As the sun sets here in Halls Head on Easter Monday, we say farewell to Pope Francis.

Much will be said about Pope Francis and I admired him greatly. But for me I admired him mostly for his stance on the environment, which came to light in 2015 when he published his ‘Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home’. He professed that the environment is a shared inheritance and its protection is a duty owed not only to the planet but to each other—especially the poor and future generations. I hope he was able to remind US Vice President JD Vance of that in his final hours.

The sun may be setting on his papacy, but I hope not on his environmental legacy.