Christians and the garden

After Hungary and Slovakia, the pilgrimage sponsored by the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences through the heart of Europe is about to arrive in Austria (on 3 September). Called to reflect on the environment and on the role of Christians for its protection, the pilgrimage will culminate at the Marian sanctuary of Mariazell on Sunday 5 September. It comprises some fifty pilgrims, bishops and delegates of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe for the safeguard of the creation. They left from Esztergom (Hungary) on Wednesday 1st September; the slogan under which their pilgrimage is being conducted is the title of the last World Day of Peace, “If you want to cultivate peace, protect Creation”. On Thursday 2nd September the pilgrims transferred to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, travelling 130 km by boat along the Danube. On their arrival, they participated in a eucharistic celebration presided over by Archbishop Stanislav Zvolenský of Bratislava.The responsibility of Christians. The “welcome of God’s gifts” and “thanksgiving” for them are the first attitudes we need to assume in responding to the wonders of the Creation”, exhorted Cardinal Péter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and President of the CCEE, on opening the pilgrimage. If nature “has been given to us by God as a living environment” and “is destined to be ‘recapitulated’ in Christ at the end of time”, “Christians – he added – must be the first to regard the reality of the world with the consciousness of this specific vocation that has been assigned to them. They must shoulder the responsibility to avoid squandering goods, resources and energies and vigorously promote the integral development of man and the world, in the right way”. The Church, he pointed out, “has always declared that it is by caring for the common good that we can best promote a just and secure society, within which each is called to make his/her own contribution and where nature must be worked so that it may become a garden”. From little things to a great change in mentality. According to Cardinal Erdo, “the Christians who devote themselves to the safeguard of the Creation must especially form in themselves a clear consciousness on what is man”: if, “as the Pope has often repeated, environmental ecology has a need for a real human ecology, that means that the first creature that must be protected is man himself”. “We must appeal to the conscience of each of us and, by starting out from little things, we can achieve a great change in mentality”, he explained, speaking on the margins of the pilgrimage. “It’s a change – he underlined – that must necessarily be subordinated to knowledge, because it’s only through knowledge that we can acquire an organic view of the world and improve our moral judgement as a consequence”. The cardinal lastly remarked on the “great importance of dialogue with the natural sciences which, by enriching and deepening man’s knowledge, improve his way of reacting to the creation” and permit theology to better define its “moral judgements” on human conduct.“Ecological is economic”. Energy and water were at the centre of reflections during the second day of the pilgrimage. “Informing oneself” on the environmental impact of one’s own actions and making consequent choices, bearing in mind that “ecological is economic”, are the keywords spelt out by Fr. Bernard Sorel, member of the commission for the safeguard of the creation of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (CCEE). He cited various examples of how to reduce energy consumption, in particular as regards means of transport, beginning with the “choice of a car with reduced consumption” and continuing with “an ecological style of driving”. Then there is the use of public transport, including airplanes, generally adduced as hyper-polluting modes of transport. And yet, pointed out Sorel, “it’s important to make a distinction and base one decisions on the right information: a new jet plane pollutes far less than one built ten years ago”, and at times choosing “companies that have a fleet of more recently built aircraft and that transport a high number of passengers” is an ecologically more sustainable choice than making the same journey by car. Fr. Sorel therefore urges the proper ecological education “of communities and individuals” and the need to promote interventions of the public institutions “to reduce wastage and encourage scientists and industries to find alternative sources of energy”. 884 million people without water. As far as water is concerned, Beatrice van Saan-Klein, delegate for environmental questions of the German diocese of Fulda, recalled some of the shocking figures of the global water emergency, to which attention was also drawn by the UN Millennium Objectives: today “884 million people are living without any water resources at all, and 2.6 billion don’t have enough water for personal hygiene”. So, action needs to be taken “to ensure that the provision of water be secured both for our time and for future generations”. The decision, adopted last July by the 192 member countries of the UNO, to make water “one of man’s inalienable rights” goes in this direction, she concluded.