Pope, nun, priest ranked among world's top 'green' leaders

Published: 2007-08-07

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has been ranked as one of the top "green" religious leaders by the online environmental magazine Grist. Dominican Sister Miriam MacGillis and Passionist Father Thomas Berry also made the list ranking the top 15 environment-friendly religious leaders in the world. According to Grist, these leaders are spreading the "ecogospel." The pope and the other Catholic leaders managed to crack the list because they have spoken out on environmental issues. The pope's use of an electric-powered popemobile and solar-power-friendly Vatican City helped him land at No. 6 on the list. Grist said the pope has been increasingly vocal about the suffering that climate change will cause for the world's poor. "When he speaks out on an issue, the world listens," Lisa Hymas, senior editor of Grist, told Catholic News Service in an Aug. 3 telephone interview from Seattle, where Grist is based. Elsewhere on the list, Sister MacGillis, whom Grist says "is on a mission to save the planet," came in at No. 10 for her crusade to sustain agricultural lands. Coming in at No. 15 on the list was Father Berry, a cultural historian, theologian and author who is "widely regarded as the most important ecotheologian of our time," says Grist.

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