“I was particularly keen on our pilgrimage having its happy conclusion just in this visit to the Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church”. With these words, card. Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Milan, spoke today to Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, whom he met at the end of his journey in Turkey with 100 young Milanese priests: “I would like to point out that a telling and bright sign of the excellent ecumenical relations between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church has undoubtedly been His personal attendance of the Episcopal Synod of the Catholic Church on God’s Word, which was held in Rome last October. We appreciated a lot the richness and depth of the spiritual and doctrinal contents of His speech”. As to the challenges of today’s society, the cardinal then expressed his “gratitude to the Lord for the authoritative, enlightened testimony that, as the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Your Holiness asserts to serve not only Christianity but the whole of mankind, that is increasingly facing the serious challenges of the problems of the environment, justice, peace and inter-religious dialogue”. Speaking of the ecumenical meeting held in Paris last January, card. Tettamanzi recalled that, "from the Christian side, the prophecy on Creation is lacking or, however, too weak": "Nowadays, we need prophets who are capable of shaking the consciences as to the serious responsibilities that the new generations have for the future generations, especially in ecology. We need prophets who are capable of proposing new models of social and economic life for a wise protection and a fair sharing of the goods of the Earth". In particular, the archbishop spoke of access to water: "The care for seas and rivers, which since 1995 has been the distinctive trait of the international meetings organised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, expresses the awareness that water, protected from any form of pollution, is the most essential resource for life on Earth and probably, in future, the most sought-after one. It is a public good - the cardinal concluded -, and watering must be protected and secured as a universal, inalienable right, by sheltering it from the risks inherent in some forms of economic privatisation".
© SIR