Posted on 07/06/2018 11:03:44 AM PDT by ebb tide
Vatican City — The Vatican's secretary of state warned July 5 that humanity is facing a "possible collapse" in the Earth's ability to sustain life, as part of a two-day conference hosted by the Catholic Church to urge global leaders to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change.
In an address opening the "Saving Our Common Home" event, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said there is a "clear urgency" to the task and that people around the world, "as members of the common household, need to come together."
The Vatican's Dicastery for Integral Human Development is hosting the July 5-6 event among some 400 global faith leaders, scientists and politicians with hopes to influence separate meetings later this year of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
The conference is pegged to the third anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis' 2015 environmental encyclical "Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home."
"Is our world listening? Or do we find new ways of inviting our world to listen?"
—Cardinal Peter Turkson
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the head of the dicastery, opened the event by saying the planet is "on the brink of an unprecedented global catastrophe." He said effects of climate change, including warming temperatures and rising sea levels, "place a question mark on the very future of human existence."
"Is our world listening? Or do we find new ways of inviting our world to listen?" Turkson asked, before telling participants: "That will be part of the task of our gathering here."
The Vatican event, which Francis will address July 6, is being organized in three consecutive parts: examining the current state of global environmental concerns, discerning the best actions to take, and inspiring a "massive movement" to care for the Earth.
Each of the parts involves plenary sessions and small group meetings, leading to drafting of "action plans" for several upcoming world meetings, including the October annual sessions of International Monetary Fund (or IMF) and World Bank and the December session of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP24.
The meeting represents one of the strongest calls for action from the Vatican to world leaders since the publication of Laudato Si', which Francis has said he wrote with hopes of influencing the discussion that eventually led to the 2016 Paris Agreement, in which 195* countries committed themselves to acting to stop climate change.
One of the organizers for the conference said the Vatican recognizes that the global political environment has changed significantly since the 2015 publication of the encyclical, and that it now needs to push more concertedly for action.
"The political environment is tougher," said Fr. Augusto Zampini Davies, an Argentinian who directs development and faith issues at the Vatican dicastery. "But precisely because the environment is tougher ... we should work harder in collaboration with lots and lots of people."
"We need to convey all this good energy. ... We want to create a synergy that can bring an explosion," said Zampini. "The church wants to help the international community to have a good discussion and a good proposal for action at COP24."
Following Parolin and Turkson's talks July 5, the conference started off with brief presentations from five young people from different continents.
Jade Hameister, a 17-year-old Australian who is the youngest person ever to ski both the North and South Poles and to cross the polar ice cap on Greenland, said that during her visit to the North Pole the sea ice was so thin in sections that there were areas of open water where there never had been before.
"I call on the United Nations Climate Change Conference ... to put aside our differences and to think and act as one species facing an extinction event of our own making," said Hameister. "For the first time in the history of our species, we have one common threat against which we must all act as one."
Macson Almeida, a young man from India, said he and other young Indians are looking to the future "with anxiety," knowing their country is likely to be among those most impacted by abnormal climactic events.
"I urgently appeal to those responsible to quicken the pace to climate negotiations," said Almeida. "Every year we spend negotiating, we are losing out on time."
Turkson said the Vatican is hosting the event with the help of a number of other organizations, including Global Climate Movement, Caritas Internationalis, The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, or CAFOD, and Global Solidarity Fund.
Among others scheduled to address the Vatican conference are Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; Naderev Saño, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia; and Nicholas Stern, an economist and author of a landmark 2006 U.K. government report on the expected effect of climate change on the global economy.
Also set to speak are Myanmar Cardinal Charles Bo and John Zizioulas, the Eastern Orthodox metropolitan of Pergamon.
*This story has been updated to correct the number of countries that adopted the Paris Agreement.
Where did you get that date from?
“The coming cooling will be very bad for the human race.”
I tend to think the coming SEARING will be a lot worse...
“The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were SEARED by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him..”—Rev. 16:8-9
Oh no! He found thin ice?????
I bet that’s never happened before
Indulgences aren't for sale, and haven't been for almost 500 years.
Where is the picture of Goebbels?
Too many RCs don’t even get what is wrong with this.
I saw the Pope in Philadelphia a few years back and I had no idea that I was watching the Pope who would try to fundamentally destroy the Catholic Church as Obama tried with America. Maybe the next Pope can make the Vatican great again but I really doubt it.
Only the strong survive. And they usually don’t like to share.
To all church going Catholics - your Sunday offertory envelopes are paying for this crap. Think about that while the collection basket is being passed down the pews.
That may very well be, but if the fourth angel doesn’t show up in the next couple of decades, people will initially welcome the warmth.
Yep, the shakedown angle is just below the surface. It is their primary concern.
If the world were truly about to end, then why would they be so concerned with extorting funds?
That really is a brilliant response.
Considering the age of this Pope, by then the Cardinals will be stacked with liberals who will make elect an ever worse Pope.
Science! So simple, a cardinal or a pope can do it!
Obvious be has no faith in God!
Seeing as how the earth is allegedly an insignificant speck of dust in a vast universe and of absolutely no special status whatsoever, why should anyone care?
Galileo was not one of the "good guys." Though they deny it now, the Catholic Church actually defended total Biblical inerrancy at that time.
See above.
Will you elaborate on why you think Galileo was not one of the “good guys”?
Thanks!
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By counting and simple Biblical logic.
Last fall was the end of the 10th jubilee from the reformation, thus the beginning of Daniel’s 70th Sabbath of years.
The end of that Sabbath is also the end of Satan’s 42 month tribulation of the saints - ended by Yeshua’s gathering of his bride at the Last Trump.
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