The pontiff’s loving eyes were tired, and his voice was fading but his message in our final conversation was clear. “Adelante, Siempre Adelante,” he said in our shared Argentinian Spanish.
“Forward, always forward,” Pope Francis called to me, echoing the eternal words of St. Ignatius with courage, hope, and trust, embodying resilience and openness. It was one of my many chance encounters with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the man who became Pope Francis, and it is a fitting image as we remember this man of humility, vision, grace, and humor after his passing on Easter Monday.
Those words are a lesson for the cardinals who will gather in Rome on May 7 to begin the process of electing his successor and to all of us who will try to live his teachings for the rest of our own days.
The ascendancy of Pope Francis will be debated for centuries. It is too early to make any definite statements, but I want to share five reflections based on my exchanges with him that I hope can frame the heart of his papacy: the Cry of the Earth.
First, the Cry of the Earth and the Cry of the Poor are One: In his reflections at the Apostolic Palace on May 17, 2024, Pope Francis synthesized in pithy and precise terms a theme he had been reflecting on since the publication a decade earlier of his encyclical on the environment—Laudato si’, on the care of our common home. He was visibly frustrated by the urgency of the climate crisis. Ever-more wicked droughts, wildfires, and floods are impacting all corners of the earth, but disproportionately, the poor, marginalized, underserved communities and children are most affected.
Pope Francis clearly articulated that we cannot stand idly by while our brothers and sisters suffer the most from a crisis they did the least to create. Faith and reason demand, he noted, that we hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, recognizing them as a single, unified plea for justice.
Second, Solidarity is Not Optional: Francis emphasized unity and solidarity throughout his papacy. He exulted in us to move beyond division and narrow self-interest, embracing a spirit of adelante together, prioritizing measures to protect vulnerable communities, enhance public health, strengthen economic resilience, and advance nature-based solutions. He urged concrete actions, policies, and a change of heart, prioritizing the common good. In his Planetary Call to Action for Climate Change Resilience, Francis outlined a scientifically rigorous, ethical, and inclusive path toward healing, resilience, and sustainable humanity.
Third, Protect, Plan, and Respond: Francis urged us to move beyond simply reacting to climate shocks. In a Cartesian binary, we must respond to shocks in the here-and-now but also prepare for longer-term infrastructure resilience. Proactive measures are essential, he wrote, emphasizing resilience and the vehicles to protect the properties and livelihoods and improve the water, air, food, energy, and health and well-being of all, especially the most vulnerable.
Fourth, A Call to Conversion: For Francis, Cry of the Earth and the Cry of the Poor ultimately demand a conversion of the heart. We must reflect on our lifestyles, consumption habits, relationships with one another, all living systems, and creation.
Fifth, the MAST Strategy is a Moral Imperative: In his later years, Francis endorsed Mitigation, Adaptation, and Societal Transformation (MAST) as a strategic framework based on the best science, nature-based solutions, and policy work.
By mitigation, he meant we must drastically reduce emissions and transition to clean energy sources. By adaptation: We must invest in resilient infrastructure and prioritize measures to protect climate-vulnerable communities, enhance public health, strengthen economic resilience, and advance nature-based solutions. By social transformation, he repeated his call for a culture of care, sustainability, and climate literacy, educating our children to be stewards of Mother Earth. We must discard “la cultura del descarte” (the “throwaway culture”).
A disciplined Jesuit to the end, Francis gave us our homework: He called for Summits in every hemisphere to be anchored in Kenya and Senegal, Brazil, Austria, Japan, India, China, the South Seas, California, and Massachusetts. Bypassing federal governments, we are gathering the “first responders” – mayors, governors, and representatives from municipalities in every hemisphere on Earth for an interactive dialogue on how they can make their individual communities more resilient.
While locally grounded, the Summits have a common grammar: What will it take to implement the recommended solutions in the “Planetary Protocol for Climate Change Resilience” in disparate world regions? How can we foster a dialogue leading to local knowledge-sharing and nature-based solutions to address regional climate challenges? How can we scale solutions between and across key impacted sectors and partnering regions?
Francis suffused the urgent climate crisis with a profound sense of Adelante, Siempre Adelante. The Adelante ethic drives future generations to build resilience, bringing all people of good faith together in environmental citizenship and a change of heart that prioritizes the common good.
That is one of Francis’s greatest legacies and one we should collectively strive to heed.
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco is the chancellor of UMass Boston.
