Existential risks, ranging from climate change to rapidly advancing artificial intelligence systems, are exerting new pressures on the contemporary world, transforming societies, regions, and nations. As we attempt to grapple with these evolving threats, what role can religion play? This paper uses the Catholic Church as a case study to examine how religious institutions might play a more active role in addressing existential risks, with interventions spanning the abstract to the concrete. I focus primarily on the former, looking at the teaching functions of the Church (in the form of official pronouncements from the Vatican and more informal guidelines issued by local authorities), but I also consider some more practical, everyday actions religious leaders and practitioners can take as the paper concludes.