Sacred Water <br/><br/>

The Archbishop of Toronto published a notice on October 25th asking all parishes to support a petition campaign organized by The Organization of Development and Peace.  The petition plans to aspire the Canadian government to urge other world leaders to veto the privatization of drinking water at the World Summit so that people all around the world can enjoy clean drinking water.<br/><br/>

The organization of Development and Peace is a Canadian Catholic social service organization, under the Caritas Internationalis.  Since 2003, the group has launched an educational movement that is to last three years.  The theme for 2003 was: “Water is a sacred gift from God, and a necessity, for all mankind.” The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops also issued a declaration in the same year: “Access to drinking water is a basic right for all citizens.  Therefore governments should not permit the export of drinking water for the purpose of generating profits or barter drinking water as leverage for trade negotiations.  Drinking water should not be privatized.”<br/><br/>

In the second year of its campaign, the Organization of Development and Peace forwarded a request to the World Bank.  It demanded that the World Bank utilizes its influence to urge the developed countries to cease employing privatization of drinking water as one of the criteria for loan grants to South Africa.<br/><br/>

This petition received 9,100 signatures from parishioners and students in the first year in the Toronto archdiocese.  In the second year the number of petitions grew to 10,300.  Therefore the archbishop hopes that parishioners will continue to support this significant movement.<br/><br/>

P.S. Visit http://www.devp.org/testA/current.htm for more information regarding this campaign.  The link is also accessible from our parish website.