VATICAN – Access to clean, fresh water is a fundamental human right that must be defended, especially in poor areas where men, women and children are suffering the deadly effects of climate change, Pope Francis said.

It surprises Gregory Lynch when he fields calls at the Green Churches Network from churches looking for ways to lessen their carbon footprint.

PANAMA CITY – Young people attending World Youth Day called attention to the world's environmental problems, issuing what they called a "manifesto" for the "care of the common home."

VATICAN – The world needs a new kind of leadership that believes in building up the whole human family and protecting the environment, Pope Francis told a group of energy and oil executives and global investors.

WINDSOR, Ont. – They’re called Climate Crusaders, and they’re part of what’s being described as the largest program of its kind in North America.

Development and Peace has signed onto a political manifesto that reflects in part the teaching of Pope Francis in a call for drastic change in environmental policy.

OTTAWA – North American leaders are making progress on climate commitments but more needs to be done, Catholic and other climate-change advocacy groups said after the so-called “Three Amigos” summit in Ottawa.

VATICAN CITY - Heads of state discussing carbon emission limits must create a global and "transformative" agreement built on justice, solidarity and fairness, a papal representative told the U.N. climate conference in Paris.

Climate change has refocused the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace’s commitments in Africa and worldwide.

VANCOUVER - Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is to meet with Pope Francis July 21 to discuss climate change.

ROME - Religious leaders from across the globe led a “Many Faiths — One Planet” march to the Vatican June 28, to show their support of Pope Francis’ groundbreaking environmental encyclical.

LIMA, Peru - Pope Francis' upcoming encyclical on ecology and climate is expected to send a strong moral message -- one message that could make some readers uncomfortable, some observers say.

For all the talk about global warming what we’re now seeing is a freezing trend that’s producing an ice sheet over Satan’s lake of fire. We know this is happening because events long thought possible only when the underworld’s climate turned entirely upside down — when hell froze over — have become the order of the day.

UNITED NATIONS - A sense of "shared responsibility to protect our planet and the human family" must influence how nations react to the reality of climate change, the Vatican's secretary of state told the United Nations Sept. 23.