Pope Benedict XVI in his message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace January 1st. 2010 says,"If you want to cultivate peace protect Creation"
I have selected various quotations from Pope Benedict's message and also inserted links to the entire text in various languages.
Pope Benedict says
"The world proceeds from the free will of God; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, in his intelligence, and in his goodness".
"The harmony between the Creator, mankind and the created world, as described by Sacred Scripture, was disrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve, by man and woman, who wanted to take the place of God and refused to acknowledge that they were his creatures. As a result, the work of "exercising dominion" over the earth, "tilling it and keeping it", was also disrupted, and conflict arose within and between mankind and the rest of creation (cf. Gen 3: 17-19). Human beings let themselves be mastered by selfishness; they misunderstood the meaning of God's command and exploited creation out of a desire to exercise absolute domination over it. But the true meaning of God's original command, as the Book of Genesis clearly shows, was not a simple conferral of authority, but rather a summons to responsibility.[...]"
"Once man, instead of acting as God's co-worker, sets himself up in place of God, he ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, "which is more tyrannized than governed by him". Man thus has a duty to exercise responsible stewardship over creation, to care for it and to cultivate it."
Pope Benedict says "A greater sense of intergenerational solidarity" is urgently needed and that future generations cannot be saddled with the cost of our use of common environmental resources.
"We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries; for this reason we have obligations towards all, and we cannot refuse to interest ourselves in those who will come after us, to enlarge the human family. Universal solidarity represents a benefit as well as a duty. This is a responsibility that present generations have towards those of the future, a responsibility that also concerns individual States and the international community".
Pope Benedict however is clear in his message that caring for nature should never be used to trump the existence of the human race and he points out:
"There exists a certain reciprocity: as we care for creation, we realize that God, through creation, cares for us. On the other hand, a correct understanding of the relationship between man and the environment will not end by absolutizing nature or by considering it more important than the human person. If the Church's magisterium expresses grave misgivings about notions of the environment inspired by ecocentrism and biocentrism, it is because such notions eliminate the difference of identity and worth between the human person and other living things. In the name of a supposedly egalitarian vision of the "dignity" of all living creatures, such notions end up abolishing the distinctiveness and superior role of human beings. They also open the way to a new pantheism tinged with neo-paganism, which would see the source of man's salvation in nature alone, understood in purely naturalistic terms. The Church, for her part, is concerned that the question be approached in a balanced way, with respect for the "grammar" which the Creator has inscribed in his handiwork by giving man the role of a steward and administrator with responsibility over creation, a role which man must certainly not abuse, but also one which he may not abdicate. In the same way, the opposite position, which would absolutize technology and human power, results in a grave assault not only on nature, but also on human dignity itself."
The complete text of Pope Benedict's world peace day message can be accessed in english on the following link
It can also be accessed in French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish on the following link
