Catholic World News: Vatican envoy touts people-friendly environmentalism
New York, Oct. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) – Care for the environment should not conflict with efforts to eliminate poverty and raise economic standards, a Vatican envoy told the UN General Assembly in an October 29 address.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the permanent observer for the Holy See at UN headquarters in New York, said that "the environmental crisis is a moral challenge," and everyone shares the "grave responsibility" of protecting earth's resources.
However, the archbishop said, the environmental crisis should not be seen as a pretext for suggesting that mankind is a threat or a burden upon the world's resources. He argued, "there is no opposition between the human being and the environment." On the contrary, he continued, "the human being perfects and ennobles the environment by his or her creative activity." Implicitly criticizing the environmentalists who have demanded curbs on population growth, Archbishop Migliore called for "a a more positive vision of the human being, in the sense that the person is not considered a nuisance or a threat to the environment."
A healthy environmentalism should not place burdens on the poor, the archbishop said; economic growth is fully compatible with stewardship of earth's resources.
In fact, Archbishop Migliore said, the poor themselves should recognize their interest in environmental preservation, since they "most in most countries today, it is the poor and the powerless who most directly bear the brunt of environmental degradation."
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