Office of the Independent Blogger

I’m very happy to hear this news.

Some Holy See buildings will start using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI’s concern about conserving the Earth’s resources, a Vatican engineer said Tuesday. The roof of the Paul VI auditorium will be redone next year, with its cement panels replaced with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity, engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna said. The 6,300-seat auditorium is used for the pontiff’s general audiences on Wednesdays in winter and in bad weather during the rest of the year. Concerts in honor of pontiffs are also staged in the hall, with its sweeping stage. The cells will produce enough electricity to illuminate, heat or cool the building, Cuscianna said. “Since the auditorium isn’t used every day, the (excess) energy will feed into the network providing (the Vatican) with power, so other Vatican offices can use the energy,” he said.

I’m glad to see the Vatican taking a more progressive stance toward the sun than they did during Galileo’s day! Boy, I tell you, there’s something terribly wrong when the Vatican and the Kremlin are more Progressive on an issue than the American President.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 5:48 am and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).