IMAGE: CNS photo/Youssef Badawi, EPA
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Access to clean drinking water is a
basic human right and a key component in protecting human life, Pope Francis
said.
“The right to water is essential for the survival of
persons and decisive for the future of humanity,” the pope said Feb. 24
during a meeting with 90 international experts participating in a
“Dialogue on Water” at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Looking at all the conflicts around the globe, Pope Francis
said, “I ask myself if we are not moving toward a great world war over
water.”
Access to water is a basic and urgent matter, he said.
“Basic, because where there is water there is life, making it possible for
societies to arise and advance. Urgent, because our common home needs to be
protected.”
Citing “troubling” statistics from the United
Nations, the pope said, “each day — each day! — a thousand children die
from water-related illnesses and millions of persons consume polluted water.”
While the situation is urgent, it is not insurmountable, he
said. “Our commitment to giving water its proper place calls for
developing a culture of care — that may sound poetic, but that is fine because
creation is a poem.”
Scientists, business leaders, religious believers and politicians
must work together to educate people on the need to protect water resources and
to find more ways to ensure greater access to clean water “so that others
can live,” he said.
A lack of clean and safe drinking water “is a source of
great suffering in our common home,” the pope said. “It also cries
out for practical solutions capable of surmounting the selfish concerns that
prevent everyone from exercising this fundamental right.”
“We need to unite our voices in a single cause; then it
will no longer be a case of hearing individual or isolated voices, but rather
the plea of our brothers and sisters echoed in our own, and the cry of the
earth for respect and responsible sharing in a treasure belonging to all,”
he said.
If each person contributes, he said, “we will be
helping to make our common home a more livable and fraternal place, where none
are rejected or excluded, but all enjoy the goods needed to live and to grow in
dignity.”
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