NEW YORK(Zenit): The Holy See has affirmed that protecting the environment is a grave responsibility shared by every person, but has also warned that two extreme attitudes should be avoided.
Monsignor Pietro Parolin, undersecretary for relations with states in the Vatican Secretariat of State, said this on September 24 at a high-level event on climate change at the U.N. General Assembly.
“Climate change,” he said, “is a serious concern and an inescapable responsibility for scientists and other experts, political and governmental leaders, local administrators and international organizations, as well as every sector of human society and each human person.”
Monsignor Parolin affirmed that “my delegation wishes to stress the underlying moral imperative that all, without exception, have a grave responsibility to protect the environment.”
Then the Vatican official noted two extremes to be avoided.
In the first place, he said, “it has been unsettling to note how some commentators have said that we should actually exploit our world to the full, with little or no heed to the consequences, using a worldview supposedly based on faith.
“We strongly believe that this is a fundamentally reckless approach.”
Monsignor Parolin continued: “At the other extreme, there are those who hold up the earth as the only good, and would characterize humanity as an irredeemable threat to the earth, whose population and activity need to be controlled by various drastic means.
“We strongly believe that such assertions would place human beings and their needs at the service of an inhuman ecology.”
