Water and morality
Those who found comfort in the story published by the Italian daily La Repubblica early this month that the Vatican owes €20 million to ACEA, the Italian utility company that became a private corporation in 1999, are in for a surprise. They can't quote...
Those who found comfort in the story published by the Italian daily La Repubblica early this month that the Vatican owes €20 million to ACEA, the Italian utility company that became a private corporation in 1999, are in for a surprise. They can't quote the Vatican's example to try to avoid paying their bills.
The Vatican has just said that the story is untrue. They also offered an explanation.
Under the terms of the Lateran accords, signed in 1929 to govern relations between the Vatican city-state and Italy, the Holy See was granted access to the water and sewer lines of Rome. When these services were privatised in 1999, the Vatican was expected to pay usage fees.
The Vatican said that the question of water usage had been "definitively resolved" by the Lateran Treaty. That agreement was confirmed, the Vatican statement continued, by an exchange of letters between the Italian prime minister and the Vatican Secretary of State in January 2004. The statement notes that the Italian government committed itself to resolve the question of payment in an April 2004 decree.
On a more serious note on water and morality we refer to the Vatican's position at the World Water Council held last March. The document presented by the Vatican concentrates on the vital role of water in peace and security, recalling how many conflicts break out over the control of water resources and citing the examples of the extreme drought in the Horn of Africa, "which is intensifying ethnic tensions", and of the Middle East, "where the main problems with water are related to tensions among countries generated by water scarce environments".
A later section of the document, entitled "A culture of water", is of more direct concern to us. It warns that wasting water in developed countries is morally unsustainable. "Citizens in some countries are used to taking advantage of a privileged situation without thinking of the consequences of their wasting water on the lives of their brothers and sisters in the rest of the world."
Especially in these hot summer months we should examine our consciences about the use and abuse of water. It is a precious commodity. Wasting it is a sin.