Like
Tweet
Forward
Academy of Sciences: A Seminar to Build a “Culture of Water” by ZENIT Staff
On February 23-24, 2017 the Pontifical Academy of Sciences organized a seminar in the Vatican on “the human right to water.” The initiative is intended to encourage a “culture of water,” explained the organizers. At the General Audience, on the eve of the event, the Pope lamented that “water gives us life, helps us in everything but to exploit minerals water is contaminated.”
A press release stated that the seminar “hopes to create an inter-disciplinary area” to formulate proposals in order to “realize public policies in the management of water and of hygienic-sanitary services.” It is an initiative that calls for the contribution of science, of culture and of politics.
For the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the efforts for the protection and management of water can contribute to peace and to the prevention of conflicts, stressing “that political and economic interests must not prevail over human life.”
At his weekly catechesis on February 22, the Holy Father evoked the question of water: “When the human being lets himself be gripped by egoism, he ends up by ruining the most beautiful things entrusted to him. And it is what has happened also with Creation. We think of water. Water is a very beautiful thing and so important; water give us life, helps us in everything but to exploit minerals, water is contaminated, one soils Creation and one destroys Creation.”
While, according to the World Health Organization, in 2014 some 748 million people did not have access to drinking water, the Vatican reminds that it is a “right that does not admit discord” and an “essential condition for a fitting life.”
He encouraged the implementation of “juridical, technical, social and political mechanisms that make possible the building of a genuine ‘culture of water.’”
The protection of water resources, education to the protection of water and access to water … must become a priority in governments’ agendas,” insisted the Academy of Sciences, which deplored that many local Constitutions do not yet provide for the right to water.
The Holy See’s Aid to Populations Affected by Earthquake by ZENIT Staff
On the express wish of the Pope, the Apostolic Almoner went in recent days to the area of Central Italy affected by the earthquake, to purchase from small retailers greatly affected by the quake, typical food products, a note of the Holy See Press Office announced today.
“In agreement with the Bishops of Rieti, Monsignor Domenico Pompili of Ascoli Piceno; Monsignor Giovanni D’Ercole, F.D.P. of Camerino-San Severino Marche; Monsignor Francesco Giovanni Brugnaro and Monsignor Renato Boccardo of Spoleto-Norcia, some groups of peasants, farmers and products were singled out whose businesses run the risk of closing due to the damages caused by the earthquake,” reads the note.
The Apostolic Almoner was authorized to purchase a great quantity of their products with the express intention of the Holy Father to help and encourage them to continue in their activity.
The Holy See Press Office stressed that it is “a gesture in line with Pope Francis’ magisterium who in his meetings has often recalled that ‘when bread is not earned, dignity is lost.’”
All the products acquired were immediately distributed to charitable tables of the city of Rome for the preparation of meals offered daily to needy persons without a fixed abode.
For some time now also at Annona, the supermarket present within Vatican City and reserved to Vatican dependents, it has been possible to acquire some products of the earthquake areas, thus contributing to support and to help the economy of that part of Central Italy, still in difficulty, to restart.
-------
Innovative Media Inc.
30 Mansell Road, Suite 103
Roswell, Georgia 30076, United States
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment