Faith and the Environment
How My Catholic Education Made Me A Climate Activist
October 3, 2025
OPINION
I didn’t become a climate activist in spite of my Catholic education. I became one because of it.
As a child, one of my favorite parish traditions was the annual blessing of the animals on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4th. This annual celebration honors St. Francis, the patron saint of animals and the environment, and is traditionally marked by religious services and blessings of animals. Dogs barked through hymns, and cats squirmed under the makeshift outdoor pews as we celebrated the patron saint of animals and ecology. One year, someone even brought a pet fish. I had no pets of my own, so I cradled a stuffed animal. And somehow, I still felt entirely welcome.
In hindsight, that sense of belonging planted the seed for something deeper: the belief that faith and care for the Earth are inseparable. My Catholic upbringing taught me to see all creatures — whether they barked, meowed, splashed, or were stitched together with thread — as sacred.
That early reverence and connection to the natural world stayed with me as I embarked on my K-8 Catholic education. In sixth grade at my Catholic school, I ran for student council ecology commissioner. By eighth grade, I became a vegetarian. At the time, I didn’t think of these decisions as activism. They felt like natural extensions of my faith. If God created this beautiful world, why wouldn’t we protect it?
Growing up near San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, nature was a constant companionship. The vast Pacific Ocean shaped my awe for the planet and a sense of duty to care for it. In high school, that awe turned into action. I organized beach cleanups, led my school’s environmental club, and helped launch the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit (BAYCS). At BAYCS, we addressed not just recycling and tree planting, but environmental racism and the global inequities of climate change. Our work was grounded in justice, not just conservation.
My faith gave that work a spiritual foundation. In my junior and senior years at a Catholic high school, my religion classes included full units on Laudato Si’, the late Pope Francis’s encyclical on environmental degradation and its impact on the poor. For the first time, I encountered a vision of Catholicism that didn’t just urge personal virtue — it demanded the systemic change my peers and I had been fighting for. Pope Francis urged us to reject consumerism and domination, and instead live in “serene harmony with creation.”
His words changed me. “Human beings, above all, need to change,” he wrote. So often, religious doctrine is associated with history and tradition. Pope Francis’ teachings represent a striking departure from the Church’s preservation of the status quo. Laudato Si’ made it clear that we cannot continue with the way things have always been. According to Pope Francis, environmental stewardship is not an optional extracurricular for Catholics. Rather, it is at the heart of what our faith demands.
Writing this now, I’m struck by how Pope Francis’s call to “care for our common home” feels more urgent now than ever, especially in the wake of his recent passing on Easter Monday. His papacy was formative for my ecological justice journey, and I feel incredibly blessed to have encountered his teachings at such a pivotal time in my life.
When I joined my first global climate strike in 2021, I skipped school to march the streets of San Francisco with fellow BAYCS organizers, families, and thousands of young people. I told my Ecological Justice and Spirituality (yes, this was a class my school offered) teacher I’d be missing class. He laughed and said, “There’s no better reason to skip.” He was right.
Marching through the streets, holding signs, chanting alongside children on their parents’ shoulders, I experienced a profound sense of hope. For the first time since learning about the scale of the climate crisis, I didn’t feel small or powerless. Just as I did years before at the blessing of the animals, I felt part of something bigger, something sacred.
Still, I can’t ignore how many Christian communities continue to resist climate action—or deny climate science outright. This denial is not only misguided but fundamentally antithetical to the Bible’s teachings of stewardship. If we believe this Earth is God’s creation, then caring for it is not a political issue. It’s a spiritual imperative
Every Earth Day, I find myself thinking back to the Feast of St. Francis. To bless a dog, cat, or even a stuffed animal means to recognize the sacredness that is consistent throughout all creation. This same sacredness flows through the coral reefs and forests, the birds and butterflies flying overhead, and the communities fighting to survive rising seas and wildfires.
If we claim to love the Creator, we must love creation too. Let this be a unifying mission for all of us, not a divisive one.
So the next time you find yourself in nature — at a park, an aquarium, or simply under a tree — pause. Lean into your childlike wonder of the natural world. Watch a jellyfish float or a bee as it traverses from flower to flower. This is God’s way of transmitting the magic of the Heavens down to us on Earth. These moments are divine.Faith that does justice is about honoring these gifts — not just with prayer and gratitude, but with action. While Earth Day 2025 may be over, the fight for our common home remains. Join us at EARTHDAY.ORG to unite around the future of our planet and continue our mission of Our Power, Our Planet. Our faith calls us to nothing less.
