Pope decries "emergency" of plastics blighting world's seas

Pope Francis on Saturday called for concrete action to combat the "emergency" of plastics littering seas and oceans, lamenting the lack of effective regulation to protect the world's waters.

Building on his papacy's concern for the environment, Francis issued a message aimed at galvanizing Christians and others to commit to saving what he hails as the "impressive and marvelous," God-given gift of the "great waters and all they contain."
"We cannot allow our seas and oceans to be littered by endless fields of floating plastic," Francis said. "Here, too, our active commitment is needed to confront this emergency."
Francis recommended a two-pronged approach, saying: "We need to pray as if everything depended on God's providence and work as if everything depended on us."
He also denounced as "unacceptable" the privatization of water resources at the expense of the "human right to have access to this good."
With countries from Italy to Australia promoting policies to thwart migrants from arriving by sea, Francis prayed that "waters may not be a sign of separation of peoples, but of encounter for the human community."