VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis blamed widespread degradation of the natural environment and disregard for human life on an increasingly common “throwaway culture” that places no value on the needs of others.
“We are living through a moment of crisis,” the Pope said on June 5.
“We see it in the environment, but above all we see it in man.
“The human person is in danger.”
The Pope made his remarks during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square.
Noting that the United Nations had designated June 5 World Environment Day, Pope Francis recalled the biblical account of creation, according to which God made man and woman to “cultivate and protect the earth”.
“Are we truly cultivating and protecting creation?” the Pope asked.
“Or are we instead exploiting and neglecting it?
“We are often guided by the arrogance of domination, possession, manipulation, exploitation,” he said.
“We are losing the attitude of wonder, of contemplation, of listening to creation, and thus we are no longer able to read there what Benedict XVI calls the ‘rhythm of the love story of God with man’.
“We have distanced ourselves from God, we do not read his signs.”
Today’s environmental problems also betrayed neglect of what Catholic teaching called “human ecology”, he said.
“What rules today is not man, it is money,” the Pope said, denouncing an “economy and financial system lacking in ethics”.
“Men and women are sacrificed to the idols of money and consumption,” he said.
“That some homeless people freeze to death on the street, that is not news.
“On the other hand, a drop of 10 points in the stock markets of some cities is a tragedy.
“That is how people are thrown away. We, people, are thrown away, as if we were trash.
“Human life, the person are no longer felt to be primary values to be respected and protected, especially if they are poor or disabled, if they are not yet useful – like an unborn child – or are no longer useful – like an old person.”
Today’s “throwaway culture” was also reflected in frequent waste of food, he said, adding that “food that is thrown away might as well have been stolen from the table of the poor, the hungry”.
CNS
