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WYD-RODRIGUEZ Jul-14-2008 (680 words) xxxi
Cardinal: Faith includes solidarity with poor, care for environment
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) -- Growing in Catholic faith and experiencing the universality of the Catholic Church necessarily includes growing in solidarity with the poor and working to safeguard the environment, said Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The cardinal, president of Caritas Internationalis, formally opened a special exhibit in Sydney July 14 for the thousands of young people attending World Youth Day.
"Blueprint for a Better World: The Millennium Development Goals and You" is an interactive exhibit set up by Caritas Australia, one of 160 national Catholic charities that form Caritas Internationalis.
The Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the member countries of the United Nations in 2000, aim to halve the rates of world poverty -- defined by the number of people existing on less than $1 a day -- by 2015.
Cardinal Rodriguez said the exhibit would help young Catholics find concrete ways to put their faith into action and to support the essential role of Catholic and other faith-based groups in supporting the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals.
"Without concerted effort," he said, "the Millennium Development Goals will slide down the international agenda" and be forgotten.
"With just the rise in the price of oil and food in the last two months, the number of poor has increased by 100 million. Can you imagine that? Can we continue to watch in a passive way?" the cardinal said at the opening reception.
In an interview with Catholic News Service, the cardinal said highlighting social justice and solidarity should be an essential part of World Youth Day celebrations.
"Many times young people do not have the full experience of catholicity," because they are not reminded of the poverty and suffering experienced by so many of their peers in the world, he said.
"Sometimes World Youth Day is a big celebration of faith, a big event of joy, of feasting, happiness, singing and all of that," he said. But experiencing catholicity means "looking at the reality that even in the developed countries you can find poverty. At World Youth Day you can motivate solidarity, and that is a beautiful thing."
Cardinal Rodriguez said he supported Pope Benedict XVI's July 12 statement that environmental concerns should be part of the Sydney youth celebrations.
"Unfortunately," the cardinal said, "human beings haven't learned to be good stewards of creation. We thought we were the masters of creation and that we could abuse creation," but now environmental disasters are increasing and people are waking up to their responsibilities.
"It is necessary to recover the theological perspective that we are called to be good administrators and stewards of creation," he said.
"We must give an account to the Creator, because he will be asking," Cardinal Rodriguez said.
God will want to know what people did with the gifts he provided, the cardinal said. He will ask: "What have you done with your woods, with your mountains, with your rivers?"
Creation, the cardinal said, is a gift "we have to use in the right way. We have to think of future generations."
In addition to explaining the goals and reporting on international efforts to achieve them, the exhibit offers young people practical advice on changing their own lifestyles to promote solidarity and education and preserve the world's resources.
Various parts of the exhibit tell them how they can "Be Aware," "Be Giving," "Be Challenged," "Be in Solidarity," "Be Just," "Be Green" and "Be a Voice."
Visitors to the exhibit can star in their own "video postcards" to be posted on the YouTube video Web site, offering people at home their greetings and explaining what they promise to do to help the poor.
Each evening, Caritas Australia also is hosting a live performance by indigenous singers and dancers from Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific on an open-air stage outside the exhibit hall.
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Visit the Catholic News Service World Youth Day blog at http://cnswyd.wordpress.com.
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Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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