Message from Pesaro Assembly for Missionary Animation and Evangelization

Message from Pesaro Assembly for Missionary Animation and Evangelization
Comboni Missionaries 
Pesaro - February 16^th, 2012

Dear Confréres working in Europe,
Peace and Joy in the Lord Jesus.

We send you fraternal greetings from Pesaro, where we have gathered from February 7^th/16^th 2012 for a ‘European Assembly for Missionary Animation and Evangelization’. Our meeting has proved a very positive experience which will certainly help our working together in Europe. It has been an occasion to identify new ‘common’ projects to realize together as Confréres working in Europe: establishing Limone as the cradle of Comboni spirituality, a Pan-European Multi-Media Centre and closer co-ordination in our work amongst immigrants across the continent. And all of this open to the participation and collaboration of all the expressions of our Charism.

This message does not, however, intend to enter into the details of our deliberations in Assembly (which will be dealt with in other forums), but seeks rather to focus our attention upon an important forthcoming event in Rio de Janeiro from June 20^th/25^th 2012: the World Summit for Planet Earth.  

This is a great challenge that should unite all of us, for if we are called to proclaim a ‘God of Life’ all over the world, then we must commit ourselves in defending Mother Earth. This is a pressing theological, ethical and moral problem facing us all.

Unfortunately this grave ecological crisis would seem almost not to concern us, not to question us, not to worry us. Humanity appears determined to ignore or underestimate this unfolding ecological catastrophe. The world scientific community, which expresses itself in this regard through the ‘International Panel for Climate Change’ (IPCC), has continued to warn all who will listen that the situation is becoming ever worse. Every attempt by governments to propose treaty obligations such as Copenhagen (2009), Cancún (2010) and Durban (2011) has failed. The Climate Conference at Durban ended without any legally-binding accords at all. We will have to wait until 2015 or even 2020 for further negotiations. But we do not have ten years left to save the planet. The scientific community warns that temperatures could rise by 3-4° Centigrade before the end of the Century if we continue in this way. To avoid such an ecological catastrophe we must cut all greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% before 2050. Unfortunately our governments are prisoners of very powerful economic and financial interests, such as agro-business conglomerates, who earn vast profits from this system.

Finance, which truly governs our world, then seeks to profit further from the ecological crisis through the so-called ‘green economy’. This is nothing short of the monetarization of the ecological crisis.

“What must we do?” is the question often posed to Missionaries such as ourselves before this situation. To respond to this question means to undertake serious missionary animation. For this reason we suggest the following concrete ways of acting:

1.  to question in the first place our whole concept of economic development and growth, and our style of life, which constitute the fundamental causes of the ecological disaster afflicting our world.  

2.  to utilize all the means of communication at our disposal to inform people of the gravity of the ecological crisis facing humanity.

3.  to commit ourselves individually and as communities to a simpler and more sober lifestyle, reducing our dependence on petroleum and utilizing solar and renewable energy wherever we can.

4.  by campaigning locally for the recycling of all waste and opposing the use of incinerators.

5.  by supporting the commitment of the European Commission to cut all greenhouse gas emissions by 80% before 2050.

6.  by supporting the creation of a Fund to help the world’s poorest nations to prepare for the far-reaching consequences of  climate change (Africa, as always, will undoubtedly pay the highest price!). Such a Fund could be financed by taxing all financial transactions (the so-called ‘Tobin Tax’).

We consider that this is the best way to prepare ourselves, as Comboni Missionaries, for the United Nations Summit in Rio de Janeiro next June. An important event which comes twenty years after that Conference, held in the same city, which you may remember was the cause of so much hope. As Comboni Missionaries we too will be present in Rio and we hope that our presence will signify a renewed commitment on our part to respect not only the rights of man, but also the rights of Mother Earth as Ecuador and Bolivia have recently taught us. It is our role as Missionaries to struggle for life wherever it is threatened. It is our very passion for the God of Life that calls us to commit ourselves for the protection of one of the greatest gifts that the Father has given us all: ‘HOLY MOTHER EARTH’.