Pope urges young people to safeguard all creation

SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) -- Wonder and awe, tradition and novelty were combined July 17 as Pope Benedict XVI shared a 45-minute boat ride through Sydney Harbor, chatting with a handful of young people before formally addressing thousands of them. When the pope's boat reached the old dockyard at Barangaroo, he told a World Youth Day crowd of 150,000 that respect for creation means protecting and perfecting the person just as much as it means safeguarding the world's natural resources.

"At the heart of the marvel of creation are you and I, the human family, 'crowned with glory and honor'" as the Psalms say, he told them.
With all the natural beauty of the planet, he said, "perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth, erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption."