A Jesuit named Francis and Francis of Assisi inspired a gathering of Siena College students in October to hear about what can be done about the threat of climate change in the world.
The two Francises inspired the creation of the Laudato Si’ Center for Integral Ecology at Siena, a Franciscan college located just outside the state capital of Albany, NY. The encyclical Laudato Si’ is the work of Pope Francis, a Jesuit. The encyclical is based heavily on a Franciscan world view of Creation, inspiring Catholics and others to look again at the Franciscan view of protecting Creation. The pope offered greetings via a letter to the conference. More than 1,000 students attended the events held at the school’s gymnasium.
The students heard from an array of speakers, hearing warnings that the uptick in global temperatures might well contribute to natural disasters, even subsuming small island nations while exacting a toll on others via more intense hurricanes and floods. The conference took place in a month where severe hurricanes, said by scientists to be galvanized by warming ocean waters, wreaked havoc on Florida and North Carolina, causing mass evacuations and destruction.
Among the speakers was António Guterres, the ninth U.N. secretary-general, who, in a prerecorded message, told an audience of more than 1,000 students, staff, and visitors that the values embodied by St. Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis require nations to fulfill a promise to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming under the Paris Agreement signed by most of the world’s governments.
As reported by Brian Roewe, environmental writer for the National Catholic Reporter, “Today, floods and droughts are fueling instability, driving conflict and forcing people from their homes,” said Guterres. “And though climate chaos is everywhere, it doesn’t affect everyone equally. The very people most at risk are those who did the least to cause the crisis: small island states, developing countries, the poor, and the vulnerable. This is breathtaking injustice, and it is just the beginning.”
“Brothers and sisters,” he later added, “we cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unlivable lands.”
Guterres, the former prime minister of Portugal, described his long friendship with the Franciscans in his native country and pledged to continue the work of safeguarding creation.
Part of the conference activities was the reading of a letter from Pope Francis, read by a Siena College senior, which drew attention to the ethical and spiritual implications of the global environmental crisis.
“The gravity of the threats to our common home calls not only for technical and political solutions,” Francis wrote. “It likewise demands an ecological conversion which recognizes that issues of environmental justice cannot be separated from the greater pursuit of an integral human development for all the members of our human family, especially the poor and those who have no voice.”
The conference agenda was developed by Bro. Michael Perry, OFM, the former head of the global Franciscan order from 2013 to 2021. He is now the director of Siena’s Laudato Si’ Center for Integral Ecology, which sponsored the conference.