Leo XIV Debuts New ‘Mass for Care of Creation’ at Castel Gandolfo, Calls for Ecological Conversion

After Vatican publishes new votive Mass formulary…

Leo XIV Debuts New ‘Mass for Care of Creation’ at Castel Gandolfo, Calls for Ecological Conversion

With the approval of ‘Pope’ Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) and under the leadership of ‘Cardinal’ Arthur Roche, the Vatican’s so-called Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has authorized a new votive Mass.

It is the so-called ‘Mass for the Care of Creation’ (Missa pro custodia creationis), for which the prayers and texts were published on July 3, 2025. They are being added to the section of the Novus Ordo Roman Missal (‘Sacramentary’ in the United States) that contains Mass formularies ‘for various needs and occasions’ (pro variis necessitatibus vel ad diversa):

Eager to try it out, Leo XIV announced that he would use it for the first time on July 9. More on that in a moment, but first some news articles and commentary concerning the new votive Mass formulary:

The Dicastery for Divine Worship has made a 12-page PDF file of the new formulary available online. Aside from the normative Latin text, it includes also working translations into Italian, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German.

The biblical texts chosen for this new ‘votive Mass’ are the following:

Reading 1: Wisdom 13:1-9

Reading 2: Colossians 1:15-20

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 18:2-3;4-5; Psalm 103:1-2a; 5-6; 10 and 12; 24 and 35c

Alleluia: Psalm 104:24; 1 Chronicles 29:11d; 12b

Gospel: Matthew 6:24-34; Matthew 8:23-27

At the Vatican’s July 3 press conference, ‘Abp.’ Vittorio Viola, who is secretary of Roche’s Divine Worship dicastery,

…emphasized that the readings featured in this Mass are “very rich and offer several insights”. From the Old Testament, for example, a reading from the Book of Wisdom (13,1-9) is included, which highlights the importance of seeing God through his creation. For the Responsorial Psalm, certain verses are listed from Psalm 18, which highlights how “the heavens declare the glory of God”, and Psalm 103, which states “Bless the Lord, all his creatures”. For the New Testament, a reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians (1,15-20) was selected that affirms that Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth”. Lastly, two passages from the Gospel of Matthew are suggested. In the first (6,24-34) Christ invites to “look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, yet “your heavenly Father feeds them”. The second (8,23-27) features the moment when Jesus calms a storm while on a boat with his disciples. The prayers in the Mass also reflect the importance of caring for creation, for example by stating “while we wait for new heavens and a new earth, let us learn to live in harmony with all creatures”.

(Isabella H. de Carvalho, “Pope Leo XIV will celebrate a Mass for the Care of Creation on July 9”, Vatican News, July 3, 2025)

An English summary of Viola’s presentation has been made available by the Vatican here.

At the same press briefing, ‘Cardinal’ Michael Czerny, who leads the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, noted: “Following the liturgical norms, this formulary can be used to ask God for the ability to care for creation. … With this Mass, the Church is offering liturgical, spiritual and communal support for the care we all need to exercise of nature, our common home. Such service is indeed a great act of faith, hope and charity.”

It would be interesting to find out just what the “ability to care for creation” might mean concretely. Are people to ask God for the grace of discernment concerning which discarded items go into which rubbish or recycle bin? (That could make for some insane confessions.) Is God to be petitioned for obtaining the means to afford an electric vehicle? Will Leo XIV beg God not to let him travel abroad all the time, thereby preventing untold tons of carbon from being blown into the air?

At The Catholic Thing, Robert Royal observes that the new Mass formulary “isn’t a radical recasting of the liturgy – on paper. It mostly just introduces several prayers reminding believers that God created the world and placed us here within the Garden ‘to cultivate and care for it’ (Genesis 2:15).” At the same time, he warns that “the significance of the Creation Mass goes far beyond the bare words to deep questions.”

Royal points out that one thing that is often forgotten in all the talk about ‘care for our common home’ and ‘ecological conversion’ is that all of creation has suffered the effects of the fall (see Gen 3:17-19; cf. Rom 8:19-22), so things are not quite as originally intended by God:

As farmers and even gardeners know, weeds, insects, and other pests proliferate in the “natural” state now. Fruits and vegetables take careful and constant attention, including wise and strong measures against what is otherwise “natural.” This perpetual human struggle usually gets lost in current “environmental” debates, even within the Church.

Of course there is also a downside to technological progress, but the fact remains that

…in a fallen world, populated by fallen human beings, all we can ever achieve is a precarious balance, amidst various tradeoffs. We live longer and physically better than in the past, but also more precariously. All it would take in our time is the failure of the electric grid or the disruption of the Internet or interruption of the flow of food and other goods from farm to city to produce chaos and death on a global scale equal to anything ‘nature’ throws at us.

We must beware of succumbing to ideology amidst such uncertainties. Recently, the Catholic Churches of the Global South issued a demand for what amounts to “reparations” for the ways that the developed nations of the Global North have harmed their lands, and called for the usual steps such as banning fossil fuels, etc. Such damage has occurred in many places. But so has the spread of modern medicine, agricultural methods that enable higher food production with lower impact on the land, and communication technologies that have connected the entire world.

So, in turn, does the Global South “owe” something to the Global North for all the inventions that have helped the South? To say nothing of the food and disaster relief that developed countries have been providing? It’s impossible to say with any precision – even a kind of hubris to think of human interactions in such a way – which is one of the clear signs that we are meeting here not with “environmental justice,” but a political ideology seeking to exploit the wealth of nations.

(Robert Royal, “Our ‘Common Home’ and Christian Realism”, The Catholic Thing, July 9, 2025)

In its own critical coverage of the new votive Mass ‘for the Care of Creation’, the Novus Ordo blog Silere Non Possum warns:

The risk is not so much doctrinal deviation, but rather a dilution of the liturgy’s Christocentric axis in favour of theme-driven liturgy, which, if not well balanced, may lead to confusion or loss of meaning. It should also be noted that the formula, though approved by the Supreme Pontiff and officially promulgated, is not mandatory nor included in the universal liturgical calendar. Its use remains optional, according to the General Instructions of the Missal, and will be regulated locally by Episcopal Conferences.

It is legitimate to ask whether, faced with the deep crisis currently afflicting the Church and the more urgent global concerns, the Dicastery’s priority should really be the drafting of a new liturgical formula dedicated to creation. This choice invites broader reflection: to what extent should the liturgy take on environmental and social emergencies?And with what tools, without undermining its identity?

(“From Sacrifice to ecologism: the Mass conforms to the prevailing narrative”, Silere Non Possum, July 3, 2025; bold print given.)

Of course not all who are critical of this new ‘Green Mass’ (as some have called it) come from the same perspective. There are also those, for example, who think it doesn’t nearly go far enough:

…the prayer texts offered are disappointing, not least in light of the rich Biblical witness as to what it means to worship in communion with all creation. The biblical texts that speak most deeply to that reality – e.g., Psalm 148; Dan 3:52-90 – are sadly absent from this Mass formulary. What remains is a largely anthropocentric posture embodied in the “Mass for the Care of Creation”: we humans should care for creation. This is simply inadequate to the realities of planetary peril we live with, when human beings are busily paving a veritable “highway to hell” (António Guterres) through large-scale, human-induced climate change. And it is human beings – especially those from the so-called first world – who have been fueling this planetary warming through life-styles built on unbridled carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

(Teresa Berger, “The New ‘Mass for the Care of Creation’: When ‘better than nothing’ simply is ‘not good enough'”, Pray Tell, July 6, 2025)

Dr. Teresa Berger, who penned these lines, is right to worry about global warming. Pope St. Peter warned us as well, although his concern was of a different kind: “But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up” (2 Pet 3:10).

Remember? This mysterious potted plant was received and put on the high altar by ‘Pope’ Francis on Oct. 27, 2019, as part of the closing ‘Mass’ for the Amazon Synod (image credit: ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images)

Let us fast-forward to today, July 9. As previously announced, the vacationing ‘Pope’ Leo XIV offered the new ‘Mass for the Care of Creation’ at the Borgo Laudato Si’ at Castel Gandolfo, which is about 15 miles from Rome. Vatican News did not publish a video of the entire liturgy, only a brief clip with ‘highlights’:

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Here are some of the news stories reporting on Prevost’s ‘Green Mass’:

Of course Leo also gave a homily for the occasion. In wording reminiscent of his immediate predecessor of unhappy memory, ‘Papa’ Prevost declared: “Only a contemplative gaze can change our relationship with created things and lead us out of the ecological crisis caused by the rupture of relationships—with God, with our neighbor, and with the earth—resulting from sin”, as reported by Vatican News.

An official English translation of the whole sermon has not yet been made available; thus we must rely on an automated translation but have verified it against the German version already published.

In prefatory remarks, Leo XIV had emphasized the importance of praying for conversions — not for conversions from unbelief to the Catholic Faith, of course, or from sinful lives to holiness; but for conversions from not being environmentally conscious to caring for that ‘common home’ of ours:

…we must pray for the conversion of many people, inside and outside the Church, who still do not recognize the urgency of caring for our common home.

Many natural disasters that we still see in the world, almost every day in many places, in many countries, are also partly caused by the excesses of human beings, with their lifestyle. Therefore, we must ask ourselves whether or not we ourselves are experiencing that conversion: how much we need it!

(Antipope Leo XIV, Homily at Mass for the Care of Creation, July 9, 2025; translation from Italian via DeepL.com)

Leo did not say how he knows that natural disasters are caused by the excesses of human beings; presumably because he takes it for granted.

Regardless, we must not fail to recognize that Prevost was silent on some very important supernatural truths.

According to Divine Revelation, natural disasters and other calamities often occur on account of sin — not because our sins all have a terrible environmental impact that causes the earth to react but because God punishes sin in this manner. The most well-known such case is presumably the Deluge, but we suspect that most Novus Ordo people no longer believe that it was a real historical event anyway. Other examples include the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt, and the destruction of Jerusalem. And of course the book of the Apocalypse (Revelation) is filled with examples of divine punishment for sin.

That truth is not mentioned by Leo at all. Like his predecessor Francis (Jorge Bergoglio), Leo drags the Gospel from the supernatural plane down to the natural level: Instead of preaching that God punishes us for our sins, for which reason we must be brought back to repentance again and again, ‘Pope’ Leo preaches that nature is revolting against man’s earthly “excesses”, for which reason we must convert to being environmentally conscious.

That is precisely also the false eco-gospel of Francis, who is on record claiming that God the Father never punishes us (another example here), but “Mother Earth” does. Leo XIV is happily continuing that Bergoglian tradition, although with better vestments.

Here are a few other quotes from Prevost’s homily that are deserving of a dishonorable mention:

We are “in a world that is burning, both from global warming and from armed conflicts, which make Pope Francis’ message in his encyclicals Laudato si’ and Fratelli tutti so relevant today.”

“Our mission to protect creation, to bring peace and reconciliation to it, is his own mission: the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us. We hear the cry of the earth, we hear the cry of the poor, because this cry has reached the heart of God. Our indignation is his indignation, our work is his work.”

“This voice [of the Psalmist] commits the Church to prophecy, even when it requires the courage to oppose the destructive power of the princes of this world. The indestructible covenant between the Creator and creatures, in fact, mobilizes our intelligence and our efforts so that evil may be turned into good, injustice into justice, greed into communion.”

Not surprisingly, a number of things Leo XIV said in this sermon raise eyebrows or at least questions. For instance, just what is the “indestructible covenant between the Creator and creatures” he is referring to? We are not told, yet it would be of immense value to know, considering that it allegedly “mobilizes our intelligence and our efforts so that evil may be turned into good, injustice into justice, greed into communion.”

Is it, perhaps, a rehash of what ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI called “the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin”, to wit, that “in the end we shall achieve a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host” (Homily at Vespers in Aosta, Italy, July 24, 2009)?

It may very well be, since the magna carta for all this ecological pseudo-theology is Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’, in which ‘Pope’ Bergoglio wrote: “The Eucharist joins heaven and earth; it embraces and penetrates all creation” (n. 236). Indeed, ‘Cardinal’ Czerny did not fail to mention this very quote in the July 3 press conference. It is eerily reminiscent of Teilhard’s blasphemous ‘Mass on the World’, which Francis endorsed in 2023.

So the Vatican II Sect now has a ‘Mass for the Care of Creation’ — one more edition of the same invalid Novus Ordo Missae cooked up in the late 1960s. As such, it will be another opportunity for Novus Ordo priests to offer to the Most Holy Trinity the New Testament version of the loathsome sacrifice of Cain, that is, the “fruit of the earth and work of human hands” (cf. Gen 4:3; Ps 113:12).

Title image source: YouTube (screenshot)
License: fair use

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