Catholics call for environmental action at Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue

The Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Orani Joao Tempesta at the Christ the Redeemer statue on Thursday, June 19, 2025 (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian Catholic worshippers laid down an eco-friendly carpet in front of the world-famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday and called for the protection of the environment ahead of UN climate talks in the Amazon.

Tapestries are a fixture of the Corpus Christi religious feast when Catholics celebrate what they believe is the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

This year, the colorful carpet was made from approximately 460 kilograms (1,014 pounds) of recycled plastic caps. Over the past few years the Christ the Redeemer sanctuary has increasingly used the attention the iconic statue generates to spotlight environmental concerns.

“These caps could be polluting the environment. Today they’re here as a carpet,” said Marcos Martins, environmental manager and educator at the sanctuary. “It’s the circular economy: we take the material, we’re reusing it here and then we’re going to reuse it again with an exhibition.”

Just after day break and before the first flock of tourists arrived Thursday, Cardinal Orani João Tempesta led celebrations at the site overlooking Guanabara Bay and Rio’s famed Sugarloaf mountain.

The caps are “a good reminder of our co-responsibility with ecology, of our concern for the environment, which are very characteristic of Christ the Redeemer,” Rio’s archbishop told journalists.

Thursday’s celebration also paid homage to the late Pope Francis and his Laudato Si’, a landmark environmental encyclical in which he cast care for the environment in stark moral terms. In the papal letter Francis called for a bold cultural revolution to correct what he said was a “structurally perverse” economic system in which the rich exploited the poor, turning Earth into a pile of “filth” in the process.

“The COP30 is coming up and we’ve just had the UN Ocean Conference. Nothing makes more sense than Christ being a great spokesperson for this issue,” said Carlos Lins, the sanctuary’s marketing director.

Earlier this month, the sanctuary held workshops, discussion groups and actions focusing on environmental preservation. The statue — perched on the Corcovado mountain - is itself located in the Tijuca National Park.

Brazil has been hit by a series of environmental disasters in recent years, including severe droughts in the Amazon, wildfires in the Pantanal and flooding in the south.

This week heavy rains killed at least two people in the southern region Rio Grande do Sul, just over a year after it was hit by the worst flooding on record.

Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently due to human-caused climate change.

Eléonore Hughes, The Associated Press