of the moment. And he may have set a precedent in place.