Papal gratitude for electricity, criticism of ‘dirty energy,’ encouragement of innovation
September 02, 2024
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis received directors and employees of Terna Group, an Italian electricity company, on August 31 and expressed gratitude for the positive changes brought by electricity.
“We have to go back to the stories of our grandparents who were farmers, to the day when they flipped the first switch and everything in the house suddenly lit up,” the Pope said. “Many, that evening, said a prayer in gratitude for that ‘miracle’ that improved their lives, that allowed their children to study better and everyone to bathe in hot water.”
At the same time, the Pontiff expressed concern about “dirty energy”:
You are committed to a future powered by clean energy, to new ways of consuming and producing it based increasingly on renewable sources. Indeed, there is a lot of dirty energy on the planet. Dirty, certainly, because of too many fossil and non-renewable sources; but also soiled by injustice, by wars that are born and fed by the hunger for energy; soiled by unfair labor relations, by concentrations of huge profits in a few hands, by unsustainable work rhythms that pollute corporate relations and people’s souls. Good energy is not just a technological issue: production and consumption must become ever more equitable and inclusive.
The solution to conflicts in the energy sector, the Pope continued, “does not lie in one side prevailing over the other; it lies in technological innovation and creativity. And let me emphasize that in creativity, to resolve conflicts, there is dialogue.”
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Sep. 03, 2024 3:04 PM ET USA
Francis could not be more right in saying: "the solution to conflicts in the energy sector...lies in technological innovation and creativity". But the problem of deleterious air, water, and ground modification by industrial and municipal practices is not only restricted to the energy sector; it crosses many other sectors: drinking water resources, ocean fishing resources, natural resource exploitation (especially cement production), residential housing, etc. Technology can fix what it messed up.
