In 2015, Pope Francis (born in 1936; elected pope in 2013) emerged as a towering public intellectual on the world stage with his widely read eco-encyclical titled Laudato Si' (meaning "Praise Be to You"). On October 4, 2023, the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226), Pope Francis renewed his concerns about the climate crisis in his terse new apostolic exhortation titled Laudate Deum ("Praise God").
