Thinking the future together

To the question of the environment and the “ecological” responsibility of Christians was devoted the larger part of the recent meeting of the Joint Committee of the CEC-CCEE (Council of European Churches and Council of European Bishops’ Conferences), held at Esztergom, Hungary, from 19 to 22 February. We report below some passages from the address given by Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and President of the CCEE, bearing in mind that – as the participants themselves underlined – the theme of the Creation has always played a central role in the European ecumenical movement, also through the recommendations of the Ecumenical Assemblies at Basel, Graz and Sibiu.Our time permits us to understand, also with the help of technological development, what’s happening to the world, to the climate and to nature itself. Today, many people are speaking of climate change, something that concerns us all. But we, as persons of faith, also have hope! We believe in fact that the history of every reality is in the last analysis in God’s hands, He to whom we must daily entrust our life. Our hope, however, is also a task. It means we must look to the world with responsibility. We cannot destroy, exploit, or change nature without realizing its consequences. Mankind has very powerful means, which are the result of the precious development of the sciences, but technology can at times become divorced from ethics. It is thanks to the development of the sciences that today we are able to see problems that seem to outstrip our ability to solve them, and yet we are conscious of our duty to seek solutions to them. We also know that the Gospel does not offer us detailed solutions for all our problems. But we are also convinced that from the certainty of the presence of Christ come the security of hope and also the commitment of mission that may help us to find the right human response to the daily challenges of our age.(…) One of the most important aspects is to underline that the questions revolving around the climate and the environment are also a call to conversion. Only a reason willing to accept the truth is able fully to understand the human person and the goods that God offers to him. It knows that these are gifts that don’t serve merely for material profit or for the pleasure of the moment, but really have as their purpose the good of the person in his totality, individual and social, bodily and spiritual.(…) We are conscious of the fact that not all “environmentalists” and “ecologists” are inspired by Christian thought. Even if for us the excellence of the human person over all the other creatures of the earth is clear, there are others who try to formulate proposals and recommendations in which this essential difference is obscured. We also know that the problem of the environment is one on which many economic interests converge and for this reason it is often difficult for those who wish to work for the common good to see where the truth lies and, even more so, to decide what it really necessary and right in this field. Moreover, in the present financial climate, which is increasingly becoming a grave social and economic crisis in many countries, the temptation will very likely arise to solve the immediate problems without looking to the future and hence to ignore our concern for the environment in order to tackle only the most urgent questions of the moment. To us is entrusted the mission of helping the formation of the conscience of persons, and to bring home to them that it serves little to solve a problem if this solution is only a stopgap or deferment. What is needed, instead, is a more far-sighted attitude, which devotes attention to the totality. Thanks to the Revelation, we know that man is more than what he possesses, but we also feel that the vocation of individuals and of humanity as a whole does not end with the death of the human being. And that’s why it is essential for all the Churches and all the organizations that work honestly in this field to seek solutions together for the many difficult problems that never cease to confront humanity.