In his first video message as pope, Leo XIV told participants at an international conference on “ecological debt and public hope”in Rio de Janeiro, held from May 20 to 24, “Be builders of bridges of integration between the Americas and with the Iberian Peninsula, working for ecological, social and environmental justice.”
“I encourage [you] to keep building bridges,” the pope told participants of the five-day conference organized by the Network of Universities for the Care of Our Common Home. The event brought together rectors from more than 200 universities, mostly from Latin America but also from Spain, the Pontifical University of Portugal, the University of British Columbia and Oxford University.
Several universities from the United States are participating, including Georgetown, Loyola Chicago, Loyola Marymount, Fordham, Boston College and the University of San Diego, “where many are now concerned about threats to academic freedom and democracy,” said Anderson Pedroso, S.J., 50, the Jesuit rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, which is hosting the conference, in an interview in Rome on April 19, a month before the conference.
“I know that you are engaging in a synodal work of discernment in preparation for COP30,” Pope Leo said, referring to the U.N. Climate Change Conference that will be held in Belém, Brazil, from Nov. 10 to 21, 2025. He noted that the Rio conference will reflect on “a possible reconciliation between public debt and ecological debt,” which he said was a proposal suggested by Pope Francis in his message for the World Day of Peace 2025.
In that message, Pope Francis said that “foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets.” Francis called on “the international community to work toward forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world.”
Pope Leo underlined that in this Jubilee Year, “this message is especially important.”
The Rio conference is being held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’,” published in June 2015 on the eve of the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change. The United States originally signed on to the treaty, but, in a major setback to global efforts to address climate change, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the treaty in his first term and shortly after his second inauguration vowed to do so again.
This is the second conference organized by the Network of Universities for the Care of Our Common Home; the first was held in Rome in 2023, when participants were received by Pope Francis. Both conferences were organized together with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and its secretary, Emilce Cuda, the Argentine theologian who created the “Building Bridges” initiative with the backing of Pope Francis, with the support of the Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops.
Father Pedroso explained that the network is becoming “a movement where universities align with the church’s mission, while maintaining their autonomy, to serve the world and care for the planet. There are no divisions between public or private, Catholic or secular, because all are united by this common cause.”
Pope Francis was still alive when I interviewed Father Pedroso, who told me: “The public universities are especially drawn to this pope. Although they have never studied a papal document in class, today, ‘Laudato Si’’ is required reading because it speaks their language: climate, energy transition, the future of the planet.”
It is fitting that the conference is being held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio, the top private university in Brazil, which has become a foremost “Laudato Si’” university under the leadership of Father Pedroso, who became rector in June 2022.
In the interview, Father Pedroso spoke about his personal history and the “ecological transformation” of the university. Born “into a very Catholic family” in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1975, he entered the diocesan seminary at age 15. His bishop sent him to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome at age 20, and, while there, he became attracted to the Jesuits. After ordination, he worked for five years in his home diocese and then joined the Society of Jesus.
After a two-year novitiate in Brazil, he spent a year in Bolivia among the Guaraní people, where he said he discovered “the logic of the forest,” and another year in Chile, where he served people in the final stages of life, many of them homeless.
After completing his Jesuit studies in 2008, Father Pedroso taught at a high school in São Paulo, earned a doctorate in art history from the University of Sorbonne in Paris and then returned to Brazil to teach in the department of art and design at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.
From his first days in office as rector, Father Pedroso began imagining what a Catholic university could be. “I realized that a university is not just a place to produce diplomas and knowledge; it plays a fundamental role in society. It upholds key values like democracy, academic autonomy, freedom of thought, freedom from ideology. It’s a key institution, not only for the church but for the society as a whole,” he said.
“I realized we needed more impact in society,” Father Pedroso said, “and, inspired by Pope Francis, we began a process of renewal. I kept saying to my team: The pope asks for a church en salida—that is going out. So, we need a university en salida: one that looks outward at society’s great problems. We don’t just exist for ourselves. A university must serve society. Yes, we are Catholic, but in an open way—Catholic in dialogue with the world. Everything can be talked about, discussed, freely, rationally, conscientiously and scientifically. That’s essential.”
As a result of this reflection, he said, “two big projects were born: one for local impact, another for global impact.”
Local impact
The university campus is located next to three favelas (shanty towns), including one of the largest in Brazil. Father Pedroso said he used to ask himself: “How can we do cutting-edge science here, while 200 meters away people still suffer from tuberculosis? How can we be proud of our status as the country’s top private university if this is happening?”
“So we began to structure the university’s engagement with the surrounding area,” he recalled. He got the university’s health department, with its specialized medical training, to collaborate with the local community on health issues, including a lack of clean water and sanitation. He had the university address the housing crisis, too.
As a result of this cooperation, he said, “our relationship with the local community is beautiful. Many of our staff come from the favelas. We’re the only university here that keeps our gates open. We’re not afraid. They protect us. They feel the university is a place where they find work, health care, dignity. It’s what Pope Francis calls ‘social friendship, fraternity.’ In a place of conflict, we’ve become a model of relationship. A top university, surrounded by poverty, and we walk together.”
Global reach
Turning to the global project, Father Pedroso said, “I began to wonder: How do we impact the world?” He said Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the Amazon, “Querida Amazonia,” was a turning point for him. “It showed us that we have to understand the forest, understand the people, their values, their wisdom,” he said.
He understood that all this “requires conversion,” something he had already experienced during his time with the Guaraní people in Bolivia. “I arrived as a pious young Jesuit, thinking I was bringing God to them,” Father Pedroso recalled. “But no! God was already there. The missionary doesn’t bring God. He meets God where God is already present. That’s what I learned. The same applies to the Amazon. We don’t bring God or technology. We go to learn, to listen.”
Consequently, at the university, Father Pedroso said, “We started a project called Amazoniar—a research and formation program that sends students and faculty to the forest, not to teach but to learn. We go first to understand, then we ask how to help. But they lead, not us, otherwise it’s just colonialism again.”
“The project is just beginning,” Father Pedroso said, “but it’s already changing the university. We were once leaders in petroleum and gas research; now we’re becoming leaders in green hydrogen and carbon capture. This isn’t just a technological shift; it’s a spiritual one. That’s the university’s ecological conversion. It’s become a ‘Laudato Si’’ university. One faithful to Pope Francis’ teaching, one that makes an impact locally and globally.”
In service to the church
Father Pedroso said the university attracts students from all over the world, including the United States, France, Norway, Spain and many other countries. At the same time, he said, the university provides scholarships to 40 percent of its students because four in 10 come from poor or economically challenged backgrounds. He rejoiced last year when a young man who had grown up in a favela gained a doctorate from the university. “That’s the kind of social transformation we’re about,” he said.
Father Pedroso’s vision is bearing fruit. A former student, now one of Brazil’s wealthiest tech entrepreneurs, recently donated more than 35 million reais (around $7 million) to establish a cutting-edge artificial intelligence center on campus. “He told me, ‘Father, you’re doing exactly what the pope is asking us to do.’ That gave me hope,” the Jesuit rector said.
I asked Father Pedroso if he had shared what he was doing at the university with Pope Francis. He said he had done so at a private audience on Dec. 28, 2023, and that Francis gave him three pieces of advice: “First, pray, pray more and more. Second, stay close to your superiors, stay united. Third, prepare—because you will be persecuted,” meaning “if you follow the Gospel, you can’t expect applause.”
Father Pedroso recently accepted a nomination to serve on the international board of La Organización de Universidades Católicas de América Latina y el Caribe, one of the two major Catholic university associations worldwide.
Father Pedroso, who believes “universities must remain spaces of freedom: academic, spiritual, cultural,” said he accepted the position “to serve, with the pope’s vision in mind, to protect universities from ideology, from groups that seek to manipulate these institutions.” He considers this important “because there are ideological movements, especially from the far right, who present themselves as super-Catholic but oppose the pope’s magisterium. They want to take over university networks and push their agenda. If one of them leads the network, they bring their ideology with them. That’s why we must not leave leadership spaces empty.”
Right now, he said, “universities are vital for the church,” as is shown by this week’s conference in Rio, which is being supported by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, headed by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendoça, who sent questions to guide the discussion. It is also backed by the Association of Jesuit Universities of Latin America, as well as Caritas of Latin America and the Caribbean, and has the support of the Brazilian government and the COP30 leadership.
