Vatican City
Reuters
Pope Francis launched an initiative on Tuesday to make Catholic institutions ranging from families to universities to businesses environmentally sustainable in seven years, saying a “predatory attitude” toward the planet must end.
The Laudato Si Action Platform takes its name from the Pope’s landmark 2015 encyclical on the need to protect the environment, reduce wasteful lifestyles, stem global warming and protect the poor from the effects of climate change.
A sheet covers the debris of a cable car after Sunday’s disaster, in Stresa, northern Italy, on Monday, 24th May. Italy’s transport minister vowed Monday to establish the cause of a cable car disaster that killed 14 people, after the lead cable apparently snapped and the cabin careened back down the mountain until it pulled off the line and crashed to the ground. PICTURE: Piero Cruciatti/LaPresse via AP.
POPE MOURNS ITALY CABLE CAR DEAD, PRAYS FOR “LITTLE EITAN”
Pope Francis offered prayers Tuesday for “little Eitan”, the lone survivor of the cable car disaster in northern Italy that left 14 people dead when the cabin plunged to the ground after the lead cable snapped and the emergency brake failed to engage.
Francis sent a telegram to the local bishop offering his condolences to the families of the dead who, he said were “tragically lost while immersed in the marvels of creation”.
Prosecutors have said they are investigating why the lead cable of the Stresa funicular snapped Sunday while it was bringing sightseers up to the Mottarone peak overlooking Lake Maggiore in Italy’s northern Piedmont region. They have said the emergency brake on the supporting cable didn’t engage, events that sent the cabin reeling back down the line until it pulled off, crashed to the ground and rolled over down the mountainside until it came to rest against some trees.
Fourteen people were killed, some of them thrown from the cabin. Five-year-old Eitan Biran, an Israeli citizen living in Italy, was the lone survivor and was hospitalised in Turin with several broken bones.
Francis offered particular thoughts for Eitan, whose parents, great-grand parents and little brother were killed. Francis said he was “following his case with trepidation.”
Officials at Turin’s Regina Margherita children’s hospital have said they plan to begin waking Eitan up from sedation Tuesday after he underwent surgery and an MRI, which showed no brain damage. An aunt and other family members have been with him at the hospital.
– AP
At a news conference announcing the initiative, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s development office, said the Pope has been invited to attend the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November in Glasgow, Scotland. Turkson indicated that the pope likely will attend.
In a video message for the launch, the Pope said the initiative would be “a seven-year journey that will see our communities committed in different ways to becoming totally sustainable, in the spirit of integral ecology”.
He decried “our predatory attitude, which makes us feel that we are masters of the planet and its resources, and authorises us to make irresponsible use of the goods God has given us.”
The initiative will have focus groups including families, parishes and diocese, schools and universities, hospitals and other health care facilities, businesses, lay Catholic organisations, and orders of priests and nuns.
Since Laudato Si (Praised Be) was published in 2015, the Vatican and Catholic groups in the 1.3-billion-member Church around the world have taken many initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint.
The Vatican, the world’s smallest state, has nearly eliminated single-use plastic, recycles most of its trash and makes its own compost for its gardens.
The Vatican development office will coordinate actions and provide guidance to groups and individuals.
Francis strongly supports the goals of the 2015 UN Paris accord to reduce global warming.
“These wounds [to the planet] manifest themselves dramatically in an ecological crisis without precedent, which affects the ground, the air, water and, in general, the ecosystem in which human beings live,” Francis said.
“We have a great responsibility, especially with regard to the future generations. What world do we want to leave to our children and our young? Our selfishness, our indifference and our irresponsible ways are threatening the future of our children.”
