(Vatican Radio) A 2-day seminar focusing on the contribution of science, culture, politics and technology in improving water and sanitation management came to a close on Friday in the Vatican. The workshop organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences was entitled “The human right to water: An interdisciplinary focus and contributions on the central role of public policies in water and sanitation management”.Present at the seminar Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the new Vatican office for Integral Human Development, said policies for a just and fair water management are urgently needed in the quest for greater social justice and solidarity. Speaking to Vatican Radio, he said the seminar is a precious occasion to push for good water management policies:Listen: Cardinal Turkson said the meeting is important because it provides an occasion to draw attention to the fact there is still no formulation regarding access to water in terms of it being a &l...
(Vatican Radio) A 2-day seminar focusing on the contribution of science, culture, politics and technology in improving water and sanitation management came to a close on Friday in the Vatican.
The workshop organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences was entitled “The human right to water: An interdisciplinary focus and contributions on the central role of public policies in water and sanitation management”.
Present at the seminar Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the new Vatican office for Integral Human Development, said policies for a just and fair water management are urgently needed in the quest for greater social justice and solidarity.
Speaking to Vatican Radio, he said the seminar is a precious occasion to push for good water management policies:
Listen:
Cardinal Turkson said the meeting is important because it provides an occasion to draw attention to the fact there is still no formulation regarding access to water in terms of it being a ‘right’.
He said it is high time to do that pointing out that it is general knowledge that without water human life is not possible.
He mentions the crisis situations of famine which have been declared in various parts of the world because rain patterns have failed coupled with the fact that there are populations who simply do not have access to water.
Turkson expressed his hope that proposals coming out of the Vatican seminar will reach the ears of world authorities who have to find ways to draw up good water management policies.
“We have the technology these days to make water drinkable and to grow crops in tough conditions, for example through drip irrigation” he said.
Turkson also decried the waste of water and the fact that so many take water for granted.
He said we have the responsibility to stop famine or other injustices through a legislation that guarantees access to clean water: “that would be the greatest thing we can do for our world”.
Palma il Giovane (1550-1628), "Portrait of Pope Pius V." / Credit: Public DomainNational Catholic Register, Apr 30, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).Michele Ghislieri, later St. Pius V, was born in Bosco, northern Italy, in 1504 and ordained a Dominican priest in 1528. Recognizing his holiness and learning, his community elected him prior four times.During Pius' lifetime, the Protestant ideas of Luther and Calvin were dissolving Catholic unity throughout Europe. In 1542, Pope Paul IV reorganized the Roman Inquisition to combat them and named Pius an inquisitor. In 1555, the newly elected Pope Pius IV made Pius bishop and later cardinal of Nepi and Sutri, a diocese near Rome, and general inquisitor of all Christendom (with authority over all other inquisitors).Throughout his life, Pius devoted much time to prayer and practiced severe personal penances. He disliked public life and involvement in the governance of the Church, preferring the peace of the cloister, but relented when he saw tha...
Father David Waller will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate. / Credit: Courtesy photo / Bishop's Conference of England and WalesNational Catholic Register, Apr 29, 2024 / 18:45 pm (CNA).The Vatican has announced a new leader of the ordinariate in Great Britain.Father David Waller, 62, a parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will replace Monsignor Keith Newton, 72, who is retiring after serving over 13 years as the ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.In a statement, Newton called the Vatican's April 29 announcement "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop ordinary of the ordinariate. As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the ordin...
Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss "how to be a synodal local Church in mission," allowing priests from around the world to discuss questions raised during the ongoing synod and share their personal pastoral experiences. The four-day meeting, which is taking place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome, is attended by about 300 priests from around the globe and is divided into several sessions, taking cues from different themes and questions raised in the synod's synthesis report. "The parish priest is a man of the people and for the people. Like Jesus, he is open to the crowd, constantly open to the crowd, to help each and every one understand that they are a letter from Christ," said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Gen...