Pope Delivers Green Message

Pope Benedict XVI Urges Young People To Care For The Planet, Calls For Sharing Of Water

(AP)  Pope Benedict XVI urged hundreds of thousands of young Catholics on Sunday to take better care of the planet and reverse environmental degradation, saying the world's water supply in particular needs to be preserved and shared to avoid conflicts.

Benedict offered a very eco-friendly message during an open-air Mass on the second day of a weekend religious youth rally in the pilgrimage town of Loreto that was organized by the Italian bishops' conference.

The Italian Church has designated Sept. 1 as "Save Creation Day," and as a result the Loreto meeting carried a strong environmental message, with each of the participants given biodegradable plates, recycling bags for their trash and a hand-cranked cell-phone recharger.

Benedict told the crowd, camped out under umbrellas and tents on a vast, dusty field on the Adriatic coast, that it was up to them to urgently save the planet from development that had often ignored "nature's delicate equilibrium."

"Before it's too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth," Benedict said in his homily. "We need a decisive 'yes' to care for creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk making the situation of decay irreversible."

He said water, in particular, was a "precious" resource that needed to be preserved since "it unfortunately becomes a source of strong tensions and conflicts if it isn't shared in an equitable and peaceful manner."

Benedict has been on something of a green campaign of late, lamenting just this past week the environmental impact of recent forest fires in Italy and Greece. During his recent summer vacation in the mountains, he spoke frequently about the importance of nature - God's creation - in rekindling spirituality.

Under Benedict, the Vatican has been taking some concrete steps toward greater environmental sustainability. It has joined a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions, and has also said it was installing photovoltaic cells on the roof of its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity.

An estimated 500,000 people turned out for Benedict's Mass, the ANSA news agency said, citing police. Most of them spent the night camped out on tarps and tents on the field down the hill from Loreto, Italy's most important shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

As dawn rose over them Sunday, the field appeared to be a great multicolored mosaic, with participants donning the brightly colored sun hats provided by organizers to shade them from the blistering sun.

The meeting was an Italian warm-up for next year's World Youth Day, in Sydney, Australia, which the 80-year-old pope plans to attend.

[hiddenhorse1]

Get to work taking our valleys back! if you want to apply yourselves in a work for the good of all.

Begin with insurance companies.

Organize a nice group of lovely peoples of all ages. In the dead of night, empty the building/s, plural out of all furniture and equipment. Perform a demolition of the building and remove all debris.

Then plant gardens on the patch of land. Gardens. Trees, fruits, vegetables, flowers, all types of vegetation.

Submit to WE WANT OUR VALLEYS BACK TO COMBINE OURSELVES WITH THE ORIGINAL PLAN FOR THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

Then proceed to junk food companies, auto industry and on and on until most businesses for nothing but money are removed from this planet.

Get a clue complacents whining. Shut up and get to work cleaning up the mess you participated in making. It is now a toxic and dangerous environment.

[blondmadison]

I am tired and sick to death of scriptures being quoted from the bible or the Quran.

Those two works of deviance were the first real propaganda''s published. One tribe against the other. Both get to choose to kill each other.

All forms of life is nothing BUT sacred to the Father. Big Duh Here.

Stop the scripture recital. Cut the *** with competitive statistics which may not even be true.

Want to compare your competition with something? Compare your numbers to how many exist on this earth and you might get a real view of how minor your numbers are in comparison to human life on this planet. Then compare your numbers to all live organisms which cannot be counted.

Life is about love for all of life. Life being sacred for all live organisms to live. Want to count and brag? Go busy yourself counting the grains of sand in the Sahara.

Know each other by your spirit and by your good works, if you can amount to any. Try that one.

BOTTOM LINE: YOUR WAY DID NOT WORK.
So take your politics, your so called academics, your religions and your bibles and qurans and shove them somewhere!

[j-whitman]

soldat44,,, How can you say I''m a non-believer ??? --- You don''t know the 1st thing about me.... I just don''t believe what you believe,,,, singinrick''s comments are stupid & dangerous as well as his interpretations of scriptures.

[soldat44]

The Poop should shove a head of cabbage up his netherregion.

Catholicism is dead.
Posted by jeff92706 at 06:39 PM : Sep 02, 2007

Surely you jest!

Roman Catholic membership is up 9% - Protestant down 11% (during last 9 years in USA)

What do you care anyway?

BTW - Please use Spell check next time.

[soldat44]

Come on back Singinrick,, It''''s Sunday -
-- God is listening & is waiting for your answer on why you replaced him with a man & somehow think he wasn''''t a Jew or would have supported Zionism & why you think he came before Moses.
Posted by j-whitman at 05:54 PM : Sep 02, 2007

Please give it a rest...

You are a non-believer so what do you care.

[j-whitman]

Come on back Singinrick,, It''s Sunday -
-- God is listening & is waiting for your answer on why you replaced him with a man & somehow think he wasn''t a Jew or would have supported Zionism & why you think he came before Moses.

[blondmadison]

And no, I do not appreciate the Pope. Nor do I appreciate Jimmy Eat-All-The-Sh-t-I-Can-Spew-At-You-Swaggert. I fail to see any real good come out of "religions" or their self-appointed Holier Than Thou, so-called, "leaders". Gag me.

If this is all the familial emotional, spiritual support you people have to offer babies, SHUT DOWN. SHUT DOWN. SHUT DOWN.

[blondmadison]

Posted by singinrick at 01:03 PM : Sep 02, 2007

Thank you for your point of view. I am certain it matters.

Sick and twisted because I walk with the Father and I remain an open receptacle to his advice and instructions. None of them include politics and religion or how to make money. They also do not include honoring one single person as the only son of the father. The father of life is about reality, not mental horsesh-t.

Every blade of grass is a son of the father. Every apple on every tree, sons of the father. Every single live organism of life on the only planet of life is a direct decendant of the Father of life.

I walk with the Father and I do not need to be sermonized on how to open up to anything.

Furthermore, he is not a god and he never was a god. He was then and always will be, the Father of Life on the only planet of life in this galaxy where all adults force walk babies thru a way of selling something for food, water, shelter and/or to become abnormally famous feeding an eccentric, perverse ego.

What you actually are are incestuous mental patients. Incestuous by staying within your various and assorted tribes making babies like jack rabbits so your tribes could be big in numbers to force walk all thru your illness of being psycho-tic while marching 90 miles an hour backwards and upside down to your deaths.

Sick and twisted. Open yourself up to reality for a change of pace and leave Jesus out of it.

[j-whitman]

singinrick,,,, You just don''t like the Pope, because he is the leader of the Christian faith, a foreigner & wears a dress.

[j-whitman]

singinrick,,,, Jesus was a jew, not a messiah, a man not a God..
. You''ve got a personal relationship with Jesus, check his green card,, he''s been dead for quite a long time..
.. He''s certanly not the One & Only God or even a God -- He prayed to one. -------- Who came 1st Rick, Jesus or Moses ?????

[audubon1946]

The Pope as a human being is of course a sinner. But as a servant of God it is natural that he should be concerned about the health of the earth; as should everyone. George Bush on the other hand drags his feet and blows off the evidence of global warming because the wealthy corporations that keep his pockets jangling would see a restraint on their polution as not very friendly. If we do not take care of the earth then eventually she will not take care of us. Blazing temperature rises, fires, and floods already threaten much of the food supply around the world, and mostly in countries where it can least be afforded. Instead of spending countless billions on a war to bring democracy to a people who doesn''t want it, those billions should be put to improving the health of the earth before she dies. To ignore the fact that she is in dire straits is a huge sin.

[blondmadison]

BlondMadison, open yourself up to the love of God!
Posted by JesusFace at 10:03 AM : Sep 02, 2007

Dear "JesusFace", does your love of god translate to ''it''s fine that priests in multitudes are sexually molesting our children'' and ''it''s fine that priests inside their private club of Holier Than Thou "Catholicism" are extremely political inside their private club where walking with the Father has zero to do with politics?''

You keep your sick twisted version of "God" to yourself. And, using the name of ''Jesus'' does not commit you to higher levels of anything but fraud and idiocy.

[jerr11]

How about taking care of our young kids first?

Green earth can wait.

We want all the Fr. Pedophiles off the pulpit forever!

[thinkmore1]

Sounds like the pope is afraid that Doomsday is approaching. Shouldn''t he rejoice, since he is so sure he''ll get to sit next to god for all eternity?

Also, when things are CREATED aren''t they fixed and unchanging? Is he trying to tell us that things WE do can make things different, dare I say - evolve?

[swwils]

Doomed we are all Doomed!

[thinkmore1]

Sounds like the pope is afraid that Doomsday is approaching. Shouldn''t he rejoice, since he is so sure he''ll get to sit next to god for all eternity?

Also, when things are CREATED aren''t they fixed and unchanging? Is he trying to tell us that things WE do can make things different, dare I say - evolve?

[formrusmcsgt]

...make that "willingly" accept...

[formrusmcsgt]

BlondMadison, open yourself up to the love of God!
Posted by JesusFace at 10:03 AM : Sep 02, 2007

What you''re asking is for BlondMadison to willing accept intellectual enslavement as you obviously have.....

[hungry1968]

How much energy is wasted and pollution generated by electing a new pope every few years? The last time it cost an estimated $170 million dollars.

Meanwhile a new basilica is being built in Oakland at a cost of $190 million dollars.

Then there''s the $500 - $600 million dollars in hush money that''s being paid out by the Los Angeles diocese.

How much time and energy is spent stealing / collecting this money from elderly pensioners who are conned into donating their life savings for such noble endeavors as listed above? How, in the name of god, can these alleged religious figures frivolously waste this money?

Why doesn''t the Vatican do something about rogue churches and denominations that openly support presidential, congressional, or senatorial candidates? Shouldn''t they have to honor the separation of church and state? If they aren''t, shouldn''t they have to pay income and property taxes like any other lobbying / PAC organization?

[chicagopoet]

Come on, neo-cons, aren''t you going to call the Pope a lib moonbat perpetuating the Gore-bal warming hoax?