Vatican City, Nov 16, 2017 / 12:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis sent a message Thursday to a conference on climate change, telling participants the problem is something that can’t be ignored, but must be met with a proactive desire to develop effective solutions.
“I would like to reiterate my urgent invitation to renew dialogue about the way in which we are building the future of the planet,” the Pope said Nov. 16.
“We need a solution that unites everyone, because the environmental challenge that we are living, and its human roots, involves and touches us all,” he said, noting that unfortunately many of the efforts to seek concrete solutions “are often frustrated by various motives that range from negating the problem to indifference, comfortable resignation or blind trust in technical solutions.”
Francis said we have to avoid falling into the “perverse attitudes” of denial, indifference, resignation, and trust in inadequate solutions, which “certainly do not help honest research and sincere dialogue on building the future of our planet.”
Pope Francis offered his words in a message to Frank Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji, for the U.N. COP-23 Climate Change conference taking place Nov. 6-17 in Bonn, Germany, and which is being presided over by the government of Fiji.
He noted how the gathering is taking place two years after the Paris Climate Agreement was reached, which reached a consensus on the need to develop “a shared strategy to counteract one of the most concerning phenomenons that our humanity is living: climate change.”
The Paris Agreement was an international climate accord reached in 2015 after representatives of more than 150 countries met for COP 21, or the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Signatories pledged on various levels to help reduce global carbon emissions and aim to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius, as compared to average temperatures from the pre-industrial age, by the end of the 21st century.
When the agreement was initially reached, Pope Francis hailed it as “historic” and said it would require “a concerted and generous commitment” from members of the international community. Over 190 countries have signed on to the agreement.
However, United States President Donald Trump decided earlier this year to pull out of the accord, arguing that the requirements would harm the U.S. economy and jobs.
In his message to the COP-23 conference, Pope Francis said the challenge of climate change requires the commitment of every country, some of whom “must try to assume a guiding role,” with due consideration for vulnerable populations.
He noted how in this year’s conference participants are trying to implement a new phase of the Paris agreement, which is “the process of defining and building guidelines, rules and institutional mechanisms so that it can truly be effective and capable of contributing to the achievement of the complex objectives it proposes.”
In coming up with solutions, the Pope cautioned against limiting them only to the economic or technical dimensions, because “technical solutions are necessary but insufficient.”
Rather, he said “it’s essential and desirable to also keep in attentive consideration the ethical and social aspects and impacts of the new paradigm of development and progress in short, medium and long-term.”
To this end, Francis emphasized the need to focus on an education and lifestyle that are based on an integral ecology capable of assuming “a vision of honest research and open dialogue” where the various aspects of the Paris Agreement are intertwined.
The agreement, he said, calls for “serious responsibility to act without delay as freely as possible from political and economic pressures, overcoming particular interests and behaviors,” and requires a “responsible awareness” of our common home.
Pope Francis closed his message voicing his hope that the work done in the conference would be animated by the same “collaboration and proactive” spirit of the COP-21 conference in 2015.
“This will accelerate awareness-raising and the consolidation of the will to make effective decisions to counteract the phenomenon of climate change while at the same time fighting poverty and promoting a true integral human development.”
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So they are meeting on a problem that currently has good stats but not meeting on the presence of active gays in the clergy like the orgy incident in Rome and the two priests caught in a sexual act in Miami with each other last week and the male prostitute in the Milan area two months ago who avers having had sinful contact with 36 priests. But the meeting is about the largely gay area that is currently quiet…abuse of minors. Well that sounds like we don’t need consultancy help.
Does anybody have any information about what is happening to Cardinal Pell? There’s been blank silence for quite some time, and considering that there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that he is being railroaded, I’m concerned.
I wish I could help you out there Leslie. It seems that for some reason things have stalled. As far as I know though: the trial is still going ahead. I have heard him speak a few times and met him once. I have always had grave fears as to there being a fair trial. He said himself once that he doesn’t go making things up. He simply upholds what the Church teaches, come fair weather or foul. There are those who hate him for it.
Stephen in Australia.
I should have mentioned. There is an Australian journal of conservative opinion. The name of it is Quadrant. When in a newsagents; I was amazed to see an essay in it, written very recently by Cardinal Pell. The essay is titled – The Church in a Post Christian World. It is dated: September 12Th 2018. Search Quadrant and you will be able to see it. However, unless you subscribe, you won’t be able to read it in full just yet. The whole matter is of great concern. Hope this has been some help.
Stephen.
39 mnutes ago..ny times…Di Nardo, president of Bishops facing accusation of transferring molestor…..
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/12/us/ap-us-clergy-abuse-dinardo.html
Bergoglio’s synod on “the protection of minors” is a sham. As we all know, the problem is not pedophilia but massive homosexuality among 50% to 70% of all priests and the priest-bishop-Cardinal homosexual networks that are strangling the Church. Still less does the Church need another synod to talk rather than to act. Again, as everyone should know, it was Bergoglio who unilaterally destroyed the bishop sexual abuse investigation-and-trial proceeding that his own sexual abuse commission had strongly recommended. Since Bergoglio has doubled down on his delay-deflect-and-deny strategy with this cynical synod announcement, it is time for the DOJ and the Attorney-Generals in all 50 states to treat him and the American PervChurch for what they are: criminals and moral degenerates.
Paul, I don’t doubt that there are men who are priests and who are gay. There are a few I’ve met that I suspect lean that way. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are faithful to their vow of chastity. You claim that 50 – 70% of priests are gay. From where do you get that statistic? I’ve been around priests all my life. My closest friend is a priest. I know he’s not gay and neither are the men I’ve known who are priests. Please tell me from where you get this statistic.
It might come from this much discussed and cited 2003 essay by Fr. Paul Mankowski, in which he states: “I would estimate that between 50 and 60 percent of the men who entered religious life with me in the mid-70s were homosexuals who had no particular interest in the Church, but who were using the celibacy requirement of the priesthood as a way of camouflaging the real reason for the fact that they would never marry.” Or perhaps from Sipes.
I think you are quite correct. The Bishop’s Conferences have no canonical authority at all. This is like a high school principal asking the Student Council to address the problem of incompetent teachers. Except that it doesn’t sound so obviously stupid.