When, in his January 1 speech, Pope Benedict XVI urged “all persons of goodwill to protect Creation”, he chose his words carefully.

Everybody talks about “the environment”. But if you speak about it as “Creation”, you bring a new factor — God, the Creator — into consideration.

Yes, the Pope believes in conservation, but only by methods compatible with God’s will.

It is contrary to God’s will, for example, to use abortion, contraception and sterilisation in trying to curb world population and thereby, supposedly, prevent land degradation, mass starvation etc.

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The Pope also said that “the world has enough food for all its inhabitants, provided selfishness does not lead some to hoard the goods which are intended for all.”

He is supported in this by none other than UN Food and Agriculture Organisation Director-General, Dr. Jacques Diouf, who said last October that food security is possible right now with no necessity for reduction of population — what is lacking being the political will.

“On the earth,” Dr Diouf insisted, “There is a sufficient number of financial means, effective technologies, natural and human resources to eliminate hunger in the world once and for all.”

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The Pope says the causes of the world’s injustices and crises are “of the moral order”, and he is calling for “a great program of education” to promote a change of thinking and “new lifestyles”.

To succeed in this, he says, the “secularist mentality”, that seeks to exclude religious ideas from efforts to reshape the world, must be eliminated.

 “Sadly, in certain countries, mainly in the West,” he said, “One increasingly encounters in political and cultural circles, as well in the media, scarce respect and at times hostility, if not scorn, directed towards religion, and towards Christianity in particular.”