Uncovering the papal lessons hidden beneath the ice

As the internet erupted over Pope Leo’s blessing of a 20,000-year-old block of melting Greenland ice, I remained happily oblivious to the firestorm while delivering some lectures on creation in the Bay Area. After completing my work, I went hiking with my daughter among the majestic granite cliffs and ancient sequoias of Yosemite National Park. When I finally returned from being immersed in the world of the real and re-entered the digital ether, I quickly realized that this was not a storm I could disregard—one that had unsettled many of the faithful in recent days.

I began drafting this piece before the recent ice blessing controversy, and so its primary intent is not to pass judgment on Leo’s actions. However, seeing as the elephant (or block of ice) in the room cannot be ignored, I’ll begin by offering my reaction to the episode. From there, I’ll proceed to the central purpose of this essay, which is to reflect on the heart of what Leo has sought to convey throughout his pontificate thus far concerning creation.

The chief task before me, then, is to uncover the papal lessons hidden beneath the ice, so to speak.

A cold reception

Although many have characterized Leo’s act as pagan, I’m not especially disturbed either by the Holy Father’s blessing of the ice or by his accompanying remarks when viewing the whole through a Catholic sacramental lens. The Church has a venerable tradition of blessing all manner of physical realities, including fields, animals, and—notably—water. Further, I agree with Sohrab Ahmari’s pushback against those who argue that a pope has no business speaking about the environment when so many children are being aborted each day. As he rightly observes, “The same worldview that impels popes to speak out against abortion and euthanasia also demands social justice and careful stewardship of the planet.”

Indeed, our recent popes have expended significant effort expounding on the right to life of the unborn—a truth more commonly appreciated by conservatives in the United States. At the same time, they have frequently addressed matters of economic justice, poverty, and the environment—even if these issues are (rightly or wrongly) typically considered the prerogative of the progressivist agenda. So, again, I’m not at all bothered that Leo decided to take up the theme of the environment last week, even the charged topic of climate change. Neither Leo nor Francis was the first pope to do this. So, there should be nothing surprising here for a Catholic, even as we should also be aware that papal statements affirming mainstream climate science are prudential and scientific judgments rather than formal definitions of faith proclaimed ex cathedra.

Having said this, as a member of the Catholic flock, I must admit that I found the ice-blessing event rather ill-conceived and, at times, cringeworthy. Perhaps others found this service moving, and I don’t mean to make light of that. For my part, I found it hard to watch. Again, the blessing itself was fine—the pope was being pope—but what got me was the saccharine tune prefaced by a botched pronunciation of Laudato si’ and topped off with cardinals taking part in an awkwardly choreographed banner-waving display. If the whole thing struck you as either more fitting or more troubling than it did me, fair enough.

Chilling out about the Pope

Beyond the unfortunate optics—and questions about how much carbon was expended to obtain and transport that ice and where the now-holy water is at the present moment—my deeper reaction is one of hope tempered by disappointment at the continued lack of nuance in the way both Francis and, to this point, Leo have addressed climate change.

But, of course, our personal opinions are ultimately irrelevant, which brings me to my next point: Without succumbing to naivete, we need to chill out and stop fueling the algorithm machine with endless shouting matches over every last thing a pope says or does, fixating on it as though all his words and actions must be infallible (I don’t know that I would go as far, but I think Amy Welborn is onto something here,) Cy Kellett and Joe Heschmeyer are spot on when they say that all the constant complaining and critiquing is spiritually corrosive. Yet, this malaise seems to infect nearly every comment box I’ve ever dared to open—Catholic or otherwise. Whether it’s about a papal statement or pickles, many people on the internet inevitably find a way to tear each other down.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you, like me, are not the pope. That being the case, we owe him filial piety in receiving his teaching, and this includes the humility to admit that we, as limited creatures, are not always in the best position to judge matters objectively. Meanwhile, these days, anyone with a screen can be his own magisterium, confidently handing down infallible pronouncements about whatever the week’s global drama happens to be. However right one may be—or imagine oneself to be—in these judgments, Heschmeyer offers sage counsel:

You don’t need to blast on Twitter your feelings about everything the Pope does or everything anyone does…[I]f you’re choosing to get upset about irrelevant things, you are the problem. You’re not the only problem, but you are the problem.

And this is where I think our Holy Father let slip a moment ripe for something greater. Despite all the theatrics on social media, a balanced approach to this matter is entirely possible. Indeed, we can hold two things together simultaneously: 1) to agree with the pope and the majority of experts that anthropogenic climate change is real, and 2) to insist that the Church’s response must be more nuanced than merely echoing the talking points of international diplomats and NGOs.

As I noted in my analysis of Francis’s apostolic exhortation on climate change, and others like Michael Dominic Taylor have forcefully argued, we need to do better. This means that not only need to reframe environmental discourse within a Christological register (which Leo commendably does), but also to grapple with subtler issues long neglected in ecclesial reflection on this theme, such as the human cost of prevailing climate proposals—many of which are not only wedded to contraception and abortion but also risk depriving the global poor of essential energy resources.

Meanwhile, these efforts often overlook the futility of such sacrifices while the world’s largest emitter, China, barrels full steam ahead with seemingly no moral compass.

In short, I regret having to say it, but I think the Holy Father missed a great opportunity here to say something distinctively Catholic in a context that desperately needs to hear it (a mission we’re trying in small ways to implement in the Center for Integral Ecology at Benedictine College).

But let’s move on to what I wanted to write about in the first place, before the ice blessing incident. As we’ve seen time and again throughout history, our popes have much to teach if we can bear with their human foibles. I’d like, then, to turn to a few of the genuine nuggets of wisdom Pope Leo has offered on creation that I haven’t yet explored in this column but which should not be eclipsed by what is widely regarded as a significant misstep.

The core of Leo’s teaching

Already on several occasions—and independent of the polarizing question of climate change—Leo has reiterated his predecessors’ insistence that care for the created order is a moral priority. But if we want to move beyond the surface to the core of Leo’s teaching on creation, his aforementioned address at the ice blessing is actually a good place to start.

The Holy Father’s remarks from October 1 largely echo the familiar environmental themes of previous pontificates, especially that of Pope Francis. Yet, one line in particular stands out as fresh and incisive. Riffing on the words of St. John, Leo remarks, “We cannot love God, whom we cannot see, while despising his creatures. Nor can we call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ without participating in his outlook on creation and his care for all that is fragile and wounded.” The line recalls 1 John 4:20 (we cannot love the God whom we have not seen if we do not love our neighbor whom we have seen) and extends its insight to the realm of creation—a move that coheres with the biblical and patristic vision of a covenant that encompasses not only humankind but every creature.

Looking back to Leo’s interventions on creation from earlier this year, we find a thoroughgoing biblical message in his 2025 Pentecost vigil homily, where the pontiff relates, “The earth will rest, justice will prevail, the poor will rejoice and peace will return, once we no longer act as predators but as pilgrims…not greedily exploiting this world, but cultivating it and protecting it.” As an indication of how crucial he considered this point, it appeared in Leo’s homily at his papal inauguration, where he deplores “an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest.”

Yet, in contrast with merely bemoaning the problem or advancing a secular environmentalist solution to it, he suggests a remedy so simple that any of us can be a part of it: “For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion, and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family.”

But the most significant locus of Leo’s teaching on creation that I have yet to document is the homily he delivered at the Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo on July 9. Once again, Leo’s approach to the subject here is decisively Christian, as he urges us to contemplate nature as a great “cathedral.” Whether he was aware of this or not, Leo’s image happily evokes the words of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, who, during a 1903 campout under the majestic sequoia groves of Yosemite National Park, remarked, “It was like lying in a great solemn cathedral, far vaster and more beautiful than any built by the hand of man.”

Having just visited those groves myself, I experienced a similar sense of awe as I stood dwarfed by trees that have been living and thriving in that same spot since the time of King David 3,000 years ago. As one who also loves the soaring vaults of Gothic cathedrals, I sometimes ponder whether I’m more moved by the great cathedrals of medieval Christendom made by the art of man or by God’s most sublime works wrought directly in nature. In truth, I think the answer is whichever one I happen to be contemplating at the moment. Thankfully, the Catholic both–and spares us from choosing: we can delight in both the cathedral of nature and the cathedrals of stone, just as the Fathers taught us to read both the book of creation and the book of Scripture.

But back to Leo’s homily. After elaborating the metaphor of creation as a cathedral, he turned to the symbolism of water—both as the material foundation of baptism and as the setting for the Gospel account of the tempest on the Sea of Galilee. Building on its literal meaning as a historical event some two thousand years ago, Leo interprets it morally, noting that the terror of the disciples before the storm is “a fear shared by a large part of humanity today,” reminding us that no matter what happens, Christ can calm the storm of our lives. In light of this, he insists, we should be asking ourselves: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27)

Like the disciples, Leo adds, we too should stand in awe before the Lord’s power revealed in creation. Furthermore, he exhorts us to imitate our Lord, who did not merely wield raw power over nature but also had a “deep connection with that land and those waters, with the rhythm of the seasons and with the life of creatures.”

To draw near to our Lord by discovering the beauty of creation in our own lives, Leo teaches that we must routinely take time to behold how the infinite love of God shines forth in every one of his finite creatures. Like Augustine and Aquinas in centuries past, the pope observes that human sin blinds us from seeing creation as a divine epiphany, thereby leading us to treat it without the reverence proportionately due as the divine gift that it is. As a corrective, the Holy Father offers wise counsel for our time:

Only a contemplative gaze can change our relationship with creation and bring us out of the ecological crisis brought on by the breakdown of our relationship with God, with our neighbors and with the earth that is the effect of sin.

Pope Leo’s coda on creation and the Eucharist

A fitting place to conclude is where Leo brought his July 9 message to a close—by turning to the Eucharist, the source and summit of Christian life.

“It is in the Eucharist,” he teaches, “that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation.” Humbling himself to become present in a mere “fragment of matter,” Leo notes that Christ in the Eucharist comes “not from above, but from within.” As Herbert McCabe, O.P., and Pope Benedict XVI, among others, have likewise affirmed, transubstantiation does not annihilate creation, but transfigures and elevates it.

At the end of his reflection, Leo returns to his Augustinian roots, describing the Eucharistic banquet as the locus where heaven and earth, creation and man, unite in a “cosmic hymn of praise.” Echoing the memorable entreaty from St. Augustine’s Confessions, he prays, “Let Your works praise You, that we may love You; and let us love You, that Your works may praise You.”

It is here that Leo is at his best, as he articulates the reciprocal relationship between man’s praise of God and the flourishing of creation. Whatever one may make of the recent ice-blessing controversy, we would do well not to lose sight of this enduring insight: the Church’s vision of creation and its care is no mere pious addendum to the faith but an invitation to behold the love of God made manifest in the world all around us.