Aide Surveys Pope's Green Streak
VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 23, 2007, (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is concerned about the future of the planet, according to the Vatican spokesman.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said this during the most recent edition of the Vatican Television program "Octava Dies." The Vatican spokesman was commenting on the Holy Father's recent statements on safeguarding creation.
"Various times during his pontificate," said the director of the Vatican press office, "the Holy Father has referred to the important theme of safeguarding creation and the urgency of doing so."
He spoke about it earlier this month in his address to an encounter of youth in Loreto, Italy: "The future of the planet is entrusted to the new generations, in which one can see the signs of a development that has not always respected the delicate balances of nature.
"Before it is too late, we need to adopt courageous choices, which can recreate a strong alliance between man and the earth."
He said what it needed is to "invert those trends that risk creating irreversible degrading situations."
In his international apostolic trip to Vienna, Austria, he recalled that Sunday is "the weekly celebration of creation: celebration of gratitude and joy for God's creation."
Father Lombardi said that the topic is not a new one, "but it is an insistence on the urgency with which humanity is becoming more gradually aware, faced with environmental tragedies and more serious risks that threaten the future of humanity."
"Safeguarding creation is a field of natural ecumenical and interreligious collaboration: the recent traveling symposium led by the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I in Greenland to call attention to the melting of the polar ice caps was yet another confirmation of this," said the spokesman.
"Whoever recognizes that the world is created by God knows that he is responsible, not only to future generations but also to his judge, who entrusted him with an inestimable gift, to administer wisely," he said. "Believers therefore find themselves naturally on the front lines of safeguarding creation."
ZE07092307 - 2007-09-23