The Vatican and papal conclaves predate modern chemistry, but it was always possible, in making public the status of the private election of a new pope, to burn the ballots with wet straw to produce white smoke, and with tarry pitch to produce black. Nowadays the conclave uses chemical additives. For black smoke, they use a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur; white comes from potassium chlorate, lactose and rosin.
Carbon dioxide, the main culprit in climate change, is an invisible gas. Smoke itself is not a greenhouse gas but includes greenhouse gases. Smoke is visible because the sum total of the tiny, tiny solid particles and water droplets is enough to scatter visible light. For example, we wouldn’t know a coal-fired power plant was in operation if there weren’t the white plumes coming from the stack, and even then, what you are seeing is mostly water vapour, not soot.
Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025 at the age of 88. We of the Climate Intercessors network want to thank him for his work of bringing shalom into the world. This year is the tenth anniversary of his encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, named for a canticle by his namesake, as he describes in the opening paragraphs:
- “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.
- This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.
A few months back, I was interviewed by a French journalist about the impact of Laudato Si. I told her that I think even Pope Francis had his disappointments about its reception because right before COP28 in Dubai—a climate summit he was scheduled to attend—he released another document, an Apostolic Exhortation called Laudate Deum. “Eight years have passed since I published the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’,” he wrote, “when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”
I told the reporter that perhaps a longer lasting influence than Francis’s writings may be the emergence of the Laudato Si Movement. Since 2015, they have trained over 10,000 grassroots Catholic leaders, called “LS animators.” I also told the reporter of the impact of one single image of Pope Francis, photographs of him in a yellow rain slicker performing an outdoor mass in the Philippines among victims of Hurricane Haiyan. The Church, the pope’s very presence declared, declares its solidarity with those vulnerable to climate impacts. Francis was supposed to be at COP28 in Dubai but he had to cancel because of illness. “It will be very important, I think,” I told the reporter, “that he show up at COP30 in Brazil.” Visibility is important in a world of invisible greenhouse gases and non-existent revisions of NDCs, or emission reduction pledges.
Alas, Pope Francis has passed away.
We await new white smoke emerging from a chimney at the Vatican. We await a new pontiff. We pray that the conclave of cardinals will elect one who will even surpass Pope Francis in effecting care for our common home. And, yes, I do pray that this new pope will consider travelling to Belém, Brazil for COP30 in November.
When you think of smoke in Scripture, what comes to mind? Is it the black smoke of Gehenna, the smell of sulfur and the ashes of destruction? The English word smoke appears ten times in the Book of Revelation (NIV), and mostly refers to the smoke emerging from the Abyss, a harbinger of plagues and torment. But the first reference to smoke is “The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people” going up before God (Rev 8:4). And then there is Rev. 15:8a, “And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power.” Sometimes we just need the invisible things of God—whether it be our prayers or his glory—to be visible to our beleaguered eyes.
Isaiah must have felt that way. In Isaiah 6, he writes, “I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple,” but what we mustn’t ignore in the ensuing spectacle is its context. The opening clause of Isaiah 6:1 is “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.” There were so few godly kings in Judah; Uzziah was one of them and he had ruled for 52 years. Amid the fear, uncertainty, and devastation, God became visible. So did the angels, singing “’Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke” (Is 6:3-4).
Unlike other encyclicals that were addressed to the entire “Catholic world” or “to all men and women of good will”Pope Francis instead addressed Laudato Si to “every person living on this planet.” Some in our Climate Intercessors network are Roman Catholic, and some of them are additionally members of the Laudato Si Movement. Regardless, if you are a reader who is a “person living on this planet,” we invite you to pray as a new pope is chosen, just as we continue to pray that God will not wait until COP30 to “show up” in this climate crisis.
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss,
On behalf of Climate Intercessors Leadership Team,
