Guest Opinion | Suzanne York: It’s Time to Trade in Our Cynicism and Get Back to Work

We live in a time when cynicism feels like a reasonable response. It’s easy to believe that nothing will change—that climate summits are just photo ops, that politicians will always chase donors over justice, that the powerful will never stop chasing more. But every once in a while, a voice cuts through the noise with uncommon clarity and moral courage. For me, Pope Francis has been that voice.

Since he became pope, Pope Francis has pushed the Catholic Church—and the world—to reckon with the brokenness of our systems. His 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, still reads like a revelation. In it, he dares to say what too many leaders won’t: that we are failing both the planet and each other, and that the climate crisis is not just about science or economics—it is about morality. We cannot destroy creation and ignore the poor and then claim righteousness. We are all responsible.

But Francis didn’t stop with the environment. He spoke with radical compassion for the displaced, the forgotten, the marginalized. He washed the feet of Muslim refugees, welcomed the LGBTQ+ community with the phrase “who am I to judge?”, and insisted that poverty is not a crime. He reminded us, again and again, that the measure of a society is how it treats those at the margins—not the GDP or the stock market.

In an era where so many leaders bow to wealth and comfort, Francis insisted on discomfort. He pushed Catholics—recovering (like myself) and devout alike—to take up the work of justice, mercy, and stewardship. As someone who has often felt estranged from the Church, I found in his words a way back—not necessarily to doctrine, but to duty. He reminded me that being a person of conscience means staying in the fight, not walking away in despair.

And yes, despair is seductive. We live in a world where corporations pollute with impunity, where fossil fuel lobbyists write policy, and where too many lawmakers treat the vulnerable as obstacles instead of neighbors. The temptation to give up, to shut down, to tune out—it’s real. But Pope Francis challenges us to trade in our cynicism for courage.

We don’t need to be perfect. We need to be present. We need to listen more deeply, to act more boldly, and to remember that the arc of the moral universe only bends toward justice if we help bend it. The Pope isn’t asking us to save the world overnight—he’s asking us to care enough to try.

So let’s shake off the numbness. Let’s organize, vote, plant trees, feed neighbors, protect migrants, and demand more from those in power. Let’s believe again—not in fairy tales, but in the power of collective conscience. We owe that to each other, and to the planet that holds us all. Hope is not naïve, it’s necessary.

Suzanne York is a retired PUSD teacher and a member of the Pasadena Environmental Advisory Commission, Pasadena 100, and the Hahamonga Advisory Committee.