Pope Benedict and respect for creation - what does the small print say?

ZENIT are today reporting on one of the questions Pope Benedict was asked during his meeting/conversation with priests in Bressanone. I do rather like the idea of these Q+A sessions - there is a kind of episcopal equivalent during the catecheses at World Youth Day, and some bishops have started doing them with young people in their dioceses. Substantially, though perhaps not juridically, I think this can be thought of as a form of "collegiality" between a bishop and his priests, or between a bishop and his people.

The question asked related to concern for planet earth, and is posted on the ZENIT website under the title "Pope notes secret to effective planet-saving". Pope Benedict has always linked concern for the world to recognition of the world as showing the glory of its Creator, though this latter aspect has sometimes slipped below the horizon of media coverage. Pope Benedict's answer reported here goes a little bit further, emphasising the connection between creation and redemption, and recognising that the full understanding of the doctrine of redemption depends on an understanding of the doctrine of creation.

"As long as the earth was seen as God's creation, the task of 'subduing' it was never intended as an order to enslave it, but rather as the task of being guardians of creation and developing its gifts; of actively collaborating in God's work ourselves, in the evolution that he ordered in the world so that the gifts of creation might be appreciated rather than trampled upon and destroyed."....

"The brutal consumption of creation begins where God is not, where matter is henceforth only material for us, where we ourselves are the ultimate demand, where the whole is merely our property and we consume it for ourselves alone. And the wasting of creation begins when we no longer recognize any need superior to our own, but see only ourselves. It begins when there is no longer any concept of life beyond death, where in this life we must grab hold of everything and possess life as intensely as possible, where we must possess all that is possible to possess.

"I think, therefore, that true and effective initiatives to prevent the waste and destruction of creation can be implemented and developed, understood and lived, only where creation is considered as beginning with God."

The doctrine of creation is, of course, likely to be a bit of a favourite for physicists ....