An Irish Times editorial on Pope Francis’ legacy on the environment has paid tribute to Columban Missionary Fr Seán McDonagh.
Calling on whoever “is elected from the forthcoming conclave” to “take up the baton on climate change” it notes that part of the legacy of Pope Francis is his encyclical Laudato Si’, which embraces the most advanced science on the climate and biodiversity crises.
And he did not hesitate to call out the origins of these crises in a society driven by consumerist greed. He repeatedly links what he calls the “cry of the earth” to “the cry of the poor”.
He demonstrates a feeling for the wonders of nature that any environmentalist could echo. His personal sense of distress is palpable: “We can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement”.
The Editorial then highlights that the “Irish priest and veteran environmental and human rights campaigner Seán McDonagh, who contributed much of the scientific backbone to the document, has spent most of his life fighting a very lonely battle to convince his superiors and colleagues that the church had an obligation to denounce ecological and economic degradation”.
It continues, “He was overjoyed to be brought from the far periphery to the centre of Vatican thinking. But he remained far from starry-eyed about the broader church’s capacity to absorb this new teaching. And, inside and outside the Church, the impact of the encyclical remains muted.”
It warns that “Heartfelt eloquence alone won’t change the world.”
The Editorial concludes: “One can’t help wishing that, just this once, Pope Francis had been a tad more authoritarian. But his call was nonetheless important and part of an international recognition of the climate crisis which is now, worryingly, facing something of a reversal. In this context, we must hope that whoever is elected from the forthcoming conclave is not afraid to take up the environmental baton and build on the legacy of Pope Francis.”