By Luke Stocking, Director of Public Engagement
This year’s Advent stories draw on experiences that members of the Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada delegation had in Brazil during the COP30 climate summit in November 2025.
“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”
― Matthew 3:1-2
Advent is a time for attuning our souls to the prophetic voice calling us to repentance in preparation for the birth of Jesus. This repentance requires action. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” says the Baptist (Matthew 3:8).
Belém, Brazil is not the wilderness of Judea. The people we encountered there during our mission to COP30 did not wear clothing made of camel hair. Nor did they eat locusts and wild honey. But the voice calling out from the wilderness of the Amazon is no less a prophetic one, and we have joined our voice to theirs.
A global pandemic, deepening political crises, war and genocide have all served in recent years to push the climate crisis to the back of mainstream consciousness―at least of those who are not subjected to the punishing effects of relentless extreme weather events. COP30 was the prophetic voice from the amazon that the world needed to remind us of the great task at hand, ecological conversion.
According to a growing scientific consensus, the planet crossed the 1.5-degree threshold for the first time in 2024. This threshold is the limit of global temperature increase above pre-industrial levels that the Paris Climate Agreement deemed necessary to limit the inevitable suffering caused by our utter disregard for each other and for creation.
We attended COP30 not as politicians or scientists, but as Catholics contributing to the prophetic voice of those gathered. And how beautiful was the community of faith we found gathered there! COP30 was unprecedented in terms of the presence and voice of the Church. Buoyed by the clarion call issued ahead of COP30 by the continental bishops’ conferences of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the Church was everywhere you turned in Belém. Whether at side events in the official UN spaces of the Blue and Green Zones, in grassroots workshops at the People’s Summit, in the sanctuaries of Churches and Cathedrals, or in the very streets with the 70,000 people who marched with one voice on November 15, the Church was there. At least the Church of the Global South was. It both makes me both proud and sad that the only Bishop’s conference from the Global North that we saw present at COP30 was our own from Canada.
Over lunch one day, an idea was born in Belém; we should gather this Catholic voice into a statement at the end of COP30 that could be shared with the global Church and outward to all people of goodwill.
With a speed that surely rode on the wings of the Holy Spirit, the statement was drafted and signed in less than three days by 800 people. This included five cardinals, 23 bishops, and more than 80 Catholic organizations from 30 different countries present at COP30. It was further supported by 300 other Catholic organizations from 40 different countries.
While I encourage everyone to read (and share!) the whole statement, I share a few of its words here:
As we continue this journey of ecological conversion, we ask for the grace to care more tenderly for creation, to walk in deeper solidarity with one another, and to grow in the courage needed to respond faithfully to the urgent challenges of our time, which affect us all, but especially women, youth, migrants, Indigenous peoples, and the most marginalized. As Pope Leo has just reminded us: “We walk alongside scientists, leaders and pastors of every nation and creed. We are guardians of creation, not rivals for its spoils.”
Belém translates into English as Bethlehem. I can think of no other place more appropriate for the prophetic Church to join the voice in the wilderness as we prepare the way of the Lord this Advent.