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The 6th Consultation promoted by the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE) on “The responsibility of the churches and religions for the creation” opened at Namur (Belgium) on 3 June” (till 6 June; cf. Sir no. 40/2004). During the consultation, the contribution of the churches to sustainable development will be described and “ecumenical” experiences and testimonies of various European countries presented. At the end of the meeting, a final declaration will be approved, and prospects for the future outlined, also in view of the third European ecumenical assembly (Romania, 2007). COMMON WITNESS AND COMMITMENT. “The Churches and the religious minorities play a key role in propagating a broader knowledge of the ethical foundations of sustainable development. The shouldering of responsibility for the Creation represents for the religious communities today “an opportunity to demonstrate the relevance of their beliefs” to the “issues of our time”. Convinced of this is MARKUS VOGT, from Germany, member of the preparatory Committee of the event. “The recognition of responsibility for the Creation is he said – able to produce a dynamic unity, whose scale and effectiveness are irrespective of dogmatic and liturgical differences” between the Churches. The field of the environment is one in which “the hopes and expectations based on the moral force and common witness of the Churches and religious minorities in response to the massive shortfalls of long-term responsibility in the modern world… are very strong”. While recognizing the “alliances” already created “between religion, science, business and politics for sustainability at the world level”, these are remarked Vogt “only weak links”, effective only at the local level, and full of problems of perception, misunderstanding and deep scepticism”. There is therefore an urgent need to promote “the potential of religions in an ethical, ecumenical and social manner”, by identifying “both the shortfalls that Catholic ethics and practice must eliminate in the field of inter-religious, interdisciplinary and social dialogue, and the specific points of strength that they may contribute to the interpretation and implementation of sustainability”. ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE AND PEACE. “The integral view of the environmental questions that is beginning to gain ground with the concept of sustainability, corresponds profoundly to the Christian view of responsibility for the Creation”. Recalling the “ever more firm” position of John Paul II on these questions, accompanied by the frequent pleas for “an ecological conversion”, and the international meetings in which the Catholic Church has been participating for years, Vogt emphasized “the new quality of cooperation between the religious communities, science and the State”. But he also pointed out the lack of “cohesive force” of such collaboration if it is to present itself to public opinion and to advance the issues with the necessary energy”. “Past years have shown”, he added, that “sustainability is inconceivable without the overcoming of the new conflicts (terrorism or ‘preventive’ wars) that hamper every effort for peace, justice and responsibility for the creation. In this context ecumenism, interpreted in the wider sense of inter-religious understanding (especially between Christian and Islamic communities), acquires an ever growing importance for conservation and the restoration of peace”. In other words, “no peace without ecumenism; no ecumenism without ecological justice; no ecological justice without peace”. In Vogt’s view, three things are needed to this end: first, “intensive dialogue to prevent the ecological conflict on access to the resources of water, oil and cultivatable land being translated to and re-ignited on the religious level”; second, “the adoption of a style of sobriety” to which “the religions may make a significant contribution”; and third, a “capacity for long-term thought and the structural rooting” of the Christian perspective of sustainable development in the long term.
