The thread that binds our common home

I had the honour recently of representing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver on an inter-faith series exploring the impact of climate change. The participants included a Rabbi, an Iman, representatives of the Sikh community and an Indigenous Elder. Being a typical Catholic, I began with a few confessions.

The first was that, despite having spoken in front of 10,000 people and performed at the Sydney Opera House, I am always strangely nervous reading at Mass. So, delivering a sermon at an Anglican Mass was a uniquely daunting task.

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My second confession was that whenever I speak in these contexts, I preface my remarks as the reflections of a well-meaning, reasonably well-informed community faith practitioner. I pray for a sympathetic, if not forgiving, audience. 

Thankfully the subject was something I do feel comfortable discussing,  in part because our Popes have given us considerable guidance on the climate crisis, perhaps most famously Pope Francis in Laudato Si’.

Am I wrong in thinking that only 10 years ago it was easier for some people to deny climate change? Today, as we witness record temperatures, countries devastated by droughts and floods with regularity, and wildfires on a scale many of us have never seen before, it has become harder to insist nothing has changed. 

I spent about 25 years in Australia working with Indigenous communities across the South Pacific. Tribal leaders spoke about the threat of their lands disappearing beneath the sea. Many of us assumed they were speaking about something for their great-grandchildren. Now, the waters lap at the shores of those island nations.

Elsewhere, great water bodies are shrinking. Glaciers retreat at unprecedented rates. Communities are displaced, ecosystems transformed. We no longer talk about when the climate crisis will strike. We’re in it. Its consequences are global. What, then, has faith to do with it? 

A common thread among faith communities is recognition of responsibility to one another. We have a duty of care to protect the dignity of every human person. That can be difficult to remember from the comfort of our protected lives. More than a billion people suffer the consequences of poverty, displacement, hunger and environmental degradation. Yet the climate crisis has brought these realities closer to home. We can see them in our own communities.

As is so often the case with natural disasters—or with war, disease, famine—it is the most vulnerable who suffer most severely. The powerful protect themselves. The wealthy relocate. The influential preserve their resources. The poor remain. I confess I am always deeply troubled when I see celebrities arriving at environmental conferences in private jets and luxury yachts while those most affected by environmental destruction have no escape.

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This is precisely why faith communities matter.

They are often global first responders to human suffering—running hospitals, schools, shelters, food banks, and relief agencies. This is not unique to Christianity, but it is deeply rooted in Christ’s teaching. Jesus calls us to stand with the least of His brothers and sisters because they are among the most cherished.

As president of St. Mary’s University in Calgary, I created a President’s Volunteer Corps. Monthly, we went into the community to feed the hungry, clean shelters, and help build homes for homelessness people. One young man attended almost every event. Another student complained that he was overusing the campus Food Pantry. One evening, as we were finishing work at The Mustard Seed, the young man pointed and said, “That’s my bed.”

I will never forget the expression of the student who had complained. For almost two years, the young man had volunteered more than anyone else. We had no idea he was homeless. Tell me he isn’t one of God’s angels.

It reminds me human dignity is not abstract. It is encountered in real people, in real lives, every day. We honour that dignity by recognising the impact of climate change on the environment and on those who depend upon it.

Here, Pope Francis’s Laudato Sí offers profound insight by speaking of ‘integral ecology.’ The word integral is crucial. It means everything is connected: environment, economy, poverty, justice, and spiritual life. We cannot separate caring for the earth from caring for one another. We cannot reduce it to small gestures while ignoring the systems that shape our world. 

Pope Francis reminds us the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are the same. Protecting nature, he insists, means protecting all human life. Not just those who think like us. Not just those who look like us. Not just those who vote like us. Everyone.

Our fractured world is marked by inequality, division, and concentration of power. This is not new. Perhaps, as familiar Biblical readings remind us, it is simply the human condition: the very condition Christ came to heal. I suspect a question we ultimately face is not what we believed, but what we did to make a difference? Here is Pope Leo XIVs framing:

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‘God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared for the world He created for the benefit of all and for future generations, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters. What will be our answer, my dear friends?’

Not what did we believe? Not what did we intend? But what did we do? That, indeed, is the question. What will our answer be?

(Turcotte is President and Vice-Chancellor at St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi College, University of British Columbia.)

A version of this article appeared in the October 18, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "The thread that binds our common home".