Pope Francis made us all custodians of the Creation: “Mother nature who supports and governs us”

In a world going upside down, and seems to be reverting among wars, nationalism, barriers, violence, indifference, and environmental disasters, but, which, today, bid farewell from any angle of the planet, also the farthest one, Pope Francis, who, yesterday, on Easter Monday, “was back to the house of Father”, made us all “custodians of the Creation, our “sister Mother nature, who supports and governs us”, beyond any creeds, origin, sex, and age, but as human beings and unique “creatures aware of beauty”, and because it is not only an ecological matter, but an anthropological one. During his Pontificate, among his many bequests, he taught us what each of us, in his/her own small way, can do for himself/herself, and for our “common house” without loosing “hope which doesn’t disappoint, is not evasive, but engaging, is not alienating, but responsibilizing” (as he restates in Urbi et Orbi – To the city and to the world - at Easter, his last message in which there is all Francis, as said). He indicated that in the encyclicals “Laudato si’” (2015), the first of a pope entirely dedicated to the “cure of a common house”, and, who, with the definition of “integral ecology” according to whom, the worry towards nature, equity towards poor people, the engagement in the society, but also the joy and the inner peace result to be “connected” became a guiding light for those people, also outside the Catholic world, fighting for the safeguard of the most precious good on Earth, its integrity and biodiversity, and “Fratelli tutti” (2020, October, 4th, day of Saint Francis of Assisi), in which fraternity and social friendship are the indicated paths by Pope Francis to build a better world, a more right and pacific world with the commitment of everyone, community and institutions restating with strength the no to war and to the globalization of indifference. “I believe that the deposition and commitment of Bergoglio about the opening of the Catholic Church is at the basis of his pontificate. Our bond is only one very small drop. Instead, the attention towards environmental themes, the capacity to conjugate them in an indissoluble way to great social crises, the real example in terms of hospitality, benevolence, and respect towards any type of difference, all this, according to me, allows to identify this great Pope as the most revolutionary figure of XXI century”, writes Carlin Petrini, founder Slow Food, “friend” of Pope Francis (from a historical calling of Holy Father to the gastronome to congratulate for the work done with Mother nature, ed), who called him an “agnostic pious, because he felt piety for nature” (as he defined inviting him to intervene at Sinodo Panamazzonico, in 2019, in Vatican), and author of the introduction and Guide to the reading of “Laudato si’”. An Encyclical from which ““Borgo Laudato sì” , a laboratory of integral ecology” wanted by Francis in the Pope residence of Castel Gandolfo, in which agriculture is protagonist, and “L’Economia di Francesco”, the cultural movement of young economists promoters of a sustainable economy. And, to which, today, the actions of Slow Food are inspired, with Petrini, who, with the bishop of Rieti Monsignor Domenico Pompili, is promoter of “Comunità Laudato si’” to translate into concrete actions, and author of book “TerraFutura - Dialoghi con Papa Francesco sull’ecologia integrale”, but also “Manifesto di Assisi” - “Assisi Manifesto” (seeing, in first line, Symbola Foundation, headed by Ermete Realacci, and of which, also WineNews is part). Without forgetting that the Pope wrote the preface of “Il gusto di cambiare. La transizione ecologica come via per la felicità”, the book-confrontation between Petrini and Gaël Giraud, French economist, mathematical, and theologian and Jesuit, and a letter sent to farmers and to the world of agriculture reunited in the last Salone del Gusto Terra Madre 2024 in Turin. Pope Francis “brought all the Catholic world not only into ecological themes, but he arranged it in first line in denouncing that, from the thunderous but unheard shout of Earth, an increasingly higher level of suffering in men derives. The first ones to suffer from the effects of a galloping climatic and social crisis are, moreover, the most marginalized ones, both geographically and inside any single society. And, here the South American origin of Bergoglio, in whose blood, I want to say it, also a good dose of Piedmonteseness flows, it had a great influence”, says Petrini, defining him a “son of farming wisdom”, and affirming that, “Francis is who marked our time renewing a determining aspect for our humanity: spirituality. The road which was marked by him opens the doors to a more attentive and aware spirituality of any other life forms” (in an article signed by him on newspaper “La Repubblica”, and interviewed by “La Stampa”). In his 12 years of pontificate, since 2013, March, 13th, Francis has been, as it is known, a pope with primates: the first one to be born in Americas, and “arrived from the end of the world”, the first Jesuit, and the first to choose the name of Francis, such as Saint Francis of Assisi Patron of Italy establishing an immediate bond with believers, and, mainly with the lasts, represented by the poorest civilizations in the world, in war, from Americas to Africa up to Far East (where he went many times as Saint Francis) to imprisoned; he was the Pope of “3 Ts”, earth, home, and work (“tierra, techo, trabajo”), who fought against the culture of waste, who promoted the creation of “bridges, not walls” (since his first trip, just elected to the papal throne, in Lampedusa, in 2013); who said how in “the Church, there is space for everyone”; the first to nominated a woman as head of a Vatican department; according to him, the war, from Russia against Ukraine, and Israel against Palestine, is “a defeat”, and the “miscegenation is the face of a future in which, consequently, there will be less wars”, the first Pope to take part in a summit of G7, in 2024, in Puglia, in which also agriculture played a central role in the debate among the greatest of Earth; who gave the green light to Jubilee 2025, but he was also the more communicative one showing immediately simplicity, immediacy, and spontaneity – from images in which he praises alone for the end of the pandemic in a desert Saint Peter’s Square, in Rome, to those with Roberto Benigni in his “Giornata Mondiale dei Bambini” - “Children World Day” which established from volume “Spera”, first biography of a Pope (2025), to the message at the Festival of Sanremo 2025 – and, managing, in this way, to reach also the younger (with millions and millions of followers on socials); and, he was the first pope of the dialogue with all the greatest leaders of Earth also about themes such as environment and agriculture (the first one to enter also at Italian Senate); the Pope, who, in his last appeal “to all those having political responsibilities in the world” in Urbi et Orbi at Easter, asked “not to give in the logic of fear which closes, but to use the available resources to help who needs them, fight hunger, and promote initiatives promoting its development. These are the “weapons” of peace: those which build the future”. In the end, a Pope for which, “sister” is also our “body death, from which no living man can escape”, as Saint Francis writes in “Cantico delle Creature” - “Canticle of the Creatures”. But, Francis also taught us “that we never have to stop dreaming, and we have to to do that in our daily life”.