PAPAL MESSAGE SAYS MANKIND MUST RESPECT THE CREATED ORDER

VATICAN CITY, JUN 11, 2003 (VIS) - Made public this afternoon was the text of a Message from Pope John Paul to Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomaios I on the occasion of the fifth symposium of the Religion, Science and Environment Project which this year is focussing on "The Baltic Sea: A Common Heritage. A Shared Responsibility." Written in English, the Message is dated May 27.

The symposium took place on a ship in navigation on the Baltic Sea. The Pope's Message was given to the patriarch by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who spoke at the symposium's official inauguration ceremonies on June 2 in Gdansk, Poland. The previous four conferences were dedicated to the Aegean, the Black Sea, the Danube and the Adriatic.

Turning to the current ecological crisis, the Pope reiterates what he has said on previous occasions: "The relationship between individuals or communities and the environment can never be detached from their relationship to God. When man 'turns his back on the Creator's plan, he provokes a disorder that has inevitable repercussions on the rest of the created order'. Ecological irresponsibility is at heart a moral problem - founded on an anthropological error - which arises when man forgets that his ability to transform the world must always respect God's design of creation."

The Holy Father remarked that the fact that the symposium was taking place on a boat sailing to many ports "is itself a powerful reminder that the effects of ecological irresponsibility often transcend the borders of different nations. Similarly, solutions to this problem will necessarily involve acts of solidarity which transcend political divisions or unnecessarily narrow industrial self-interests."

John Paul II closed by referring to the Common Declaration on Environmental Ethics that he and Patriarch Bartholomaios signed on June 10, 2002 regarding the safekeeping of creation.

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