Pope Leo XIV left his two-week holiday in Castel Gandolfo on Wednesday to celebrate the first Mass for the Care of Creation, a new Catholic rite approved on 3 July. Wearing green vestments in the gardens of the papal villa, the U.S.–Peruvian pontiff told about 50 staff and senior cardinals that “today we live in a world that is burning, both because of global warming and armed conflicts.” The pope asked the faithful to “pray for the conversion of many people who still do not see the urgency of caring for our common home” and included a petition for victims of the flash floods in Texas, where at least 109 deaths have been reported. He said the 1.4-billion-member Church would speak out on climate issues even when that means resisting “the destructive power of the princes of this world.” Cardinal Michael Czerny, who helped draft the new rite, said Leo’s decision to interrupt his vacation underscored the priority he will give to environmental matters. The liturgy expands the Roman Missal’s collection of Masses for special needs and reflects continuity with Laudato Si’, the 2015 encyclical of the late Pope Francis that framed ecological protection as a moral obligation. Leo XIV has signalled further steps, backing a plan to turn a 1,063-acre Vatican-owned field outside Rome into a solar farm that could make the city-state the world’s first carbon-neutral country at an estimated cost just under €100 million. The mass, his first public act since arriving in Castel Gandolfo on 6 July, also revives a centuries-old tradition of popes using the hill town retreat while maintaining an active public voice.