(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Peter Turkson has renewed the call for radical changes in thinking and attitudes towards environment, ecology and creation. In a message delivered to the second international gathering for talks on climate change, organised by the Peruvian government in Lima, the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Cardinal Turkson, invited participants “[to] assume a new ecological spirituality which favors the bond between man and environment, through an integral, ecological, community conversion.”
The 5-day event, starting on the 24th of August, is the second appointment of the COP20 forum, a global initiative which gives nations the opportunity to showcase plans to reduce carbon emissions in preparation for the Paris conference on climate change due to take place later in the year.
The forum opened with a presentation of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, which was organised by the Jesuit University Ruiz de Montoya in Lima. The opening presentation event hosted 250 people, including experts, policy makers and religious leaders, who offered analysis of the Pope’s encyclical from a scientific, economic, political and theological perspective.
In his message, Cardinal Turkson expressed the hope that this second conference dedicated to environmental emergency might promote a “deeper ecological conversion, able to reflect itself in the different aspects of human life: in one’s lifestyle, education, in the dialogue between science, culture and faith, and in national politics and international negotiations.”
He concluded his message citing the last words of Pope Francis’ encyclical: “To re-establish harmony with Creation, people ought to reflect on their lifestyles and ideals, in order to contemplate the Creator, who lives in us and in what surrounds us.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
Beirut – Syriac Catholic Bishop Flavianus Michael Melki, martyred during the “Assyrian Genocide”, will be beatified on the evening of Saturday, August 29, during a solemn liturgy to be held at the Patriarchal convent of Our Lady of Deliverance in Harissa , which will be attended by numerous Patriarchs and heads of Christian churches of the East from Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. The beatification ceremony will be presided by Syrian Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III. The decree of beatification will be read at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy by Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Flavianus Michael Melki was killed in hatred of the faith on August 29 one hundred years ago in Djézireh, now Turkey, during the massacres perpetrated against the Armenians and members of other Christian communities at the instigation of the Young Turks. “A blessed of our church has not been proclaimed for a long time” refers to Agenzia Fides Syrian Catholic priest Nizar Semaan “and Bishop Melki will be the first of the martyrs of the Syrian Catholics of that Genocide to be raised to the honor of altars. But his beatification is a gift for all Christians of the East. In these times of new trials” adds Father Nizar “his figure shows us the luminous faith with which he lived the terrible persecution one hundred years ago, and he can give hope and courage to all the baptized. We pray that through his intercession all are helped to profess faith in Christ in the countries in the Middle East, and also pray so that political and military leaders take paths that lead to peace”. Melki was born in 1858 in Kalaat Mara, a village in the east of Merdin. He was ordained bishop of Gazarta in 1913, lived in extreme poverty and had also sold his vestments to help the poor. In the summer of 1915 he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities on August 28, along with the Chaldean bishop. According to eyewitness reported by Muslim sources, the two bishops were killed after refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam. Michael Melki was tortured to death and then decapitated….