Pope Francis: A Legacy of Peace and Environmental Advocacy

Summary

Pope Francis, born in Buenos Aires in 1936, served as the head of the Catholic Church until his death in 2025. Known for advo­cat­ing for the poor, cli­mate action, and peace, his pass­ing was mourned world­wide, with world lead­ers attend­ing his funeral in the Vatican. Additionally, he was the first Pope to choose the name Francis and pro­moted peace in the Middle East through sym­bolic ges­tures like plant­ing olive trees.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires to Italian immi­grant par­ents, Pope Francis was the head of the Catholic Church and sov­er­eign of Vatican City from March 13, 2013, until his death due to a stroke on April 21, 2025. 

A defender of the poor and mar­gin­al­ized, an advo­cate for cli­mate action, and a pro­moter of inter-reli­gious dia­logue, hailed by many as a reformer, his pass­ing prompted mourn­ing world­wide. 

On April 26^th, numer­ous world lead­ers and tens of thou­sands of peo­ple attended his funeral at St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, fol­lowed by the pro­ces­sion to the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, where he was laid to rest.

Among the many records achieved – includ­ing being the first born in the Americas – he was the first pope to choose the name Francis, like the Saint from Assisi who embraced the ideals of poverty, humil­ity and peace.

An excerpt from the last state­ment he deliv­ered on April 20^th, which was read by Archbishop Diego Ravelli before he imparted the Urbi et Orbi bless­ing for Easter, encom­passes the found­ing val­ues of his pon­tif­i­cate. 

“How much con­tempt is stirred up at times towards the vul­ner­a­ble, the mar­gin­al­ized, and migrants,” Pope Francis wrote. ​“On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in oth­ers, includ­ing those who are dif­fer­ent than our­selves, or who come from dis­tant lands, bring­ing unfa­mil­iar cus­toms, ways of life and ideas. For all of us are chil­dren of God. I would like us to renew our hope that peace is pos­si­ble.”

Francis’s com­mit­ment to peace soon became very appar­ent. On June 9, 2014, the year after his elec­tion, he met with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Abu Mazen to plant an olive tree in the gar­dens of Vatican City and invoke peace in the Holy Land.

The two polit­i­cal lead­ers were invited dur­ing the Pope’s apos­tolic jour­ney to the Middle East the pre­vi­ous month, when he vis­ited Amman in Jordan, Bethlehem in Palestine and Jerusalem in Israel.

Already on that occa­sion, after a meet­ing with priests and wor­ship­pers in the Church of All Nations, also known as the Basilica of the Agony, in Jerusalem, Francis planted an olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane. The olive tree was a cut­ting taken from one of the eight 1,000-year-old trees in the gar­den to ensure the con­ti­nu­ity of these majes­tic plants’ genetic her­itage.

A few weeks later, the Invocation for Peace in the Holy Land event took place in the Vatican gar­dens at Francis’s ini­tia­tive. He wel­comed both Peres and President Mazen with a long hug. Then, in front of Pope Francis, the two pres­i­dents greeted each other with a hug.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople was also present at the meet­ing, which included read­ings of prayers from Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic tra­di­tions. The plant­ing of a young olive tree was the cul­mi­na­tion of the event, send­ing a pow­er­ful mes­sage of peace.

On June 8, 2024, the pon­tiff com­mem­o­rated the his­toric meet­ing on its tenth anniver­sary with a cer­e­mony. In front of that olive tree, which is now grown and thriv­ing, he prayed for peace in Palestine and Israel.

Francis made the last of count­less appeals for peace in the Middle East in the afore­men­tioned Easter state­ment, where he also called for peace, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, and the restora­tion of jus­tice across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As he con­sid­ered social jus­tice deeply inter­con­nected with cli­mate jus­tice, Francis was also the first Pope com­mit­ted to cli­mate action.

His sec­ond encycli­cal let­ter Laudato si’ (Praise Be to You), named after the Canticle of the Sun, also known as Canticle of the Creatures, com­posed by Saint Francis in 1224, is the first ever writ­ten by a Pope on the sub­ject of the envi­ron­ment.

The piv­otal doc­u­ment, sub­ti­tled ​“On care for our com­mon home,” intro­duces the con­cept of ​“inte­gral ecol­ogy,” empha­siz­ing ​“how insep­a­ra­ble the bond is between con­cern for nature, jus­tice for the poor, com­mit­ment to soci­ety and inner peace.”

Hence, Francis started the project Borgo Laudato Si’ in his res­i­dence at Castel Gandolfo near Rome on February 2, 2023, to pro­mote the prin­ci­ples described in the encycli­cal.

The Borgo Laudato Si’ estate spans 55 hectares, com­pris­ing 35 hectares of gar­dens and 20 hectares of farm­land, green­houses and ser­vice build­ings.

Olive trees are one of the seven main tree species cho­sen as sym­bols of the project, along with cedar, cit­ron, box­wood, Cypress, holm oak and mag­no­lia.

Based on the three tenets of inte­gral ecol­ogy edu­ca­tion — a cir­cu­lar and gen­er­a­tive econ­omy, and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity — Borgo Laudato si’ hosts job train­ing and edu­ca­tional courses, sem­i­nars, and cul­tural events. The estate is also open to vis­i­tors.

Its orchards include Pendolino, Frantoio, Rosciola and Vernina trees from which extra vir­gin olive oil is pro­duced. 

Other olive vari­eties can be found on the estate, includ­ing Pigeon Egg, Taggiasca and a tree from the Gethsemane Garden that was donated to Pope Paul VI by King Hussein of Jordan.

In 2021, the daily news­pa­per of Vatican City, L’Osservatore Romano ded­i­cated an arti­cle to the olive branch that, after cel­e­brat­ing Palm Sunday Mass in the St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis brought with him to Casa Santa Marta (the guest house that he chose as his quar­ters over the more lux­u­ri­ous Apostolic Palace, which is sup­posed to be the offi­cial papal res­i­dence).

In that olive branch, there are the expec­ta­tions and fears of human­ity, writes the daily, ​“but pre­cisely those infi­nitely small olive leaves, sym­bols of true peace, in the hands of the suc­ces­sor of Peter are a sign of a hope that does not die. A sign of the res­ur­rec­tion.”

Father Mattia Ferrari, a chap­lain aboard the migrant res­cue ves­sel oper­ated by the civil soci­ety plat­form Mediterranea Saving Humans, was very close to the late pope due to his com­mit­ment to migrants and refugees.

“Pope Francis taught us above all to love,” Ferrari told Olive Oil Times. ​“From love comes the courage to denounce injus­tices and the com­mit­ment to build a human, sup­port­ive and fra­ter­nal world. We must learn from him to love, and with this love we will be able to con­tinue the path he forged to save each other.”

• Vatican News
• L’Osservatore Romano
• Vatican News