Pope's 'Angelus' message on first Sunday of Advent

(November 28, 2011) Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday launched an appeal to delegates attending this week's United Nations climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, to forge a responsible and credible deal to cut greenhouse gases that takes into account the needs of the poor. “I hope that all members of the international community agree on a responsible and credible response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, taking into account the needs of the poorest and future generations,'' the Pope told a large crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, after reciting his weekly midday ‘Angelus’ prayer with the people. Some 25,000 government officials, lobbyists and scientists were attending the two-week conference that opened on Monday in Durban. The immediate focus is the pending expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement requiring 37 industrialized countries to slash carbon emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Western governments are expected to try to get China and other growing economies to accept legally binding curbs on greenhouse gases, as well. Poor countries want the signatories to accept further reductions in a second commitment period up to at least 2017. The 84-year-old German pope, who has been dubbed the ‘green Pope’ because of his environmental interests, has voiced increasing concern about protecting the environment in his encyclicals, during foreign trips, speeches to diplomats and in his annual peace message. For the Pontiff, it's a moral issue. Church teaching holds that man must respect creation because it's destined for the benefit of humanity's future. Pope Benedict has argued that climate change and natural catastrophes threaten people's rights to life, food, health and ultimately peace.
Before the ‘Angelus’ prayer, Pope Benedict XVI urged Christians to prepare for Christmas, saying this is very important in a post-modern world where God seems to be absent. Pope Benedict was reflecting on the Mass readings of the first Sunday of the Advent season, the four week preparation period for “Christ’s first coming, when He strips Himself of His divine glory to take on our mortal flesh." The Holy Father was referring to the Prophet Isaiah lamenting there is no one calling upon God as if He has withdrawn and, so to speak, has abandoned us. This seems to reflect certain views of the post-modern world where life becomes anonymous and horizontal, where God seems absent and man his own master, as if he was the creator and director of everything - construction, employment, economy, transport, science, technology, everything seems to depend on man alone. And yet sometimes in this world that seems almost perfect, the Pope said, shocking things happen in nature or in society, so we think that God has withdrawn, so to speak, abandoning us to ourselves. Pope Benedict said that Jesus’ call in Mathews Gospel, "Be watchful! Be alert!" is a healthy reminder to us that life is not merely an earthly dimension, but is projected towards a 'beyond', like a tender shoot that sprouts from the earth and opens up to the sky. Man who is endowed with freedom and responsibility, will be called to account for how he has lived, how he used his abilities: if he kept them to themselves, or put them to use also for the benefit of others." In fact - the Pope added - the true Lord of the world is God, who should not find us sleeping and unprepared when he comes.