Brian Roewe

ANALYSIS: The new Pope Leo Sustainability Medal, set to be presented today, puts a spotlight not only on its inaugural recipient but also on Leo himself and how he has situated environmental concern for the church in the first 18 months of his papacy. Story @ncronline.bsky.social

From the Umbrian hills to the forests to the gardens and fields around Assisi, a new initiative invites pilgrims to the medieval town to leave the beaten path and follow the footsteps of St. Francis into the places he walked, prayed and came in touch with the created world more 8 centuries ago.

Catholic officials called for resolve not surrender after a UN report concluded it is "inevitable" global temperatures will surpass 1.5 C, the central goal of the Paris Agreement, by the end of the decade. "Every fraction of a degree, and every year spent above 1.5 degrees C, matters enormously."

A bunch of media outlets around the world have been doing some great reporting specifically on the climate impacts of data centre expansion (for both grids and gas).

"We urge the Environmental Protection Agency to remember its mission, to do its job of protecting the environment and vulnerable people." Via @brianroewe.bsky.social in NCR... #EPA #Trump #environment #Catholic #climate www.ncronline.org/news/catholi...

A Franciscan sister journeyed to the Arctic. She found a land teeming with life. "It is one of the keystone places for life on the planet." Via @brianroewe.bsky.social in NCR… #Arctic #environment #climate #Catholic www.ncronline.org/news/francis...

In late June, Franciscan Sr. Joan Brown joined a faith expedition to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What she witnessed was a vast land bursting in biodiversity, in sharp contrast to portrayals of a barren tundra that often permeate debates about oil drilling in the 19-mil acre reserve.

In late June, 1,300+ Peruvians reached a $150 million settlement with a U.S.-based mining company whose practices they alleged exposed them to lead poisoning and other toxins as children. From the start, the La Oroya residents received backing from the Catholic Church both in Peru and the U.S.

BREAKING: St. Louis' Jordan Walker homered on his last six swings to spoil Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber's hopes of a hometown Derby win.

JORDAN WALKER WALKS IT OFF IN THE @TMOBILE #HRDERBY FINALS!

La Guaira is one of Venezuela's 23 states and is located in the north of the country, on the coast, and has faced immense tragedy in the past. https://cnn.it/4eL96Mm

Venezuela's Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said on Friday that the death toll from back-to-back earthquakes has risen to 589 people with 2,980 injured. Here's how you can help those impacted.

US court rejects EPA bid to ease regulations for coal-fired power plants reut.rs/4f5UNDu

NEW: Dozens of Catholic institutions across the country, including in politically red states, are racing to meet new deadlines and requirements for federal clean energy tax credits set last year under the GOP tax law, which phased out the credits five years early.

A study by the University of Notre Dame links anthropogenic climate change to stunted growth in children in Africa. "We are seeing a direct physical translation of global emissions into child undernutrition. When extreme heat limits food availability...young children are the very first to suffer."

Notre Dame study links #climate change to stunted child growth in #Africa. “When extreme heat limits food availability and drives up prices, young children are the very first to suffer.” Via @brianroewe.bsky.social in NCR… #children #environment www.ncronline.org/news/notre-d...

A year after the Trump administration's wholesale cuts to U.S. foreign aid levied a heavy toll on Catholic Relief Services, slashing hundreds of millions from its budget and with it a third of its staff and programs, the State Department awarded the agency $240 million for humanitarian assistance.

Across the U.S., citizens have mobilized with worry + outrage about the AI-fueled hypersonic expansion of data centers in their backyards. That chorus of concern on data centers' impacts on ecosystems, resources and utility bills received a papal ally with Pope Leo's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas.

Within his 200-plus page encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV raised key concerns with artificial intelligence's impacts on the environment, namely in the vast energy + water resources to power/ cool data centers and exploitation in the extraction of key metals and minerals.

Stephen Colbert hosted his last “Late Show” on Thursday. “His final hour-plus — an emotional and delightfully bizarre wake for a comedy institution — turned it into a cancellebration,” our chief TV critic, James Poniewozik, writes.

When Pope Leo XIV unveils Monday his encyclical on artificial intelligence, a co-founder of AI frontier lab Anthropic will be part of the presentation. It won't be the S.F.-based tech giant's first time in a room full of Catholics but mark the latest step in its outreach to religious leaders.

Catholic aid officials saw promise in talks among 57 countries on a realistic, responsible yet rapid phaseout of fossil fuels -- a conversation that has proved elusive in three decades of U.N. climate summits. Next steps, Catholics say, need to be binding commitments, including a possible treaty.

More than 50 countries, representing 1/5 of global fossil fuel production, meet this week in Colombia to discuss not whether but how to phase out the use of coal, oil and gas. The tenor of the talks has Catholic groups hopeful it may be a first step to eliminating the main source of climate change.

A new program co-led by the U.S. bishops' conference is training 19 dioceses to create ecological action plans inspired by Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical Laudato Si'. With a goal to train up to 60 dioceses over three years, nearly half of U.S. dioceses could have Laudato Si' plans underway.

In social media posts, Donald Trump called Pope Leo XIV "weak" on the issue of nuclear weapons. Challenging that characterization are the pope's own words, as nuclear disarmament has emerged as a core tenant of his persistent pleas for peace since his papacy began 11 months ago.

Catholic Relief Services, the overseas humanitarian arm of the U.S. bishops, is now accredited to the Green Climate Fund. As a partner to the world's largest climate fund, CRS can seek financing for mitigation + adaptation projects in developing countries with price tags as high as $250 million.

Last year, Brazil's Petrobras began exploratory oil drilling off the Amazon coast, drawing concern from environmental groups and Indigenous communities.

The new St. Francis Institute for Animals aims to raise awareness of church teaching around animals in an effort to help Catholics emulate Francis of Assisi's kinship and concern for all of God's creatures. Story for EarthBeat @ncronline.bsky.social

The continental federations of Catholic bishops for Africa, Asia and South America -- together representing 820+mil Catholics -- have lent their support to a proposed global treaty to phase out the use of fossil fuels and transition to clean energy, calling it "a moral and political imperative."

Pass the cod, hold the plastic. A new initiative by the St. Louis Archdiocese offered parishes small grants to help reduce food and trash waste at the popular Friday fish fries during Lent. "It takes more effort but everybody is delighted that we're taking that extra step," said one parishioner.

Numerous lawsuits have challenged the Trump administration's reversal of EPA's endangerment finding, the 2009 scientific determination that heat-trapping greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health and welfare. The lead plaintiff in one of the lawsuits is a Catholic college student.

Climate change’s rising seas may threaten tens of millions more people than scientists and government planners originally thought because of mistaken research assumptions on how high coastal waters already are, a new study said.

NEW: The U.S. bishops are inviting Catholics to undergo an ecological conversion this Lent, a process of prayer and action that they said includes pressing government officials to protect the environment and address climate change.

A coalition of Christian leaders in Chicago has called on state and federal lawmakers to rapidly replace lead water pipes in Illinois, a state that ranks atop the nation in the toxic infrastructure that poses a danger to public health.

In a week, Ronald Hicks will be installed as the 14th archbishop of New York. Catholics in NYC involved in environmental ministries are encouraged by Hicks' work as bishop of Joliet, IL on creation care, and hopeful he'll help root it even deeper into one of the country's largest dioceses.

The Trump administration's move to withdraw from the 1992 bedrock UN climate change treaty amounts to the US "abandoning its moral responsibility as a leading global power and as the world's largest historical contributor to greenhouse gas emissions," said the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns.

NEW: Inside the Trump administration’s man-made hunger crisis in the world’s third largest refugee camp. After the U.S. failed to fund the World Food Program in Kenya, we went to the Kakuma refugee camp. This is what we found:

NEW: When the Trump administration took away her family’s food this summer, Rose Natabo had to choose which of her three sons to care for — who ate and who didn’t. By Brett Murphy & @annamaria.bsky.social, photography by Brian Otieno

A small group of Catholics in the Washington D.C. Archdiocese celebrated last month planting their 1,000th tree through Laudato Trees, an initiative inspired by Pope Francis' 2015 social encyclical on ecology "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."

Countries at the U.N. climate talks did little to counteract papal criticism that "failing" political will is undermining global efforts to stave off dangerous levels of global warming, say Catholic officials who attended the COP30 summit in Belém, Brazil, at the edge of the Amazon rainforest.

BREAKING: COP30 Blue Zone venue is being evacuated after a firealarm was triggered. Smoke visible.

Archaic procedures and technocratic framing have failed to address the climate crisis for 30 years. Frustration over the lack of progress boiled over into a short occupation of the COP30 negotiation zone on day two of the climate talks in Brazil.

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels are projected to rise to an all-time high this year, according to a report. At this rate, it will take the world four years to pass the threshold experts agree would constitute catastrophic warming, the authors said.

NEW: The head of Caritas Internationalis, the Catholic Church's global aid network, said the massive scaleback in foreign assistance by the U.S., along with lesser cuts by European nations, signals "the golden age of aid being over." "We will see millions of people die as a result of these cuts."

Last week, two waves of trucks supplied by Catholic Relief Services with tents and other shelter equipment rolled into Gaza. Following the latest ceasefire, the Catholic development agency has begun to ramp up its work to assist millions of Palestinians recover and rebuild after two years of war.

Corals are disappearing, pushing Earth to its first major ‘tipping point’ A new report says Earth has reached a dire milestone with the widespread death of warm-water coral reefs. But it's not too late to save what remains. grist.org/oceans/coral... #Coral #Ocean #Environment #Climate #Science

NEW: Ahead of the COP30 climate summit, the Holy See has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the Vatican City-State at least 28% by 2035. Key to those plans is a 1,000-acre solar farm outside Rome that is set to fully power the Vatican and make it the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

California governor rejects bill to phase out "forever" chemicals used in cookware, children's products

As Trump champions fossil fuels, the world is betting on renewable energy. Despite a U.S. retreat, solar and wind are overtaking fossil fuels globally, according to two new reports. grist.org/internationa... #Solar #Wind #Climate #Renewables #Energy

Climate tipping points are being crossed, scientists warn ahead of COP30 reut.rs/4nTrk1G