Pope calls for environmental solidarity with the future

(October 23, 2009) Pope Benedict XVI has made a call for justice and actions of solidarity with the world's future generations, saying they are also entitled to enjoy the beauty of creation. The Pope stated this in a letter he sent to Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I on the occasion of the Eighth International Symposium on Religion, Science and the Environment titled "Restoring Balance: The Great Mississippi River." The symposium, organized under the patronage of Bartholomew I, is under way through Sunday in Memphis, Tennessee. In his note, the Pontiff expressed his appreciation for the patriarch's "continued efforts to promote respect for God’s gift of creation and a sense of global solidarity for its wise and responsible stewardship." He noted that the great river systems of every continent, around which great cultures developed and to which the prosperity of countless societies has been linked, are today exposed to serious threats, often as a result of man’s activity and decisions. The Pope warned that "a purely economic and technological understanding of progress, to the extent that it fails to acknowledge its intrinsic limitations and to take into consideration the integral good of humanity, will inevitably provoke negative consequences for individuals, peoples and creation itself." The Holy Father called for "intergenerational justice and practical solidarity with the men and women of the future, who,” he said, “are also entitled to enjoy the goods which creation, as willed by God, is meant to bestow in abundance upon all."