Tourists visit Cathedral Beach at low tide in Ribadeo, Spain, Sept. 25, 2022. (CNS/Reuters/Nacho Doce)
Catholic News Service
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During the Holy Year, the Vatican is calling for those involved in tourism to make Christian hope concrete by investing in just and sustainable practices.
The Vatican also will host a conference on ways tourism can "develop as an instrument of evangelization" and the promotion of human values during the World Congress of Pastoral Care in Tourism Oct. 16-19 in Rome, wrote Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization's section for new evangelization.
The archbishop's remarks came in a message, published May 26, for the U.N.'s World Tourism Day, celebrated Sept. 27 on the theme "Tourism and Sustainable Transformation." According to the U.N., the theme focuses on how tourism, which has "the widest economic value chain and the deepest social footprint, is a critical contributor in the context of climate change response and the sustainable socio-economic transformation for people and the planet."
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In his message, the archbishop highlighted Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," and how the obligation of safeguarding creation also applies to tourism.
Both tourists and those working in the tourist industry have a responsibility to promote and respect environmental sustainability as well as just and dignified working conditions, including fair wages, he wrote.
Too often, he wrote, there seems "to be a desire for mere profit, made quickly without much effort: this frenzy dazzles and leads to solutions that humiliate employees, tourists and the workers themselves."
Job insecurity, which young people often face, "is never a source of a sustainable future," he added.
"Justice cannot be eclipsed by the thirst for profit nor by conditions that hurt the dignity of the worker," he wrote. "True justice becomes a way to combat poverty" and to help people express their abilities through the world of work.
"Justice cannot be eclipsed by the thirst for profit nor by conditions that hurt the dignity of the worker."
— Archbishop Rino Fisichella
Genuine tourism should always be accompanied "by good social justice practices and respect for the environment," the archbishop said in his message.
Concern and care for creation, he wrote, "require personal and collective responsibility so that nothing of what we have received is lost."
"We need the commitment of everyone, especially Christians," who recognize nature "has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator and his love for humanity," he wrote, citing Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical "Caritas in Veritate."
"We are witnesses to this love even as tourists, as we benefit from a wonderful world, which we must keep intact precisely because of this," Fisichella wrote.
The archbishop also emphasized the importance of practicing sustainability at shrines, parishes and other religious destinations for tourists and the faithful.
"Commitment to the safeguarding of creation begins with attention to the little things: from here we can take the first steps to take on the 'ecological debt' that involves all of humanity," his message said.
"During this Jubilee Year, we therefore hope that those working in the tourism sector will express concrete signs that make Christian hope tangible by investing in sustainable use of the natural and structural resources at our disposal," he added.
