Vatican argues access to clean drinking water is a basic human right

'The Church has a moral responsibility to care for water and to ensure that people have water.'

A Vatican seminar on water held this week highlighted the complex challenges faced around the world in making the basic human right to water a reality for all people.

Vatican City, Italy (CNA/EWTN News) - Reliable access to safe and clean water for everyone is an issue close to the heart of the Church, Cardinal Peter Turkson told CNA Feb. 23, because it has to do with the fundamental dignity possessed by every human person.

Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Turkson wasn't a formal participant himself, but sat in on a few of the sessions. He said that "on the level of the Church" the point of departure for the issue of water access is "certainly dignity."

"Because we affirm the dignity of people, we also affirm anything that is needed to make this dignity realized," he said.

Hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Argentine organization Catedra del dialogo y la cultura encuentro, the workshop brought together scientists, scholars, business and non-profit leaders, clergy, and educators for an "interdisciplinary discussion."

During the seminar, participants agreed that there is a fundamental human right to water, but differed on the exact approach to take to combat the issue. Overall, the major problem isn't the resource, several noted, but its distribution.

Participants highlighted the issue's interconnectedness to other worldwide problems, such as poverty and gender equality. Difficult or limited access to water, especially clean water, contributes strongly to poverty and increased susceptibility to disease.

It also becomes an issue of gender equality in some countries, when women are forced to give up education because of the many hours a day they spend retrieving clean water for their families. In older cities, the problem is often a lack of infrastructure, which old roads and buildings make difficult to rectify.

Because each country and even each community has its own challenges regarding the distribution of safe water, many proposals at the seminar focused on working with people and organizations in the communities themselves to solve problems on as local a level as possible.

Fr. Peter Hughes, a priest of the missionary society of St. Columban, who has worked in inner-city slums in South America, said the seminar "has to do with the crisis of the world today, and the increasing possibility of conflict."

"We're talking about something that is very much an issue, and a deep concern for the world, for the future, and particularly for the poor."

This is why, Fr. Hughes said, he was quite pleased by the exchange in the morning session the first day, because it focused on the "relationship between theology and religion" as the basis for a discussion on the crisis of water.

"The right to water that's now in crisis, the basic human right, has to do with the common good. So therefore, the ethical question is absolutely central," he emphasized.

"The ethical common good approach precludes any attempt to privatize water," which would be, he said, "to the detriment of people" and their need for water to stay alive.

In his opinion, water is not just a social and ecological problem, but also an economic one.

"And now, as Pope Francis says, we have to understand that the economic crisis and the victims, which are the poor, is also very much linked to the ecological crisis. We can no longer speak of two separate crises," he said.

"That is where we can better understand how water has become a mercantile object, subject to market forces, to the detriment of people and to the detriment of the environment."

The seminar consisted of different panels as well as discussion time. The panels covered the issue from the perspectives of science, education, ecology, sustainable development, and policy, as well as the ethical and theological views of water.

A resource often taken for granted, Fr. Hughes pointed out that in many religious traditions, but especially the Jewish and Christian traditions, water as a symbol is synonymous with life itself.

From a theological perspective, "when we're talking about water, we're talking about life," he said.

This is why the ethical responsibility humanity has toward water comes "from the heart of the Christian message."

"We have been entrusted by the God of life," he explained, "to care for water, which means to care for life, to care for people, to care for all of creation, not just for human beings, but human beings as part of creation."

"The Church has a moral responsibility to care for water and to ensure that people have water," he said, and "this particularly has to do with the Church's responsibility to the poor."

Pope Francis addressed participants in the seminar Feb. 24, reaffirming that water is indeed a basic human right.

"Our right to water is also a duty to water," he said. "Our right to water gives rise to an inseparable duty. We are obliged to proclaim this essential human right and to defend it - as we have done - but we also need to work concretely to bring about political and juridical commitments in this regard."

"The questions that you are discussing are not marginal, but basic and pressing," he told participants. "Basic, because where there is water there is life, making it possible for societies to arise and advance. Pressing, because our common home needs to be protected."

"God the Creator does not abandon us in our efforts to provide access to clean drinking water to each and to all," he continued.

"With the 'little' we have, we will be helping to make our common home a more livable and fraternal place, where none are rejected or excluded, but all enjoy the goods needed to live and to grow in dignity."

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