Contact with Nature Restores UsHere the silence of the mountain and the whiteness of the snow speak to us of God, and they show us the way of contemplation, not only as a way to experience the Mystery, but also as a condition for humanizing life and mutual relations.
Today there is a greatly felt need to slow down the sometimes hectic pace of our days. Contact with nature, with its beauty and its peace, gives us new strength and restores us. Yet, while the eyes take in the wonder of the cosmos, it is necessary to look into ourselves, into the depths of our heart, into the center of our being where we are face to face with our conscience. There God speaks to us and the dialogue with Him gives meaning to our lives.
So, dear friends, ... you are, as it were, molded by the mountain, by its beauty and its severity, by its mysteries and its attractions. The mountain opens its secrets only to those who have the courage to challenge it. It demands sacrifice and training. It requires you to leave the security of the valleys but offers spectacular views from the summit to those who have the courage to climb it. Therefore it is a reality which strongly suggests the journey of the spirit, called to lift itself up from the earth to heaven, to meet God.
--Angelus in the Appenines, 1993. Photo copyright L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO.
Symptomatic of our time is the fact that in the face of what has been called the danger of an environmental holocaust, a great cultural movement has been started to protect and rediscover the natural environment. Young people especially must be sensitized to this need. The respectful enjoyment of nature should be considered an important part of their educational development.
Whoever really wants to find himself, must learn to savor nature whose charm is intimately linked with the silence of contemplation. The rhythms of creation are so many paths of extraordinary beauty along which the sensitive and believing heart easily catches the echo of the mysterious, loftier beauty, that is God Himself, the Creator, the source and life of all reality.
Today's feast of St. Benedict, Patron of Europe, is an invitation to this rediscovery. Monasticism knew wisely how to join, as Pope Paul VI observed, 'the Cross, the book, and the plough', three factors which must never be separated if one does not want to endanger the personal, social and environmental balance.
May the example of St. Benedict help contemporary man to regain this capacity for synthesis to which the quality of humanity's future is largely bound.
-- Address in the Dolomites, 1991.
Respect for human dignity and belief
in the equal dignity of all the members of the human family demand policies
aimed at enabling all peoples to have access to the means required to improve
their lives, including the technological means and skills needed for
development.
Respect for nature by everyone, a policy of openness to
immigrants, the cancellation or significant reduction of the debt of poorer
nations, the promotion of peace through dialogue and negotiation, the primacy
of the rule of law: these are the priorities which the leaders of the
developed nations cannot disregard.
--Address to USA President George Bush at Castel Gandolfo, July 23, 2001
While I contemplate the summits of these mountains, which by now have become familiar to me, my spirit frequently turns to Mary. God has raised her above all angelic and earthly creatures, and has made her our sustenance in the road to heaven
--LES COMBES, Italy, JULY 17, 2001.- Address before the midday Angelus on Sunday, at a vacation chalet in the north of Italy
The universal allocation of the goods of the earth is a cornerstone of the Church's social doctrine.
--VATICAN CITY, JULY 8, 2001
When this [agriculture] sector is undervalued or abused, the consequences for life, health, and ecological harmony are always serious and generally without remedy, at least in the short term....
Walk in the footsteps of your best traditions, opening yourselves to all the important developments of the era of technology, while jealously safeguarding the unchanging values which distinguish you....
Man is not the absolute arbiter of the land, he collaborates with the Creator; a marvelous mission but marked by precise boundaries, which cannot be crossed with impunity....
Within the movement of nature, tranquil and silent but rich in life, there continues to palpitate the original delight of the Creator.
-Vatican, November 17, 2000
We must seize every occasion for harmonious cooperation among the family, the Church, the school, local officials, and the state government to protect young people from today's flourishing civilization of consumerism.
Message to the Polish bishops on June 11, 1999
When God speaks, his words give life,
they call things into existence, they direct our journey, they restore
disappointed and broken hearts and pour fresh hope into them.
Reading the Bible, we discover right from the first
page that God speaks to us. He speaks to us as he gives life to creation: the
heavens, the earth, light, water, living things, man and woman, everything
exists by his word. His word gives meaning to all things, rescuing them from
chaos. For this reason nature is an immense book in which we can see with ever
fresh wonder the traces of divine Beauty.
Even more than in creation, God speaks in the story
of humanity. He reveals his presence in world events, by beginning time after
time a dialogue with men and women created in his image, in order to establish
with each one of them a communion of life and love. History becomes a journey
in which the Creator and the individual come to know each other, a dialogue of
which the ultimate purpose is to lead us out of the slavery of sin to the
freedom of love.
--Papal Address to Young People in Lviv, "Choose the Narrow Path That the Lord Is Showing You," LVIV, Ukraine, JUNE 26, 2001
Indeed, nature itself, since it was subjected to the senselessness, degradation and devastation caused by sin, thus shares in the joy of the liberation achieved by Christ in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the full realization of the Creator's original plan emerges: that of a creation in which God and man, man and woman, humanity and nature are in harmony, in dialogue and in communion. This plan, upset by sin, is restored in the most marvelous way by Christ, who mysteriously but effectively carries it out in the present reality, waiting to bring it to fulfillment.
--All Creation Will Be 'Recapitulated' in Christ, Holy Father's General Audience address of February 14, 2001
"Bless the Lord, all works of the Lord" (Daniel 3:57). A cosmic breath pervades this canticle taken from the Book of Daniel....
One looks up at the sun, the moon, the stars; looks down on the expanse of waters, and up toward the mountains, lingers on the most diverse atmospheric situations; passes from heat to cold, from light to darkness; considers the mineral and vegetable world, gazes at the different species of animals. The appeal then becomes universal: It calls the angels of God, gathers all the 'sons of man,' but particularly involves Israel, the people of God, its priests, its just people."
The Christian feels grateful not only for the gift of creation, but also because he is the object of God's paternal care, who has raised him in Christ to the dignity of a son. A paternal care that makes one look at creation itself with new eyes, and makes one enjoy its beauty, in which one can see, as through filigree, the love of God. It is with such sentiments that Francis of Assisi contemplated creation and raised his praise to God, the ultimate source of all beauty. One imagines, spontaneously, that the elevations of this biblical text echoed in his soul when in San Damiano, after having reached the height of suffering in body and spirit, he composed the 'Canticle to Brother Sun.'
--VATICAN CITY, MAY 2, 2001. Addressing the 20,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square
Drug trafficking, corruption at all levels, inequality between social groups, and the irrational destruction of nature attest that, in the absence of moral points of reference, an unbridled greed for wealth and power takes over, obscuring any Gospel-based vision of social reality.
--Papal Address to New Brazilian Ambassador, Vatican City, April 13, 2001
In practice, tourism enables us to take a break from daily life, work and the obligations which necessarily bind us. Thus man can 'consider his own existence and others' through different eyes: free from his impelling daily concerns, he has an occasion to rediscover his own contemplative dimension and recognize the traces of God in nature and especially in other human beings' (Angelus, 21 July 1996)....On their travels, tourists discover other places, other landscapes and different ways of perceiving and experiencing nature. Accustomed to their own home and city, the usual landscapes and familiar voices, tourists see other images, hear new sounds and admire the diversity of a world that no-one can grasp entirely. As they do so, they surely grow in appreciation of all that surrounds them and the sense that it must be protected. Travelers in touch with the wonders of creation perceive the Creator's presence in their hearts, and they are led to exclaim with sentiments of deep gratitude: 'How delightful are all his works, how dazzling to the eye!' (Sir 42,22).
-- From the Vatican, 9 June 2001. Holy Father's Message for the World Day of Tourism.
Faced with growing inequalities in the world, the prime value which must be ever more widely inculcated is certainly that of solidarity. A society depends on the basic relations that people cultivate with one another in ever widening circles -- from the family to other intermediary social groups, to civil society as a whole and to the national community. States in turn have no choice but to enter into relations with one another. The present reality of global interdependence makes it easier to appreciate the common destiny of the entire human family, and makes all thoughtful people increasingly appreciate the virtue of solidarity.
At the same time it is necessary to point out that this growing interdependence has brought to light many inequalities, such as the gap between rich and poor nations; the social imbalance within each nation between those living in opulence and those offended in their dignity since they lack even the necessities of life; the human and environmental degradation provoked and accelerated by the irresponsible use of natural resources. These social inequalities and imbalances have grown worse in certain places, and some of the poorest nations have reached a point of irreversible decline.
Consequently, the promotion of justice is at the heart of a true culture of solidarity. It is not just a question of giving one's surplus to those in need, but of 'helping entire peoples presently excluded or marginalized to enter into the sphere of economic and human development. For this to happen, it is not enough to draw on the surplus goods which in fact our world abundantly produces; it requires above all a change of lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies.'
"DIALOGUE BETWEEN CULTURES FOR A CIVILIZATION OF LOVE AND PEACE," The Vatican, 8 December 2000
For the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability. Truth, goodness, proper laws and order -- man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of individual sciences or arts.... Indeed whoever labors to penetrate the secrets of reality with a humble and steady mind is even unawares being led by the hand of God, who holds all things in existence and gives them their identity....
For without the Creator the creature would not exist. For their part, however, all believers of whatever religion have always heard His revealing voice in the discourse of creatures. For when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible.
One must add that the problem of the legitimate autonomy of earthly things is linked up with today's deeply felt problem of ecology, that is the concern for the protection and preservation of the natural environment. The ecological destruction, which always presupposes a form of selfishness opposed to community well-being, arises from an arbitrary -- and in the last analysis harmful -- use of creatures, whose laws and natural order are violated by ignoring or disregarding the finality immanent in the work of creation. This mode of behavior derives from a false interpretation of the autonomy of earthly things -- man uses these things 'without reference to the Creator', to quote the words of the Council -- he also does incalculable harm to himself. The solution of the problem of the ecological threat is in strict relationship with the principles of the legitimate autonomy of earthly things -- in the final analysis with the truth about creation and about the Creator of the world.
-To a general audience, 1986
The Incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up into unity with God, not only of a human nature, but...of everything that is flesh -- the whole of humanity, the entire visible and material world. The Incarnation, then, also has a cosmic significance and a cosmic dimension.
-Encyclical, 1986
We cannot forget that the earth and the fruits of the earth are gifts given by God to all. We sincerely hope that all may benefit from them through equitable sharing. We implore the blessing of God, the Almighty Creator, on the men and women who cultivate the earth, particularly on the most deprived among them, and on those who are engaged in defending their human dignity as our brothers and sisters with respect and love.
-World Food Day, 1987
God, therefore, is the Maker of all things. It is He whom we seek also when we make efforts to construct a more beautiful world -- He the changeless Truth and the Being without defect. The visible world, changeable and limited, cannot totally fulfill the expectations of the human mind and heart.
These are the inner dispositions which we need to face our daily tasks. Those who work with that sort of attitude enter into a kind of dialogue with God which can easily be called prayer. Their activity becomes real cooperation with the Creator in making the Universe advance towards an ever greater perfection.
-To the people of Comacchio, Italy, 1987
It is in a global and ethical perspective that I address the question of ecology in my message for the 1990 World Day of Peace. This message emphasizes the fundamentally moral character of the ecological crisis and its close relationship to the search for genuine and lasting world peace. In calling attention to the ethical principles, which are essential for an adequate and lasting solution to that crisis, I lay particular emphasis on the value and respect for life and for the integrity of the created order.
Since the ecological crisis is fundamentally a moral issue, it requires that all people respond in solidarity to what is a common threat. Uncontrolled exploitation of the natural environment not only menaces the survival of the human race, it also threatens the natural order in which mankind is meant to receive and to hand on God's gift of life with dignity and freedom. Today responsible men and women are increasingly aware that we must pay attention to what the earth and its atmosphere are telling us: namely, that there is an order in the universe which must be respected, and that the human person, endowed with the capability of choosing freely, has a grave responsibility to preserve this order for the well-being of future generations.
-Symposium on the Environment, 1990
As you know in the recent message for the World Day of Peace, I called to the attention of every person of goodwill a serious issue -- the problem of ecology -- recalling that in finding a solution, we must direct the efforts and mobilize the will of citizens. An issue like this cannot be neglected -- for it is vital for human survival -- nor can it be reduced to a merely political problem or issue. It has, in fact, a moral dimension which touches everyone and, thus, no one can be indifferent to it.
At this brief time in this century, humanity is called to establish a new relationship of attentiveness and respect towards the environment. Humanity must protect its delicate balances, keeping in mind the extraordinary possibilities but, also, the formidable threats inherent in certain forms of experimentation, scientific research and industrial activity -- and that must be done if humanity does not want to threaten its very development or draw from it unimaginable consequences.... Ecological problems enter into everyone's home, they are discussed in the family circle and people wonder what tomorrow will be like.
We must, therefore, mobilize every effort so that each person assumes his or her own responsibility and creates the basis for a lifestyle of solidarity and brotherhood. All have to commit themselves to the equal distribution of this earth's goods, to respect for the life of the neighbor in trouble or on the fringe, and to development of volunteer agencies which today can undertake an important role in the support and coordination in these areas.
-Regional Council of Lazio, 1990
The topic you have been studying is of immense importance. It is to the undeniable credit of scientists that the value of biodiversity of tropical ecosystems is coming to be more understood and appreciated. However, the extent of the depletion of the earth's biodiversity is, indeed, a very serious problem. It threatens countless other forms of life. Even the quality of human life, because of its dynamic interaction with other species, is being impoverished. Tropical forests deserve our attention, study, and protection. As well as making an essential contribution to the regulation of the earth's climatic conditions, they possess one of the richest varieties of the earth's species, the beauty of which merits our profound aesthetic appreciation. Moreover, some plants and microorganisms of the forest are capable of synthesizing unlimited numbers of complex substances of great potential to the manufacture of medicines and antibiotics. Other plants posses value as sources of food or as a means of genetically improving strains of edible plants.
Unfortunately the rate at which these forests are being destroyed or altered is depleting their biodiversity so quickly that many species may never be catalogued or studied for their possible value to human beings. If an unjustified search for profit is sometimes responsible for deforestation of tropical ecosystems and the loss of their biodiversity, it is also true that a desperate fight against poverty threatens to deplete these important resources of the planet.
Today the work of scientists, such as yourselves, is becoming more and more important. An intense program of information and education is needed. In particular your study and research can contribute to fostering an enlightened moral commitment -- more urgent now than ever.
In this way the present ecological crisis, especially grave in the case of the tropical forests, will become an occasion for a renewed consciousness of man's true place in this world and of his relationship to the environment. The created universe has been given to mankind, not for selfish misuse, but for the glory of God, which consists, as St. Irenaeus said many centuries ago, in 'the living man.'
-Unesco, UN, World Bank Study Week, 1990
Before this panorama of meadows, woods, streams and mountain peaks that touch the sky, we all discover afresh the desire to thank God for the wonders that He has made and we wish to listen in silence to the voice of nature, so that we can transform our admiration into prayer. For these mountains awake in our hearts the sense of the infinite with the desire to raise up our minds to what is sublime. It is the Author of Beauty Himself who created these wonders.
Today's feast has a special message for you forestry workers by reason of the ecological problem that is implied in your work. It is well known how urgent it is to spread awareness that the resources of our planet must be respected. All are involved here because the world that we inhabit reveals ever more clearly it intrinsic unity, such that the problems of conservation of its patrimony concerns peoples without distinction.
The conservation and development of woods, in whatever zone, are fundamental for the maintenance and the recomposition of the natural balances which are indispensable for life. This must be affirmed all the more today as we become aware how urgent it is to change decisively the tendency in all that leads to a disturbing form of pollution. Each single person is obliged to avoid initiatives and actions that could damage the purity of the environment. Since trees and plant life, as a whole, have an indispensable function with regard to the balance of nature, so necessary to life in all its stages, it is a matter of ever greater importance for mankind that they be protected and respected.
For the Christian there is a moral commitment to care for the earth so that it may produce fruit and become a dwelling of the universal human family.
-Homily in Val Visdene, Italy, on the Feast Day of St. John Gualbert, Patron of Foresters, 1990
Your award is inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis and especially by the Canticle of Praise he composed in honor of the Most High, All Powerful Good Lord. According to the little poor man of Assisi, creation, which is the work of Divine Providence, expresses beauty and goodness, and renders a valuable service to mankind. It speaks of the Creator manifesting His eternal plan of harmony and peace. Therefore, nature should be respected and preserved so that by establishing a healthy proper relationship with it, people can be led to contemplate the mystery of God's greatness and love. Every being, St. Francis sings, 'is beautiful, radiant with great splendor and bears a likeness of You, Most High One' (Canticle of Creatures).
Everything has its origin and receives its strength from the Most High Creator. In contact with creation a person can better understand the eternal values upon which life is built. These are, among others, values of beauty and truth, of simplicity and love, of fidelity and solidarity. Observing the wonders of nature, people learn to observe the laws which regulate its dynamism -- they are led to look with gratitude on God's plan for the world and mankind. Thus all existence becomes a song of admiration and thanksgiving which is expressed in contemplation and prayer -- 'Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility'.... Continue your work of consciousness raising for the protection of the environment -- spread a culture that is attentive to the values of our ecosystem.
-The Franciscan Environmental Prize, awarded to Costa Rica, 1991
We make an appeal that everyone will make a determined effort to solve the current burning problem of ecology, in order to avoid the great risk threatening the world today due to the abuse of resources that are God's gift.
-Common Declaration Signed in the Vatican by Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew I, June 29, 1995
Doubtless one of the great social changes of our time is the increasing role played by women, also in an executive capacity, in labor and the economy. This process is gradually changing the face of society, and it is legitimate to hope that it will gradually succeed in changing that of the economy itself, giving it a new human inspiration and removing it from the recurring temptation of dull efficiency marked only by the laws of profit. How can we fail to see that, in order to deal satisfactorily with the many problems emerging today, special recourse to the feminine genius is essential? Among other things, I am thinking of the problems of education, leisure time, the quality of life, migration, social services, the elderly, drugs, health care, and ecology. "In all these areas a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable", and "it will force systems to be redesigned in a way which favors the processes of humanization which mark the "civilization of love" (Letter to Women, n. 4).
-Equal Opportunity Still Urgently Needed, Message Delivered August 20, 1995
Life, which has always been welcomed and desired as a great good for humanity as well as being the fundamental and primary value for every individual, must be reaffirmed, assimilated and recovered today from a culture which otherwise risks closing in on and destroying itself, or reducing life to a consumer product for an affluent society....
With respect for all creation, the eminent value of the human person acquires an overriding and primordial concern. The culture of life is the basis and the inescapable presupposition for the development of every aspect of an authentic ecology of creation. What is called for is "a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life. All together, we must build a new culture of life" (Evangelium vitae, n. 95).
-Reaffirm the Culture of Life!, April 23, 1996
...Using the natural methods requires and strengthens the harmony of the married couple, it helps and confirms the rediscovery of the marvelous gift of parenthood, it involves respect for nature and demands the responsibility of the individuals. According to many authoritative opinions, they also foster more completely that human ecology which is the harmony between the demands of nature and personal behavior.
At the global level this choice supports the process of freedom and emancipation of women and peoples from unjust family planning programs which bring in their sad wake the various forms of contraception, abortion, and sterilization.
--Taken from the January 22, 1997 issue of L'Osservatore Romano.
Since some of the powerful have turned their backs on Christ, the century now ending is impotently witnessing the death from starvation of thousands of human beings, although, paradoxically, agricultural and industrial production are on the rise; it no longer promotes moral values, which have been gradually eroded by phenomena such as drugs, corruption, unbridled consumerism and widespread hedonism; defenseless, it beholds the growing gap between poor indebted countries and others which are powerful and affluent; it continues to ignore the intrinsic perversion and terrible consequences of the "culture of death"; it promotes ecology, but ignores the fact that any attack on nature is deeply rooted in moral disorder and man's contempt for man.
-Address of January 25, 1999 at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City
It was these noble motives that inspired the courageous cultural commitment of Italian Catholic jurists to opposing the divorce law in 1970, and that of abortion in 1978, as well as their valuable contribution to the issues of ecology and bioethics at a time when they were not yet an object of attention on the part of Italy's legal community.
-Address of December 5, 1998 to the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists
The question of the environment is closely related to other important social issues, insofar as the environment embraces all that surrounds us and all upon which human life depends. Hence the importance of a correct approach to the question. In this regard, reflection on the biblical foundations of care for the created world can clarify the obligation to promote a sound and healthy environment.
The use of the earth's resources is another crucial aspect of the environmental question. A study of this complex problem goes to the very heart of the organization of modern society. Reflecting on the environment in the light of Sacred Scripture and the social teaching of the Church, we cannot but raise the question of the very style of life promoted by modern society, and in particular the question of the uneven way in which the benefits of progress are distributed.
MESSAGE OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE PLENARY ASSEMBLY OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE,
November 4, 1999
Human Beings are Appointed by God as Stewards of the Earth
ANGELUS,
Castel Gandolfo, Sunday, 25 August 2002
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