SIGNING OF THE COMMON DECLARATION ON ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

GREETING OF THE HOLY FATHER JOHN PAUL II

Monday, 10 June 2002

Your Holiness,

I am pleased to send you cordial greetings which I extend to the religious and civil authorities, to those participating in the congress, and to those gathered in the Hall of Scrutinies of the Palace of the Doges of Venice for the conclusion of the IV Symposium on Ecology promoted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and dedicated to the theme: The Adriatic Sea: a Sea at Risk - Unity of Purpose.

Our video link, that allows us to sign together the final "Declaration" of the Symposium, expresses the unity of purpose that the theme itself called for.

Our meeting, even at a distance, allows us to express together the common will to safeguard creation, to support and sustain every initiative that is useful for beautifying, healing and preserving this earth that God has given us to be kept with wisdom and love.

Our meeting today takes place not long after the meeting of Assisi, where in January I promoted a Day of Prayer for Peace in the World. Your Holiness then responded to the appeal and was gracious enough to participate in it. Today I am the one who has the pleasure of joining you in this significant act. I hold that these exchanges are real and true gifts of the Lord, who shows us that the spirit of collaboration is able to find new expressions that give solidity and concreteness to that witness of communion that the world awaits from us.