Pope Calls for Action at Copenhagen Climate Conference

(06 Dec 09 - RV) The integrity of God’s creation requires sober and responsible lifestyles, respect for the poor and future generations.
This was Pope Benedict’s call to world leaders this Sunday on the eve of the United Nations Climate Change Conference that opens in Copenhagen Denmark on Monday.
The Vatican, which has U.N. observer status, is sending a delegation to Copenhagen led by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s permanent representative to the UN in New York.
On Sunday the Pope said he hoped “that the work will help identify actions that are respectful of creation and that will promote a joint development based on human dignity and for the common good”. “To ensure the full success of the Conference, he added, I invite all people of good will to respect the laws laid down by God in nature and to rediscover the moral dimension of human life”.
The Papal appeal was delivered at the end of the midday Angelus prayer from the window of his study, high above a crowded St peter’s Square.
Thousands of families, faithful and tourists took advantage of the Holiday weekend to visit the Pope and pray with him.
A large crowd of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square to recite the Angelus with the Pope this second Sunday of Advent. Referring to the today’s Gospel passage, the Pope recalled how the evangelist Luke warns that the Gospel is not a legend, but the history of a true story, and that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical character inserted in a specific context. The second item worthy of note, then said the Pope, is that after this historical introduction, the subject becomes the Word of God, presented as a force that descends from above.
And he concluded: "Dear friends, the most beautiful flower to sprout from the word of God is the Virgin Mary. She is the beginning of the Church, the garden of God on earth. But while Mary is the Immaculate – as we celebrate her the day after tomorrow - the Church is in constant need of purification, because sin undermines all its members. There is a constant and ongoing struggle within the Church between the desert and the garden, between sin which dries up land and grace that irrigates it so it can produce abundant fruits of holiness. Let us therefore pray to the Mother of the Lord to help us in this time of Advent, to "straighten" our paths, and be led by the word of God ".