Brian Roewe

The St. Francis Institute for Animals has a vision of mobilizing animal advocacy informed by Catholic social teaching to address the inhumane ways animals are treated by people in factory farms, laboratories and other settings.

The Catholic bishops' conferences of Africa, Asia and Latin America called for the world's governments to "adopt a treaty to stop proliferation and abandon fossil fuels as a moral and political imperative."

With the help of grants from the St. Louis Archdiocese, Catholics have taken steps to lessen the waste associated with serving hundreds, and in some cases, 1,000 meals in a single night during Lenten fish fries.

U.S. voters view Pope Leo XIV more favorably than President Trump, political parties or artificial intelligence, according to a recent NBC News survey.

"It would be nice, I think," Elena Venner said, "for our government to at least acknowledge that we are in this climate crisis and to start by not repealing what we already have."

After more than a decade of community activism, a notorious oil drilling facility operating on land leased from the Los Angeles Archdiocese has been shuttered for good.

"Indifference and distance from one another have led to devastating consequences for God's creation, including the poor. The conversion that we need is both metaphorical and physical," the prelates wrote.

A longtime associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a two-time presidential candidate, Jackson forged enduring alliances with Catholic priests, sisters and lay activists who marched, prayed and strategized alongside him in the struggle for racial and economic justice.

The Trump administration's erasure of the scientific finding that emissions driving climate change endanger public health drew condemnation from Catholic leaders, who characterized the move as morally indefensible.

Ecumenism Metro Chicago, a coalition of Chicago Christian leaders, is calling on federal and state lawmakers to "make every effort to replace all the lead water pipes in Illinois as quickly as possible."

Some 2,000 members of the Notre Dame community gathered in subfreezing temperatures to celebrate a candlelit Mass at St. Olaf Chapel, a student-constructed fleeting house of worship made from snow, ice and faith.

In Joliet, Illinois, Bishop Ronald Hicks oversaw a number of efforts to embed ecological concern deeper into Catholic life, including joining the Vatican's premier initiative to live out Pope Francis' call to care for God's creation.

The United States — the largest source of historical emissions and top user and producer of oil and gas — will stand as the only country in the world not part of the agreement.

With the death of Pope Francis, the introduction of Pope Leo XIV and major shifts in the U.S. away from climate and clean energy policies, there's no doubt 2025 has been a momentous year on the faith-and-environment beat. 

Just in time for the 10-year anniversary of Laudato Si' and Christmas, the independent, lay-led program has planted 1,000 trees throughout the archdiocese's massive geographic footprint — but they're not stopping yet.

Assessing where the world stands with climate change a decade after the Paris Agreement is difficult. But in attempting to do so, it's important to remember, as many observed at the time, what it was: not the end of something, but rather a start.

Nearly 200 countries at the U.N. climate talks did little to counteract papal criticism that "failing" political will is undermining global efforts against global warming, say Catholic officials who attended the COP30 summit.

A cultural change is badly needed to shake climate negotiations from its too-prevalent low ambition, say people of faith involved in the Global Ethical Stocktake.

Caritas projects offer a sign of hope that solutions to climate change, whether mitigating heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions or adapting to impacts like more severe heatwaves and storms, can in fact work.

"We're not going to see that money coming back," said Alistair Dutton, Caritas Internationalis secretary general, who spoke with NCR about the ramifications of cuts in funding for international development.