Miami church leaders draw inspiration from Pope Francis’ humanitarian, climate legacies

By Priscilla Greear - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | As a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Human Development, Roza Pati treasured meetings with Pope Francis where she experienced a sense of awe and blessing that deepened her spirituality.

“His soft voice, his serene, warm eyes exuded an out-of-this-world experience, a feeling of being closer to the divine. I always came out of those encounters with renewed mental and physical energy to better serve the Church and the Lord,” said Pati, St. John Paul II distinguished professor of law at St. Thomas University (STU) in Miami Gardens.

As the world mourns the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday, Pati and other Miami Church and academic leaders reflect on his legacy in their work and ministry in human rights, evangelization and care for God’s cathedral of creation.

Pope Francis cared for his global flock as the quintessential evangelist and pro-life pontiff: sharing Christ’s message of hope throughout the globe and preaching the Gospel of environmental stewardship and the human dignity of every soul.

Father Alfred Cioffi, professor of theology and bioethics at STU, found it “providential” that Pope Francis greeted the faithful on Easter Sunday before his death. “He was living according to his character,” he reflected. “We don’t belong to ourselves. We were created for others, and he lived his life that way.”

Father Cioffi admired Pope Francis’ “fresh perspective” on science and religion and his humility, poverty and love of nature. Pope Francis’ first encyclical, “Laudato Si: on care for our common home,” in 2015, was the first in the Church’s more than 2,000-year history devoted to the environment and care for the poor.

“He’s calling the environment another Gospel. Nature also speaks to us just like the Gospels speak to us about Christ and God’s plans for us,” said Father Cioffi. “It can lead us to contact with our God, to communion with the Lord."

Laudato Si addresses irresponsible use of natural resources and resulting pollution, climate change, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity and global inequality, challenging the faithful to care for the planet. Pope Francis writes that “everything is connected” and that “concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.”

Pope Francis was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi to connect personal spirituality with a lifestyle of care for the environment, self-denial and simplicity, said Father Cioffi, who led two international conferences at STU on climate, nature and society with the first featuring Laudato Si expert Cardinal Peter Turkson.

Pope Francis was motivated by “discernment, dialogue and mission,” said Father Cioffi, and continually reached out to those outside the Church whether slum dwellers or members of the LGBTQ+ community. He even challenged environmentalists to also care for the unborn and not view human life as a threat to the environment. “He’s also trying to reach out to people who would not normally be interested in having a conversation with us,” said Father Cioffi.

The Vatican hosted the Synod on Synodality listening sessions in 2023-24 that broke from the all-clergy mold to engage lay persons including non-Catholics. “Those are the people we need to reach out to and dialogue with because everyone is made in God’s image,” Father Cioffi said. “He basically challenges us to go get out of our comfort zone, to go out to the other to dialogue and live for the other. It’s very much based on the Gospel.”

Miami Auxiliary Bishop Enrique Delgado also appreciated Pope Francis’ outreach to those beyond the Church, through which they can better understand Church teaching and experience reconciliation. “His voice has been heard around the world and resonates with most of the people, not only Catholics but all denominations as well. That is important because the message of Jesus is for everybody,” he said. “It’s not that we are making changes in our theology or belief, but we are comprehending more about the love of God in the lives of others.”

Pope Francis also appointed cardinals to better represent the global Church “so that all voices can be heard,” said Bishop Delgado. The percentage of the 135 voting-age cardinals from Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, for example, is up to 31 percent from 20 percent in 2013.

Bishop Delgado clearly remembers the Pope’s state-of-the-world message on his ad limina visit to the Vatican. The Pope reported “that he had interviewed the most knowledgeable people in the world and this is serious. This is real. We need to care for our world, for our habitat, because we can destroy our world…We need to preserve what God has given to us for our common house.”

David Prada, senior director of the Office of Building and Property, said that the publication of Laudato Si increased the archdiocese’s focus on energy efficiency strategies in church buildings, which was a “win-win” in cost savings. He works with project leaders to implement Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design best practices such as installation of LED lights, programmable air conditioner thermostats and solar panels and lower water consumption. “It’s really to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us in terms of resources and being mindful of future generations,” he said. “It’s an awareness that even the smallest decisions we make when building a new building can have the biggest impact. We want to reduce our carbon footprint.”

Professor Pati was confirmed to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2013 and in 2020 was appointed by Pope Francis to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development where she deepened her understanding of environmental stewardship. As a keynote speaker at the Vatican’s World Meeting of Justice and Peace Commissions, she spoke on Pope Francis’ “clarion call for a spiritual and cultural revolution to realize integral ecology: we have to change our lifestyle, production and consumption” to promote human development.

Pati recalled a papal audience after the 2013 Lampedusa shipwreck that killed at least 368 migrants. He spoke of the “inhuman global economic crisis” and urged for a “reawakening of consciences” amidst “globalization of indifference.”

“Pope Francis taught us against indifference to suffering of others—he upheld the spirit of fraternity. And his commitment to migrants and refugees, to the poor, to the people at the fringes has inspired my work and will stay with me,” said Pati in an email.

Pati developed St. Thomas University law courses on integral human development and the right to water and sanitation. After the Pope designated Feb. 8 as the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, she initiated the John Brunetti Human Trafficking Academy at the university.

“At STU, we consider human trafficking our problem, a sign of the times, so let us own it and solve it,” said Pati. “We hear the transforming voice of our Lord that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary and that invites us to help end the suffering of the least of its people.”

Pati felt overwhelmed to learn the “loss for humanity” of the pope’s death. He radiated the Gospel even near death on Easter as he greeted the faithful and gave message of hope for peace before joining God’s eternal heaven on Easter Monday, Pati reflected. “He will be remembered as the pope who was an authentic champion of the poor, of the marginalized, the migrant, the environment, the climate—a champion for all God’s creation; he will be specifically remembered as the people’s Pope because he consistently showed his most genuine care for the human being everywhere.”